Nocticadia

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, child death, graphic violence, sexual violence and harassment, emotional abuse, racism, gender discrimination, and sexual content.

Lilia finds Devryck seizing by the car. She injects him with the final syringe of toxin. It keeps him from dying, but he remains unconscious. Worried that a campus doctor will find the toxin in his blood—endangering his research—she takes him to the apothecary in the village.

The shop owner brings them some tea from the black rocks, which brings down fevers, and Lilia learns that the woman’s name is Francesca—the false name her mother took.

When Devryck’s sense of feeling returns, he realizes that the toxin and the black rocks complement each other, returning his sense of feeling without harm. They have sex in the car, and Lilia expresses concern that he’ll leave her. She realizes that she loves him.

Lilia learns from Mel after failing to log into her student portal that Gilchrist told Mel about Lilia’s betrayal. Mel followed Lilia, took a picture of her and Devryck having sex in the car, and posted it on her blog.

Dean Langmore arrives to tell Lilia that she’s been expelled. Her things are packed, and on the way from the dorm, she punches Mel.