Page 39 of Winterveil

With one final tap on his tablet, everything faded to black.

For an unknown amount of time, Nadiya drifted. When at last the light broke through, she found herself slumped over, head down on the desk. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and a few strands stuck to her cheeks. She tasted salt on her tongue.

Salt? She had been crying.

Nadiya sat up and hurriedly wiped her cheeks. Giselle was standing over her.

She was very pale and there was a haunted look in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

Nadiya found the question impossible to answer. It took a moment before she was able to nod.

“I’m sorry.” Giselle’s voice was thick. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Professor Blanchard was going to do that. I swear.”

“Is this what you do with him every day?”

“No. He’s made me wear the nodes, but . . .” Giselle looked down at the floor. “He’s never asked me to put my memory into someone else’s head. I didn’t know that I could.”

“I didn’t know it was possible,” Nadiya said. Her chest felt very tight. “Dr. Iver gives me the nodes to help me sleep. To put the nightmares out of my mind. Not to . . .”

Not to put something else in. But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? He had always been replacing her bad memories with oblivion.

The notion made her stomach churn. Nadiya tried to push herself up, but her limbs seemed impossibly heavy.

Giselle reached out and offered her hand. It surprised Nadiya how easy it was to take it.

She felt the softness of Giselle’s palm, the faint flutter of her pulse through the tips of her fingers. Nadiya held on a moment too long. When she did drop it, she flexed her fingers, and then drew her arm behind her back.

“I’m sorry,” Giselle said again. “I should have been able to stop it. I didn’t know what Professor Blanchard was planning. If I had known—”

But Nadiya’s mind was running on a different track entirely. “Who’s Bonnie?”

Instantly a flush rose to Giselle’s face.

“It was one of the memories I saw,” Nadiya went on. Her own skin was prickling, though in a not entirely unpleasant fashion.

“Oh.” Giselle’s cheeks were positively blazing now. “I didn’t mean to put that memory in your head. She’s . . . she’s just someone I knew from back home.”

“It seems like you knew her pretty well,” Nadiya ventured.

“I guess. In a way. But it doesn’t matter now.” Giselle lifted her gaze to meet Nadiya’s. “She’s not important anymore.”

Nadiya tried to keep her tone casual. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

Silence stretched between them, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. In fact, it was strangely soothing. Nadiya felt her breathing steady as she looked into Giselle’s eyes—clear, soft blue.

“Where’s Professor Blanchard?”

“He left.” Giselle glanced toward the door. “Mumbling something mysterious, as usual. I’ll see him again here tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Panic clawed its way up Nadiya’s throat. “He wants us to do this again . . . tomorrow?”

“Not us. Just me. He said he didn’t need you here anymore.”

Her vision fully clear now, Nadiya scrutinized Giselle. There were red marks on her temples where the nodes had been, her veins slightly raised. Nadiya touched her own temples and felt matching bumps there. That had never happened before.

And the thought of Giselle being subjected to that again—or worse—made Nadiya’s stomach clench. She cast her gaze around the room and saw a plastic case of nodes on the teacher’s desk. Professor Blanchard must have left them behind.