We reach Tynahine by driving through the same roads Marcus took when he first brought me here. He must have known what I was then, too. Before long we’ve arrived, and Elia parks her car and leads me through the campus village. Her house is huge, with modern décor, albeit with too much pink for my taste. The only hint of her real age is a few paintings and tapestries that look hundreds of years old.
She switches on the light, and I see her, radiant.
Two thousand years.
Roughly the same age as Aliz’s father.
“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions,” she says, fetching a towel out for me. “But we can talk tomorrow.”
I look down at my phone. It’s already threea.m., Aliz sent me a message just an hour ago:
Get back safe
I feel unease in the pit of my stomach. There’s no reason for me to worry. It’s still early, she’s probably in class. And yet I can’t shake off the dread settling in my bones.
Suddenly, pain shoots across the lines of the mark, thorns tearing through my skin. I gasp, dropping both the towel and the phone. Each line feels like molten lava. Elia stares at me from across the room, blinking, and I breathe, trying to ignore the pain. Slowly, it softens again, turning back into an itch.
“What just happened?” Elia asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, voice shaking, not quite believing my own words.
Dread continues to climb up my chest as I shower, rinsing blood from my skin with Elia’s rose-scented shower gel. The mark itches incessantly, in a way I’ve only felt in my dreams before. What’s going on? I change back into my old clothes and Elia grabs my bloodied red dress. “Let me wash this,” she says, tossing it into a basket. “You did almost take a bullet for me, after all,” she adds.
I want to see Aliz. Every time I think this, the itch in the Familiar’s mark worsens. I rush through campus, leaving the stone village behind and running up the pine grove to Tynarrich. I stop next to a tree, catching my breath for a second. Something’s wrong. I’m not sure what, but I can senseit.
Even when I enter the hall of residence, I can’t seem to calm down. I tap my foot in the lift, wishing it would climb faster. The doors open on the ninth floor, and I run.
I slot the old key into the lock and breathe out. As soon as itopens, a strange smell hits my nostrils. The room is pitch black, and through the shadows, I see that the curtains on her side of the room have been torn down. I stand still, confused. The mark has stopped itching. My ears ring.
“Aliz?” I call, taking a step back. I look down, my feet stepping on something wet. I hit the light switch. The carpet has a black-and-white pattern. But here, next to her coffin, the white marks are bright red.
There’s blood everywhere.
“Aliz?” I call again, my hands going numb.
Then I hear it. The shower is on, the door to the bathroom is half open. She hasn’t replied, so I walk over, still not entirely sure what I’m seeing. The blood trail continues to the bathroom, and when I look inside, the white tiles are stained red.
She’s sitting in the shower, her knees bent, cradling her head. Her white shirt, soaked through with blood, clings to her body like a second skin.
“What—”
As soon as she registers my presence, she growls. But she doesn’t look up at me, her muscles taut as she crouches tighter, trying to make herself smaller. Just as I’m about to ask her what happened, she vomits. Blood spills from her mouth, straight into the drain.
When she finally looks at me, her cheeks are sunken and pale, and her eyes, her beautiful black eyes, are glowing bright red.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
I step inside the bathroom. Her eyes continue to glow that monstrous red, but she doesn’t try to compelme.
“Aliz?”
There’s no reply at first, just a low growl, like that of a frightened animal on the verge of lashing out. I keep walking, and it’s only when my hand stops on the outside of the shower screen that she finally speaks.
“Go away,” she growls.
“What happened?”
