“She’s gonna get back to me,” said Mom. She exchanged glances with Mo, who nodded, and they steered me out of the room.

“That tree goes back so far,” Mo said. “You really think this is real? I mean, how can we know for sure?”

It was real. It had to be. There was a reason my blood woke the Heart from its slumber. My blood was Medea’s blood, and she had been the plant’s original guardian. I needed to tell them about that and about me. It couldn’t wait anymore. “Listen, I have to tell you something and it’s going to sound impossible but it’s important.”

“Baby, you can talk to us about anything,” Mom said. “You know that.”

I should have trusted them with this sooner. I hoped they’d understand why I’d waited. “Since we’ve been here, I know things have been weird. Strangers showing up, this shop, the garden. But I think it’s all connected.” I tried to think in a straight line. “Circe left me some letters.”

Mo straightened up.

“They led me to the garden. She knew what I could do with the plants. But she also knew something about me that even I didn’t know until a few days before we came here, when I cut my thumb.” I took a deep breath. “Mo, when you scared me that day, I was working with a water hemlock. It’s one of the most poisonous plants in the world.”

“Where’d you even get something like that?” Mom asked.

“I grew it in the park and brought home a piece to study. I was just gonna take a few notes and then get rid of it. I cut it open and there was poison on the blade of the scalpel when I sliced my thumb. It should have killed me.”

Tears welled up in Mom’s eyes. “Baby, you should have told us. We’d have taken you right to the hospital.”

“There wouldn’t have been time. There shouldn’t have been time. I should’ve died within the first five minutes, but I didn’t.”

“What are you saying?” Mo asked.

“I’m completely immune. I’ve come in contact with every poisonous plant you can think of since we’ve been here and nothing has happened. Circe knew I was immune and that I could cultivate the garden I found. And there are plants in there that are too toxic for anyone besides me to handle. That’s why people have been showing up here. I can grow things they can’t get anywhere else. So could Circe and Selene, and the Colchis family has been running this shop for generations.”

Mo and Mom continued to stare at me, speechless.