Goose-flesh covers Anli's arms as she gets to her feet, and upon hearing Bustol's voice, she reaches for the door but hesitates.  On the one hand, his presence is reassuring -- she would rather not be alone right now -- but on the other, she dreads the thought of him somehow finding out her little problem.<br/><br/>As the Whisperer speaks once again, Anli clenches her jaw.<em>Stop your nonsense and leave me be,</em>she demands in her internal voice.  Distant thoughts and sensations are impressed upon her briefly, like so much debris rising to the surface of a murky pond before sinking into obscurity moments later, dislodged by a malevolent, shapeless thing slithering along the bottom as it gorges itself.<br/><br/>The girl suddenly becomes acutely aware of her own breathing and rapid heartbeat, for beyond her anger and indignation, both at the entity itself and at her own impotence to banish it, another emotion makes itself apparent: fear.  Even as she stubbornly refuses to give the Whisperer any power over her, the plunder of her mind is intimately frightening, like being bound and stripped naked by a stranger with no face and no name, and she knows there is no escape.  She feels sick.<br/><br/>Without another moment's delay, she opens the door to see Bustol standing right outside.<strong>"I need help,"</strong>she starts, then pauses, glancing at the floor then back to his face,<strong>"... carrying the books."</strong>