"But we'll go together?" she asks, tilting her head up to look at him. She doesn't doubt that's what he means, but right now she just needs to hear him say it.

And maybe when they go, she can stop feeling... like this. There is an itch beneath her skin that hasn't really gone away since the ritual. She thought it was just a side-effect, then she thought it was perhaps a precursor to the strange, awful growths appearing on her skin. But that wasn't it, either. Just an itch she can't satisfy.