Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
I step inside the bathroom. Her eyes continue to glow that monstrous red, but she doesn’t try to compel me.
“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?”
“I didn’t want to,” she says in a small voice, hiding her face again, cradling her head. Even her fingers look thinner. It’s as though she’s shrinking. “I didn’t—”
“It’s all right,” I whisper, stepping into the shower. My shirt gets wet before I can reach the tap, the water scalding hot. Aliz hisses again when the water stops, glaring up at me with those terrifying eyes. “What happened?”
As soon as I reach down, she pushes me away, crying, droplets of blood running down her chin. “She forced me to,” she sobs.
“Who? Aliz—”
“Arla!”
She makes a retching sound, and I didn’t think it was possible for her to lose more blood. It’s only now that I realise how bad the situation is. I still don’t know what’s happening, but if she continues to lose blood—
I kneel outside the shower and search for the dean’s number.
“It’s all right,” I whisper, trying to soothe her without getting too close.
I’ve never seen her like this. I rush out of the bathroom, almost slipping on my way to her fridge.
There’s only a quarter of a bottle of Marcus’s blood left, but I try to stay calm, breathing as I fill one of her paper cups with the substance.
I stick it in the microwave then finally find Nocth’s number.
As I wait for him to pick up, I head back to the bathroom. She hasn’t moved. Her arms are still around her knees, soaked through in the glass cage that is the shower.
“Dean’s office?”
“Nocth?” I have to stay calm. “This is Cassie Smith.”
“Oh. What a lovely surprise.”
My chest is about to cave in. “Something is wrong with Aliz. She’s—” I look around the bathroom, blood everywhere. “She’s vomiting blood, crying, and—”
“Did she say the name Arla?” His voice has lost all humor.
“Yes,” I say, and the microwave beeps. Aliz doesn’t look up.
“Leave your door open. I’ll be right there,” he says. I rush over to the microwave, hoping that now, once she drinks, she’ll feel better.
I walk back into the bathroom slowly, letting her hear my footsteps. “You must be cold there,” I say, before crouching down in front of her. “Have this, Aliz.”
She grabs the paper cup and throws it, almost hitting me with it. Blood splashes on the shower’s glass wall. “I didn’t want to,” she mumbles, hiding her face. “She forced me—Arla forced me to kill her—”
Kill her?
“It’s all right,” I whisper. I reach out to touch her, and she slaps me away.
I head back out, my throat tight, and open the door.
Nocth arrives just a few seconds later, in a suit similar to the one he was wearing the last time I saw him.
He scans our bedroom quickly, taking in the puddles of blood, but doesn’t say anything.
His eyes pause on my saltward, and when he turns to look at me, for a second I could swear he looks disturbed. “She’s in the bathroom, right?”
“Yes.”
He walks into the white-tiled room, and Aliz doesn’t react to his presence.
“Did your memories come back, Aliz?” he asks, and I follow him, lingering just outside the shower. He gets down on the ground, staining his suit trousers, and forces Aliz to look at him. “You remembered what happened?”
Aliz swallows hard, her nostrils flaring. “I didn’t want to—”
“I know.” Nocth brushes her soaking hair away from her brows and pulls out a vial of blood.
Before Aliz can react or push it away, he tips her head back and pours it into her mouth.
She makes a choking sound, but he covers her lips, forcing her to swallow.
“Listen to me,” he says, and from outside of the shower I see his eyes taking on a red glint.
Can he compel other vampires? “You will remember what I say.”
“Yes,” she says in a trance.
“You did not undergo a coming-of-age ceremony,” he says. “You never met Arla. You never met that human girl. You did not kill anyone.”
His eyes continue to glow, and Aliz stares transfixed. She gives a small nod.
“You ran away from home because you fought with your parents.”
Another nod.
“You have never tasted fresh blood.”
And upon saying this, he leans forward, pressing his lips to her forehead. It’s for just a second, enough to seal his words into her mind. A moment passes, and her muscles lose tone, her eyes shut, and she faints.
He holds her, his expression somber. It’s only then that he realises I’m still there, watching.
