Nocticadia

Devryck studies Barletta, who is feeling incredibly well in the early stages of his infection. Devryck explains how the worms produce a toxin that eliminates other organisms and incites cell repair, as they want a healthy host. This precipitates a downturn in health where the worms finally feed off the host until their death.

Barletta argues with Devryck about essentially killing him. However, Devryck has another headache and recalls an experience with his brother, Caedmon. As a child, Devryck snuck into their father’s lab to retrieve a photo of their late mother from his father’s desk. He was aware that his great-great-grandfather also performed illegal, gruesome experiments, which caused a social stigma around the family until his grandfather developed a virus-combatting vaccine.

Warren found the boys looking at their mother’s photo, and Devryck, startled, dropped the frame and broke it. His father struck him and locked him in the “specimen closet,” where human body parts were suspended in formaldehyde.

After Devryck finishes speaking, Barletta says that Devryck recounted the story in a haze. Devryck fell to the floor and doesn’t remember telling Barletta. He doesn’t explain how the head injury from his father gave him a very rare congenital disease affecting his brain. Devryck says that Barletta is like his father, but Barletta claims that he’s more like Devryck.

Struggling to sleep, Lilia reflects on the nightmares about the ocean and parasites she had after her mother died. She developed insomnia, sleeping only four hours per night. She hears noises at the door and investigates, finding a metal button with a cross etched into it. She continues hearing voices and hides under her blankets, frightened.

Lilia meets a student named Spencer, who buys her lunch, but Langmore’s office assistant, Kendall, arrives. Lilia believes that Kendall dislikes her. Lilia leaves, seeing Devryck again on the way out.

Lilia eats in the courtyard and admires the campus before heading to her first class, where she receives texts from Jayda. Jayda scolds her for being unsociable. Spencer arrives and sits next to her. They chat until Devryck arrives, and Lilia is shocked—she hadn’t realized that he was Dr. Bramwell. Lilia finds him attractive and guesses that he is in his early thirties.

Devryck is intimidating and curt with the class, including Lilia, whom he grows irritated with for not having taken the pre-requisite class or signing a nondisclosure agreement that was offered in the orientation Lilia missed.

Despite Devryck’s harshness, Lilia admires his passion for his research. He asks to meet her after class. He tells her that he won’t accept any slip-ups from her, as she shouldn’t be in the class in the first place, and claims that he’s failed more students than he’s passed. She instinctively responds that this sounds like a failure of teaching, and the meeting ends on a bad note.

Spencer waits for Lilia outside the classroom. She learns that Spencer’s friend is the one who splashed acid on Devryck. Lilia is empathetic but rejects the instinct to give into rumor, growing defensive of Devryck despite disliking him.

Lilia enters the extravagant library. She has been assigned work study there, and the head librarian, Kelvin, tells her that she will work in the Adderly room, which memorializes the commodore. Her task is to familiarize herself with historical texts and become a resource for other students.

She reads about Dr. Nathaniel Stirling, depicted in the plague doctor mask and cape, from centuries ago. He discovered a new antiseptic and was hailed for ushering in sterilization practices, but Lilia reads about his unethical experiments.

Lilia realizes that she’s stayed long past her shift, and she bumps into Langmore in her haste. Accompanying him is Devryck, and Lilia quickly leaves, humiliated. On her way to her dorm, she thinks she sees a plague doctor hiding in the trees; startled, she runs into Spencer. Spencer flirts with her as he drops her off, but she doesn’t acknowledge it.

Inside, she sees a news report discussing Angelo. He is wanted for questioning regarding the murder of a CEO. Lilia calls Conner, who says that Angelo didn’t do it; however, his name was written in blood at the crime scene. Terrified of a sadist cult called the Schadenfreude, he’s in hiding at Conner’s. Frustrated with Conner’s refusal to turn him in or act responsibly, Lilia hangs up. Afterward, Mel tells her to be wary of Spencer, whom she calls a manipulator.

Lilia eats in the large, gothic cafeteria and thinks about Conner. She won’t anonymously turn Angelo in, as she worries that Conner could get arrested too. She then attends entomology class with Professor Gilchrist. Gilchrist arrives and introduces herself personally to Lilia, recommending that she set up an appointment with Provost Lippincott without explaining why.

When Spencer arrives and says that he and Lilia both attend Devryck’s class, Gilchrist grows upset and questions why Lilia was placed in the class without her approval, as she is chair of the natural science department. As Gilchrist’s teaching assistant, Spencer claims that she’s a strange woman. Spencer tells Lilia after class that he’s Lippincott’s son and that he will arrange a meeting with him for Lilia.

Lilia realizes that she left her phone in class, returns, and ducks into the row to find it under a chair. While hidden from view, Devryck and Gilchrist enter. Lilia overhears Devryck rebuffing Gilchrist, hurting her feelings, and claiming that he believes that Lilia will excel in his course. Gilchrist leaves, but Devryck knows that Lilia is there and accuses her of eavesdropping before storming out. Despite his attitude, Lilia is flattered that he complimented her intellect.

