As she lowers my arm, something in her features changes. She stares at my wrist, grip tight. Her eyes are on the exact spot where the bite mark from Inverness was. When Aliz healed my neck, the bite vanished along with Jannet’s wound. But she must have seen it again while I was naked, seen it enough to recogniseit.
“You’ve been taking garlic since you first came here?” she asks. I know what she’s thinking.
And I know I’m risking everything by saying this, but I need to gain her trust back. “A vampire bit me in Inverness,” I say, voice low, hands shaking.What am I doing?Aliz’s face, which till now had a frown, slackens, her eyes wide. “I saw him compelling a girl in a pub, and after I confronted him”—I turn my wrist—“he bit me.”
Aliz doesn’t say anything.
My breathing shortens. My eyes burn, lower lip trembling as I try to figure out how to explain this in a way that won’t let her see me for what I trulyam.
“Did he—” The next word seems too thick for her throat, and when she finally squeezes it out, it’s in a whisper. “Did he die?”
I swallow hard and nod. The fact I’ve killed is a disgusting side of me I hoped she’d never see, but she’ll understand, won’t she?He.Bit. Me.It’s not my fault.
“The garlic killed him?”
The room is far too quiet. The garlicwouldhave killed him. Slowly.First, his lungs would have shut off, and as the garlic spread, his body would have decomposed. But it didn’t. I drove a stake through his chest.
Vampires can tell when we’re lying. I nod again, and hope she believesme.
Aliz cups my cheek.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispers. “Just—” She rubs the spot where the bite mark used to be. “Promise me you’ll never do anything so stupid again. You could have died.”
I meet her gaze, stunned. Her eyes are not disgusted. Instead, there’s nothing there but worry. The garlic pills are still scattered around us, like speckles of blood. “You really won’t tell anyone?” I ask.
“I won’t tell anyone about your…involvement,” she says. “But I must tell Faust that a vampire was compelling people in Inverness. Rogue vampires seldom work alone.”
I nod, my shoulders relaxing. Nocth already knows what I am, so even if Aliz tells him that I was attacked, he won’t do anything. Plus, he’s the one who told Penny about those vampires. I pick up the remaining garlic pills. I skipped the first one already. Soon it’ll leave my system. But based on how calm she is, that hasn’t happened yet.
“I also…” she starts, “I also had a dream.”
“A dream?” The change of subject is like whiplash, but I’m grateful for it. At least until she keeps talking.
“You told me that I died in yours,” she says. She gets up and sits on my bed, looking down at me as I scoop up the remaining garlic pills. Her white hair is a mess, a few loose strands falling over her brows. Her lips are slightly red. But the lipstick isn’t hers. “That explains it,” she says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She doesn’t look me in the eye. I feel as though she’s searching for words, afraid, as I am, to say the wrong thing. Then she walks over to her side of the room, searching her desk for a notebook. She hands it to me. “When I woke up, I wrote what happened in my dream, to make sure I didn’t forget.” She clears her throat. “Tell me if it’s anything like yours.”
I stare down at the page, dread settling in my stomach. Aliz’s handwriting looks like something out of a calligraphy manual. But I can’t exactly appreciate it as I take in what she’s written.
So thirsty I felt my throat was on fire. Cassie was scared. Behind my sister’s palace: maze, crows, statues, rosebush.
I tried to compel her but it didn’t work. I caught her, she kissed me. I asked if I could bite her and her blood was like lava, my lungs were aflame, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t heal.
She stakedme?
The notebook falls to the floor, and I feel nauseous as I take it in. My throat is dry. She’s waiting for an answer, but when I look at her, I can tell that my expression alone has answered her question. “It’s the same,” I say. I touch the mark on my neck, digging my nails into it. “The dean said we would both experience symptoms. Maybe the dream—”
“You should also write yours down,” she says. “If it happens again, I mean.” She felt the stake. Does she know what I am? Just as I start to panic, Aliz crouches down next to me. “It was only a dream, Cassie,” she says. Her hand cups my cheek, and just like last night, when I hugged her, it feels far too comfortable.
I swallow hard. “I know,” I say.
Suddenly, a realisation hits me. “Does that maze exist?” I ask. Aliz frowns, nodding.
“It’s by my sister’s old palace. The hunting lodge, as Tynahine calls it,” she says. Her hand drops from my cheek, my skin suddenly cold. That is where most students believe Aliz lives, so it shouldn’t surprise me that it was her sister’s.
“What if your sister’s library is in the hunting lodge?”