“I think it’ll be better if you wash her, instead of me,” he says. “Put her into something dry and let her rest in your bed.”
“All right,” I say, my chest aching.
Nocth offers me a sad smile. “Come to my office once you’ve got her in bed. I’ll send someone to clean the room.” He’s gone before I can ask him any questions, leaving Aliz, still unconscious, on the floor.
I get to work, grabbing a towel and a spare nightgown.
She’ll probably kill me for putting her in a dress, but I don’t want to cross into her side of the room yet, not when there’s so much blood.
I peel her soaked clothes off her and shower her down, blood running off her skin.
I expect her to wake, but she doesn’t, her breathing shallow.
It’s only when I wrap the towel around her and press my forehead against hers, that I feel my eyes burn, tears stinging. After a short breath, I carry her out, maneuver a nightgown over her head, and pull the covers up to her neck. “I’ll be back soon,” I whisper, and Aliz remains fast asleep.
Nocth’s office is exactly as it was last time I saw it, except the tapestry has changed, replaced by a baroque painting. It’s a portrait of a shirtless man, with long black hair, holding up a candle, as if helping the viewer navigate the dark night.
“Caravaggio really captured my likeness, didn’t he?” he asks, as he catches me looking at it.
“What was that?” I ask. I’m exhausted, more so now than when Elia drove me home.
The adrenaline of seeing Aliz in that state and trying to stop her from expelling every last ounce of blood left in her veins has subsided.
I’d almost forgotten about Penny, who I left stranded in the castle.
What if the Council have captured her? Killed her?
Nocth sighs, tapping on his desk. His black hair, usually perfectly in place, has a few loose strands falling over his eyes. He brushes them back, and I see his sleeves are still damp from holding Aliz. “Has Aliz been having nightmares recently?”
“Yes,” I whisper. Maybe I should have told him sooner.
“What of?”
“Being locked in a room without blood.” I pause, looking down at my hands. “She said it was a memory, though she had forgotten it at some point.”
He rubs his temples. “I told you to stay close to her. You being away clearly triggered her to fully remember what happened.”
“Were you expecting me to sit back and let a blood party take place in Inverness?” I snap. “What exactly did she remember?”
“Her seventeenth birthday. Aliz thinks that she came to Tynahine because she didn’t want to get married. Now, while that is partially true, the real reason is one that she forgot.”
I swallow hard. “You erased her memories, right?”
“Yes,” he says. “Well, I altered them. I replaced certain people, certain events. Her parents accepted these alterations. They also accepted her exile, so long as it meant she could be saved.”
“Saved?”
“Just before Aliz turned seventeen, Ares’s right-hand woman, Arla, forced Aliz to undergo an ancient coming-of-age ceremony. I won’t go into detail, but one of the things she did was force Aliz to drain a human girl.”
I stare. Forced her.
“Aliz didn’t kill the girl, one of the other attendees did, but they still celebrated and congratulated her on that first draining.”
“But—” My mouth is dry, and I’m glad there wasn’t food at the blood party. “But the Astras abide by the treaties, don’t they?” They fucking wrote them.
“Arla had worked for Ares for centuries. She was the only human he ever converted, and for the first millennia, she was fiercely loyal to him. But at some point in the last century, she joined a cult known as the Vassals. The Vassals are fervently against the treaties, and so when they got the opportunity to get close to the heir of the Astra family, they were certain they could bring her into the cult.”
His jaw tenses.
“But instead of indoctrinating her, they broke her. I found Aliz seconds before she walked out into daylight.” I gasp, unable to imagine Aliz, seventeen, ready to immolate herself.
“I took her away from the family home, hoping that she would recover if she couldn’t see the place where—” He clears his throat.
“But she wouldn’t drink blood. Not even the synthetic kind. She couldn’t stomach it.”
I listen, my throat tight.
“I waited three days. I thought that if I didn’t insist too much, she would end up reaching for a cup. But every time she drank, she threw up again. And you know what happens to a vampire if they spend a week without blood.”
“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.