“That’s what happens when you help someone relive being tortured,” Sophie muttered. “But… I don’t think we should sedate her unless she asks us to. I’m sure my—her—parents will freak if she doesn’t wake up when they come home.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Mr. Forkle agreed, moving one of his hands to Amy’s wrist to feel her pulse. He counted under his breath and nodded. “Actually, her vitals are bouncing back nicely. She should be lucid in the next few minutes. And there’s still no sign of her family returning?” he asked Sandor, who’d marched over to one of the windows to check through the curtains.

“Flori has signaled that we’re clear—for the moment,” Sandor informed him, stomping back to his post in the doorway. “But the sooner we leave, the better.”

“Agreed,” Mr. Forkle said.

“We’re not going anywhere until Amy wakes up and we make sure she’s okay and answer her questions,” Sophie reminded them.

“That’s the plan,” Mr. Forkle corrected, “but we’ll have to adjust if her parents return—which is why I tried to start this process as soon as we got here.”

“Excuse me for trying to save my sister from this.” She pointed to Amy, whose eyes were squeezed so tight, they looked like angry lines.

Sophie reached out, brushing back strands of Amy’s sweat-soaked hair off of her forehead and tucking them behind her ears—stalling as she worked up the courage to ask, “How badly did I hurt her that day? My memory… wasn’t exactly clear.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Mr. Forkle said quietly. “All the more reason you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You had no idea what was going on.”

“I didn’t,” Sophie agreed, stopping herself from mentioning all the things she did know, now that she had the advantage of hindsight to translate what had happened between her and him.

She had lots of questions.

Maybe even a few accusations.

But she wasn’t going to let him sidetrack her.

“You didn’t answer my question. How badly did I hurt her that day?”

Mr. Forkle checked Amy’s thoughts again before he answered. “Inflicting is all in the mind, so she suffered zero physical trauma. Why do you think I didn’t bother bringing Elwin or Livvy with us today?”

Sophie had a feeling that Elwin and Livvy would strongly disagree with that decision—and Sophie wasn’t sold on it either, given the greenish pallor lingering on her sister’s skin.

But once again, Mr. Forkle was changing the subject.

“We both know the pain is just as real as an actual injury,” Sophie insisted. “Probably worse.”

Mr. Forkle sighed. “It can be, yes. And I won’t lie, what your sister experienced that day—and again now, to a smaller extent—was… let’s just call it indescribable, and leave it at that, okay?”

Sophie brushed back another strand of her sister’s sticky hair.

Didn’t she owe it to her to learn every detail about what Amy had endured?

“Sometimes knowledge is simply knowledge,” Mr. Forkle said, guessing what she’d been wondering. “My brother and I shared every single memory throughout our entire lives—except one. He held back the details of the pain he experienced from his final injury, and I’m sure he did that because he knew I would’ve relived it over and over, trying to make amends for the fact that I get to carry on and he doesn’t. So he eliminated that as a possibility for me. And from what I know of your sister, I’ve no doubt that she’d want the same for you—just as you would for her if the situation were reversed.”

“Maybe,” Sophie admitted, blinking hard to keep any tears from forming. “It’s just… I can still hear her screams.”

“And I’m sure you always will,” he said quietly. “But… I think we should also acknowledge the fact that you just mentioned them without needing Flori to sing your echoes to sleep. That’s a tremendous victory, Miss Foster. One that’s not worth jeopardizing—especially for knowledge that will do no actual good.”

Sophie sighed. “I guess—unless Amy needs to talk about what happened. If she does, I’ll let her share every awful detail.”

She didn’t care if it brought the shadow monster back in full force—she’d do whatever Amy needed to help her recover from this nightmare.

“Fair enough,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though, I think you’re also overlooking a very important aspect of what happened. Your sister’s screams came from more than just pain. She was also witnessing something her brain couldn’t begin to comprehend—and she was terrified that the red light was killing you.”

Sophie frowned. “Red light?”

He nodded. “Your inflicting operated very differently that day. It worked the way we designed it to—or mostly, anyway—and the emotions were channeled out of your mind in a single, targeted red beam that flashed and struck like a bolt of lightning.”

Sophie tried to picture it, but the only thing she could come up with was some cross between an alien mind trick and an exorcism—and she really didn’t want to imagine herself that way.

And once again, her head flooded with questions about what had actually happened between Mr. Forkle and her during those terrible moments.

But she had to stay focused on the most important information.

“That’s the big choice, isn’t it?” she asked. “You want to reset my brain so my inflicting will work differently.”

“So it will work properly,” Mr. Forkle corrected, which wasn’t any less terrifying. “Your ability was designed to target whoever or whatever you were feeling threatened by, rather than taking out everyone in the vicinity the way you do now. That would make the power much more effective, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” Sophie said slowly. “But what happened to the whole ‘no one will be asking anyone to put their life in serious danger’ promise you made earlier?”

“I was about to remind him of the same thing,” Sandor growled.

“I said serious danger,” Mr. Forkle argued. “This time the procedure will be much more minor. We don’t have to reset Miss Foster’s entire brain, like Livvy did to her that day—or like I did the day I healed her abilities. We only need to reset her inflicting, which will require a significantly smaller dose of limbium.”

“Okay, but… I’m still deathly allergic to it, even in a small dose,” Sophie pointed out, surprised she even had to say it. “The elixir Dex gave me only had a drop in it, and it still made Bullhorn lie down beside me, and Elwin was barely able to bring me back.”

“I’m not saying there won’t be risks,” Mr. Forkle said carefully. “But the risks will still be less dangerous this time than your previous experiences, both because of the much more limited problem we’re addressing and because of our increased knowledge and practice. Livvy and I have been researching allergies for months, wanting to be prepared in case this day was ever upon us. And I feel very strongly that we’ve now perfected our remedy.”

“Does that mean you won’t have to use any needles?” Sophie asked.