She rests a hand on her chest. “I mean, can you imagine? Me, magical? I couldn’t. And what did I know of magic? Lowly me. Potions weren’t the same as magic, not really. But he was determined to see if I could concoct whatever spell he’d found out. He gave me the instructions orally over several days, and I followed them. We met in the forest. The same spot. Each day the ingredient list got more and more vile, and that’s what still haunts me. I should have known. I should have known then that he was planning something terrible.” A tear slips down her cheek. “He loved me at one time. I truly believe that. But he loved himself more. He’s calculating and always three steps ahead, you see.”

“What happened with the potion?”

She takes a deep breath, smoothing away more tears. “The night the potion was done, the last step required letting it cook in the high sun. Then again for the same time under the high moon, stirring continuously. We’d collapsed by the time it was all done. My body on top of his, sweaty despite the sea breeze. We slept there, together, under the stars. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Thanks.”

“But it was a magical night. Not your sort of magic, but the heart kind. When I woke up, he was gone. Taavi and Totsi found their way into the world several months later. He visited me once or twice, but I never told him about the pregnancy outright. I think a part of me was afraid of what he might do. When I couldn’t hide my pregnancy anymore from my family, I was forced to tell Memi whose it was. But once word started to spread across the island that the Ghizoni had contracted the Sickness, I knew he’d taken that potion and done something terrible to their water supply. The Ghizoni started to die off. In record numbers. It was”—she shakes her head—“awful. Just awful.”

“A-and as the potion worked, their tribe shrank, and bits of me started to wither away too.” She picks at her loose flesh, hanging from her thin arms. “My skin began to yellow. It grew blotchy and my bones would ache all over like a nest of thorns swelling inside me. I was so sick, my family thought I had the Sickness. But no, no, I had some backfired version of it as a punishment for brewing a potion, dabbling in a magic that was never mine to touch.”

I gasp. “That’s how you ended up this way? The potion cursed you?”

The horror of it skitters up my arms like nails scratching a chalkboard. He didn’t care if she lived or died. Did he know she was pregnant? What kind of monster…?