Verniy seemed to sense how Kors treated him, how he didn’t like the unclean dog, feeling disgust and fear. Kors knew that dogs feel when someone is afraid of them, and usually, sensing fear, they attack, but he couldn’t help himself, so this vile, predatory unclean irritated him. And the fact that Nikto loved him with some kind of unjustifiably tender love and constantly dragged him everywhere with him, even more infuriated him. Kors was ready, he pulled himself together and put his appearance in order. His hair was neatly styled and pinned in a ponytail, his clothes smelled of expensive perfume, and precious rings glittered on his neatly nailed fingers. Kors came to his senses after all the failures, or so it seemed. And the dye on his face was almost completely faded, which is why Kors couldn’t even without shrinking internally look at his reflection in the mirror. Yes, he tried not to think about anything and drank a lot of wine to stay in a relaxed oblivion, but it was almost the same Kors – spoiled, broken, but not surrendered. He, obeying the order, followed Verniy into Nikto’s room, and when he entered, he noted with surprise how big it was and one might even say luxurious, but at the same time the Demon had neither windows nor a balcony, like in Karina’s room. Twilight always reigned in his personal World, but it seems that Nikto was not oppressed by it. He was used to living in a witch's cave like in a burrow, Kors thought, staring at the polished stone walls and black slabs of the floor. The ceiling was propped up by carved columns, resting against the vault with openwork arches. Kors saw that Arel was kneeling on the steps by the high bed, undressed, in slave attributes, he didn’t raise his lowered head, and still Kors noticed that something was wrong with his face.

“Hello, Vitor,” said Nikto and his voice was calm and cheerful.

“Glad to see you, my Demon,” Kors replied, kneeling down.

“Hey, get up, come on without ceremony,” Nikto smiled, “I love you as a noble master who made me first a slave, and then his lover and his thing.”

Kors only smiled bitterly, he no longer believed Nikto. And yet, when he knelt on these black floor slabs, he was almost on a level with Arel and involuntarily noticed that his lower lip was strangely pushed forward.

“Make yourself comfortable, Vitor, make yourself at home, sit down at the table, pour yourself some wine, if you want – smoke,” said Nikto, getting off the bed and going up to him. It was unusual for Kors to see him so, not crippled, not lame, but because of his thinness, even somehow graceful, like a weasel. And still, despite the fact that Nikto was in good spirits, Kors involuntarily shook as Nikto approached him.

“Vitor, what’s the matter? Why are you so afraid of me?” Nikto asked, even somehow a little surprised.

“What about Arel?” Kors tried to avoid answering.

“Eh?” Nikto turned to the prince, “Arel, raise your face!” he ordered, and Arel immediately followed the order.

Kors saw that something big and thick had been threaded into his lower lip – a bottle cork!

“What is it?!”

Nikto laughed:

“I made a small cut and stuffed a cork into it. It suits him, right?”

“But why?” Kors was shocked, and Arel with a protruding lower lip didn’t look good at all.

“The unclean do this, they insert a cork into the lips of inveterate drunkards as punishment. It's funny, and it's immediately clear who is in front of you.”

“But you yourself allow him to drink, give him wine!”

“Well, what remains for me if he cannot live without it? I did it to him just like that, for nothing.”

Kors looked at Arel. With a ring in his nose, a hole in his cheek and now with a disfigured mouth, he looked really bad. Arel's eyes were not overshadowed, but he didn’t raise them and did not look at Kors.

“You know, Vitor, why I called you?”

“No,” and now Kors was really scared.

“I'll decorate you now,” said Nikto, and Kors shrank inwardly.

“Your dye is almost erased, I'll paint you again, better. Get out your jewelry,” Nikto took out a box with jars in which there was paint, “I will make it more beautiful, with shadows. You will see how good it will be for you.”

“Who cares, nothing’s going well with the dye,” said Kors grimly. “This is a shameful make-up, no matter how beautiful it is.”

He didn’t dare to disobey and twisted three thorns from under his lower lip.

“Don't move, you will get used to yourself like that.”

“I won't get used to it.”

“So what? When we return, will you go to Zagpeace, will you ask to cancel the punishment? Will you repent, crawling on your knees at his feet? Will you disown me? Will you disown the shameful connection with a filthy half-blood?”

“No. How could you think that?!”

“I caught your thoughts.”

“It was just a momentary weakness, I cannot control my every impulse. But I won't do that.”

“But you suffer no worse than your slave Adrian, he is also sad that he has become a slave, and every minute he reproaches himself for his cowardice”

“Don't compare me and a slave!”

“Yes, you're right, Adrian doesn’t hope for forgiveness, but you do.”

“I don’t hope for anything either, Demon who hides his true name and only pretends to be a pathetic half-blood.”

Nikto chuckled:

“You tried to read Zagpeace’s thoughts, what he thinks, but you failed.”

“It didn't work,” agreed Kors, “probably because he is not connected with you. And I can only “hear” those who belong to you.”

Nikto just smiled slightly and dipped the brush in gray dye. Not a single thought in his head contained even a hint of his conversation with Peace, and Kors didn’t “hear” or know anything. He couldn’t even imagine that Nikto and Peace had agreed on something.

Nikto painted Kors’ face with all the diligence, as he could, beautifully shading the cheekbones and making the facial features more expressive. Kors looked at himself in the mirror.

Nikto really emphasized his beauty, made him “mysterious”, but Kors was not at all happy about it, because he hoped so much that when the dye disappeared from his face, he would not have to apply it anymore. He hoped that Peace and his former comrades-in-arms would not find fault with him, and that his rash offense would be forgotten.

“I'll replace your jewelry,” Nikto said, appraisingly examining his work.

Kors was depressed and silent.

Nikto inserted a complex decoration into his punctures. The silver peaks in it were much longer and more massive than the previous ones. The central one bifurcated at the base, and its upper part was like a sharp spike, and the lower arc descended downward and, like a hook, clasped his chin.

Now, when Kors lowered his gaze, he could easily see them, and the hook, digging into his chin, prevented him.

“Gods,” he whispered, “for what?”

Nikto heard him:

“I'm not punishing you, it's beautiful.”

“They bother me.”

“Well, not as much as Arel’s cork, you will get used to it.”

“Now I have to wear a mask in the Fort.”

“Go to Arel!”

Kors looked at his tormentor in confusion.

“Come on, go! Sit next to him!”

And when Kors hastily got up from his chair, walked over to Arel and knelt beside him, Nikto said:

“Kiss!”

But neither Kors nor Arel could do this because of their “jewelry”. Kors only rested his spikes on Arel's lip, and Arel couldn’t move his mouth at all. Kors saw now how the round top of the cork rested on his lower teeth and Arel couldn’t properly close his mouth and from this the upper lip is deformed too.

Realizing that they couldn’t kiss each other, Nikto smiled smugly, and Kors, looking at him, saw with what a mischievous and triumphant shine his eyes burned, like transparent glass.

“Take off your clothes and go to the bed,” Nikto ordered him.