“They become parched,” I say. Monsters, limbs and necks elongated, faces completely disfigured.
“So, I altered her memories. My plan was to wait until she finished aging and then, slowly, try to help her come to terms with what happened.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “But the mark must have dug deep into her subconscious to open that wound.”
“Will she dream about it again?” I ask.
“It depends,” he says. “Have you had any particularly traumatic dreams?”
“Yes,” I say, remembering Cieri. “But I’m all right.”
“You need to stay closer to her from now on,” he says.
“We’re already sharing a room,” I say. He sighs.
“Maybe you ought to share a bed.”
My skin burns at the thought. “But Aliz needs to sleep in a coffin,” I argue.
“Two weeks sleeping outside one won’t kill her,” he says. “You want to stop the dreams, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Somehow, I can feel myself calming down the more I think aboutit.
“Put this in her blood.” He leans across the desk, handing me acrimson vial. “It’s a little more of my own, which should help to solidify the effects of the hypnosis.”
I’ll do anything to keep her from having a nightmare like that again. “Did you compel her?” I ask, and he raises a brow.
“I don’t have my uncle’s power,” he says. “If I could compel her, I would erase the memory completely. Instead, I’m just blocking it.”
“What do I say to her now?”
“Tell her that her sickness has returned,” he says. “You called me, I helped. Aliz won’t remember anything, but she’ll know she threw up.”
“All right.” I hesitate.
“Was that a saltward that I saw next to your bed?” he asks in a low voice, as if he’s afraid someone might hear us. I frown.
“I found instructions for one in a grimoire. I needed protection until she gets used to the scent of my blood.” He simply stares at me. I can’t make out what’s behind his gaze. Then, I say: “I saw Penny.”
I watch his expression carefully. In a way, it reflects Penny’s when I said his name, though Nocth doesn’t twist with rage. “In Inverness?” he says, caught off guard. “Why was she there?”
“Didn’t you tell her about the blood party?” Nocth shakes his head. “She got rather angry when I mentioned your name.”
“Oh, she detests me,” he says, voice light. “And I can’t blame her.”
“Why?” I ask.
He leans back and looks at his watch. “You should go. Aliz will wake soon.”
Aliz is awakeby the time I reach our room. She’s formed an odd cocoon with my bedsheets, pressed against the wall with the pillow at her side.
Although I was only gone for half an hour, the room is spotless.
“Do you like my new coffin?” she asks, her voice muffled beneath the sheets.
“It’s imaginative,” I say, sitting down next to her. I peel the top ofthe sheet down just enough to see her eyes. They’re red, but she doesn’t have the same fear, the same panic, as before.
“Did my sickness come back?” she asks, and I nod. She still has a gaunt appearance, and I run my fingers across her cheekbones, unnaturally sharp. She pulls the top of the sheet back over her head. “Sorry. It must have been disgusting.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “I was worried.” An odd calm spreads through me now that I’m near her. “Why did you go to sleep early?”
