Temperance stared into the mirror, chest heaving, water running steadily into the sink beneath her. The sound of it seemed to echo in her racing pulse. Sweat-drenched tendrils of hair hung around her pale face and she washed her hands. And again. She rubbed her palms together and did not look down. Again. The water was blisteringly hot and, fingers twitching out towards the knob, she switched it to cold. Again. Her eyes remained fixed on her own face, afraid to look down. Would it be crazier to see the water in the sink pinken, swirl with flakes of dried blood... or to have it run clear? But Temperance knew it would run clear and that was why she didn't look. It had been what - a month ago, maybe two, and she still felt it. It had become ingrained in her fingerprints, in the lines of her palms. She felt it like a tacky coating that would never wash off.

The long and short of it was that she dreamt about Blackfriars. She dreamed about the man with the gut wound sitting up and spilling forth every organ he had and, desperate, she tried to put him back together again, hands slipping in his blood. She dreamed about Nasir, pale and slowly bleeding out because she didn't have enough time to save him, about people who'd passed out waking up only to stare at her, their eyes burning with accusations. Head wounds leaking brain matter onto the hardwood floors, bodily fluids swirling around her, causing her toes to squish inside her sneakers. And the smell - iron hot and overwhelming. Temperance dreamed about the nurse, who bubbled out her last breaths while holding onto Temperance's hand, her blood fusing them together. No matter how much she wiped and washed, it was still there. Gulping in a breath, she forced herself to turn off the faucet and dried her hands on a towel. She didn't have to look to know the terrycloth would remain clean. Stumbling in the near-dark, she moved back into her bedroom and sat with a heavy thump.

Pale, long fingers like spiders' legs - they looked even paler in the dim moonlight that seeped through her curtain. Clean. Temperance rubbed them together, flexed them slowly out in front of her own eyes as if to convince herself. She was dumb, silly that she dreamed about this stupid s**t, felt the blood when there was none. No one else thought like this. It made her feel crazy, alone, weak. With a shaky breath, she stretched out on her bed, listening to the loud hum of the cicadas outside. One of her teachers had tried to talk to her about it - about how it was just real-world training and she dealt with blood all day so it was fine. It was the same. Tubes and platelets didn't dictate death, she thought angrily. It was different. It was different. It was different.

She felt stupid, and she fell asleep that way: stupid and afraid she'd have the same stupid dream again. But this time, this time Temperance woke up in Ashdown, cold and damp.