Chapter 72: Again and again

Artemisia leaned her body against the chair entirely, the truth hurting more than she could have imagined. She could tell that the stages of grief hit her too fast, so the young woman was already in anger.

An outsized hatred of herself. Artemisia knew it was deadly, she saw her father die, the nannies die, the plants, the animals. It was clear as the day that it was her curse, but knowing it was so painful that it made the young woman want to vomit up all the sweets she had eaten.

Suddenly something hit her too, a memory that involved stories. It was almost like a blur, but if Artemisia tried hard, she could understand that it had been a dream, a strange and a little disjointed dream.

In it were three books, each of which bore a strange memory of the young woman. The first was a debt, of this she remembered better than the others, the second was pure pain, the same pain she had felt when Leonore opened that book of leather red as blood.

The young woman raised her face looking towa