Anna was so terribly startled at his comment that she looked up and met his eyes for a moment. She realized belatedly what he'd said about Alex, and her eyes filled with tears and she knelt and pressed her forehead to the ground. "Oh, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you, sir." When she'd gotten a hold of the outburst she met his eyes again; he would be able to see the pain in hers but also a steely resolve. "I'll keep it controlled. I promise. I will keep it controlled. I have to keep the memories; without them I wouldn't be me. I'd still be scarred and scared and just as emotionally fragile but I wouldn't know why, and that would be a worse torture than holding onto them and trying to keep them from biting me." Alex had taken her to see a hedgewitch once, to get her memories taken away. She'd gone into a psychotic episode once she'd glimpsed the scars on her neck and chest in the mirror, and she hadn't come out of it until Alex had tracked down the same hedgewitch and made her take the spell off.