For the “midnight lab,” the lab portion of Devryck’s course, Lilia must be picked up by the campus bus called Nocticadia. Spencer sits next to her and explains that the lab is at midnight because that’s when the Noctisoma are most active.

The lab is in a lower floor of Emeric Hall—a stone building with gothic elements and a mesh cage of purple moths, the Sominyx. They used to be black, but when they were infected with Noctisoma, they turned purple and became nocturnal. They exhibit aggression, sensitivity to light, and unnatural fondness for raw meat, which all mirror Lilia’s mother’s symptoms.

Spencer describes the breeding process for the moths, as they’re studying the moths’ larval phase. Devryck’s teaching assistant, Ross, begins class. Devryck arrives only to explain his office hours before descending to the basement level, where his personal lab is. Lilia is intensely curious, as Devryck brings berries into his lab that have been contaminated by infected moths laying larvae inside them. Lilia hopes that he is developing a cure for the Noctisoma and determines to join him in his research, hoping to satisfy the goal she’s had since her mother’s death.

Curious, Devryck researches Lilia. He discovers that she was a star athlete in high school and reads her “imaginary” case study on the Noctisoma. He is impressed, as the infection usually causes red blood cells to be deprived of oxygen, turning them red. However, the patient in the study—Lilia’s mother—had a tissue salt administered that destroyed the Noctisoma’s ability to cause this effect, thus prolonging her life. This reveals an innate medical talent in Lilia.

Devryck reads Lilia’s mother’s coroner reports. Lilia describes a butterfly tattoo in her essay that matches a description in the coroner report on Francesca. Devryck assumes that the coroner left out details that would’ve revealed her Noctisoma infection. Devryck wonders who Francesca was and how she became infected.

He receives a call from Langsome, who says that Gilchrist has demanded that Lilia be removed from Devryck’s class. Furious, Devryck refuses Gilchrist’s demands. He dislikes Lilia, but he is possessive because Gilchrist is trying to take her away.

A week into her classes, Lilia has carefully observed Devryck’s behavior. During the weekend—unable to find him—she cycles around the island. While browsing shops in Emberwick, the shopkeeper says that she looks just like a woman she knew two decades ago, Vanessa Corbin. The shopkeeper is intrigued that both Lilia and Vanessa enjoyed herbal medicine. The woman gives Lilia a special tea made from rocks in a dangerous area on the island, Bone Bay. On her way out, Lilia notices a wanted poster for Barletta and an old missing-person poster of Jenny Harrick.

She cycles to Bone Bay and thinks about how quickly she had to grow up following her mother’s death. Despite the remote location, she finds Devryck and watches him secretly. He expertly practices knife throwing near the trees and then dives into the bay. Lilia is frightened, as the shopkeeper said that sharks swim there, but Devryck appears safe. Perplexed, she returns to the university, determined to make an appointment with him.

Lilia only succeeds in making an appointment by asking him in class. During the meeting, Lilia asks how Noctisoma were introduced into the population. Devryck explains how the Indigenous population may have strategically infected colonizers with Noctisoma using blow darts; however, in the modern era, a camper consumed the berries in which the larvae were nested, accidentally infecting themselves.

Despite describing how she watched her mother succumb to the parasite, Devryck dismisses the possibility, as Francesca supposedly had no contact with Dracadia. After further rejecting the possibility of Lilia assisting him in his research, he suddenly suffers an acute headache, bringing on a seizure.

Lilia aids him, knowing the recommended medical responses to a seizure. However, he mutters “impervious,” confusing her. When he comes to, he feels her squeezing his hand and screams to get away from him. He insults her, but Lilia sees that he’s embarrassed. Furious and disappointed, she leaves.

Devryck checks on Barletta, who is becoming nocturnal and suffering hallucinations. Barletta accuses Devryck of taking his trauma out on strangers, and Devryck reflects on his childhood. He recalls an occasion when he had a seizure in class and was mocked for it. Caedmon soothed him, but Devryck could no longer feel much sensation in his limbs, which disturbed him enough to rebuke physical comfort.

Devryck’s injuries left him hearing voices and feeling overwhelmed with panic, but Caedmon urged him to repeat a word when he felt panicked: “impervious.” Caedmon said that the word means “impossible to hurt,” so it quelled Devryck’s fear that he would die. However, a doctor said that the disease brought on by his injury would one day stop his heart.

Devryck informs Barletta that Caedmon is dead. He gives Barletta raw meat, which Barletta consumes ravenously. Devryck reveals that the toxin produced by Noctisoma may cure his own affliction, which leaves him feeling as if he is trapped inside a corpse, unable to properly feel physical sensation. He says that he has forcefully imprisoned and infected someone else before. He needs to study live worms.