Madness is no longer creeping in—it is taking hold.
Dorian truly is punishing her for what she did with Cassius. He’s angry enough to leave her to die. She decides it’s too dangerous to stay on his bad side.
“Dorian,” she whimpers. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.” Her voice feels foreign in her mouth. Too small. Too meek. “Please come back.”
A dark figure approaches through the whirring snow. It has to be Dorian, finally. He’s here. He’s going to save her. Forgive her.
But before he becomes clear, Claudia is thrust back to consciousness as Alistair pours something disgusting into her mouth and rubs a gummy poultice into her wound.
“Come on,” he begs. “Don’t die on me. I can’t lose you, too.”
Sitting up, she coughs violently until she pukes all over herself. Her vomit is black as night. It takes a long time for her to catch her breath, and she’s lost all control of her tongue. As the panic ebbs, all she can do is cry.
“What the fuck happened?” Alistair’s face is stained with tears, his eyes wide with panic.
How can she explain it? Even she doesn’t know the full scope or the entire truth. All she knows is that she got on her knees for Cassius, and now she has been punished.
“I—I don’t know,” she says, which is half true. “Something clawed me in my sleep. I didn’t—” She buries her face in her hands. “I didn’t see it. I don’t know.” She can’t stop herself from sobbing. Delirious from the sight of so much blood, she says, “I deserved it.”
“What?” Alistair asks, bewildered while he continues to apply the poultice to her chest.
It’s true; not just for giving away pieces of her soul like a fool, but for everything. For killing her father. For losing focus on the bargain. For taking Odette’s rightful place. For coming here at all.
Her emotions swell inside her until she explodes into a storm of angry tears. Alistair holds her through it all, not once relaxing his grip, not once letting her feel alone.
“I’ve got you. I’m here. And you don’t deserve anything bad. Okay?”
She shakes her head against his shoulder. “Yes Ido—”
“No, you don’t.” He picks her head up and cups her cheeks, smearing the poultice into her face. It smells earthy and floral. She stares into his big brown eyes, wet with sincerity. “You listen to me, Claudia Jolicoeur. You are good, and you deserve good things.” His words eat away at her panic. With his tight embrace, he warms her sorrow until it melts into peace.
“Thank you,” she whimpers, leaning into his touch.
He stays with her until the sun rises, cleaning her up, calming her down, and ensuring that nothing bad can touch her for the rest of the night.
She checks her timepiece when she wakes, finding that she’s had only two hours of sleep. When she sits up in her bed, it hurts to move. The gashes on her chest burn. Her mouth is dangerously dry. She stumbles out of bed, searching for water.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees something slide into her room from under her door. She winces when she bends down to grab it.
It’s… a diary entry? But how? Bishop is the one who has been bringing these to her, but he’s tucked away in his enclosure.
Who brought this for her?
November 17th
Last night, I had a nightmare, though it felt like a prophecy.
I saw myself die.
I was standing in the observatory alone. It looked different. Darker. The air was wet and cold, as though a crack in the glass ceiling let in a draft. I plucked a book from the shelf, and when I opened it, the words slipped off the page, crawled like ants onto my hands and arms. I shrieked, slicing them off me with the side of my hand. They hit the floor and skittered away.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of an ornate mirror. I looked tired—sunken eyes, undone hair, wind-chapped lips. Behind me, a shadow lurched forward. I turned and saw nothing, but seconds later, I felt it breathe across my throat. Seconds ticked by, and the shadow reappeared in my periphery. I couldn’t catch it head-on, no matter how fast I moved or how hard I narrowed my gaze.
Then I heard something rumbling. A phantom voice calling from above. It was deep and menacing, almost like a reptile’s warning—a low growl that comes from the belly instead of the throat.
When I looked up, I saw the constellation of Dracoemagyl, and hovering in its heart were two bright green stars I had never seen before. In the center of the room, I looked through the telescope and focused on them.
Upon closer look, I realized they were not stars at all.
