understand what was going on, and she couldn't speak to ask, but a stinging poison was rapidly making its way from her lips to every part of her body. An electric-like current was making her painfully aware of the location of every single one of her own nerves, her body twitching until bit by bit she was paralyzed.

Everything seemed to fade. The pain, the room. The only thing Dong Tu was aware of were the distant-sounding voices of the mutants.

"She doesn't know of Obsidian?"

"Did you two kiss?"

"It wasn't a kiss."

"Your first kiss?"

"It wasn't a kiss!"

Switch leaned in close to Dong Tu.

"You were wrong. He doesn't wear a mask to hide his face, he wears one so that no one can touch it! That man is Obsidian—the King of Poison. Even masters like us dare not touch his skin."

"Was that your first kiss?" Switch asked the man in black again as she straightened.

"It wasn't a kiss!"

"Oh, so sweet! Obsidian's first kiss!"

"It wasn't a kiss!"

Anole and Switch continued to squabble, ignoring the girl rapidly losing consciousness on the floor beside them.

"I don't have a true antidote," Obsidian said, though he held a pill to her lips. "I'm sorry."

Dong Tu swallowed it with what little power she had left, knowing she had little time to consider the consequences when her breathing was becoming shallower and shallower. After a beat she began to feel less numb, and her breathing eased.

"If you can't save it, then what is the point of holding on for a few more hours?" Switch looked the saddest of any of them. "You owe me a face, Obsidian."

--- The Girl Who Kept Winter --- available for purchase on Amazon globally