“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.