Oma dragged a narrow stump over from the doorway and plopped herself on it with a slight wobble beneath her broad backside. “A full season. It’s midautumn.”

I shook my head. “A season?” I felt my body, took in my appearance. Autumn blended into winter in our country, hardly lasting a couple weeks before snow came. “How is that possible? What happened?”

“I hired a Talented healer. She made a draught to keep you asleep until . . .” She pursed her lips as though deciding against giving me information. “What do you remember, child?”

Knowing I could ignore the memories no longer, I focused inward but I couldn’t unlock the cell door. I searched my mind but couldn’t find the key. “I . . . I can’t remember.”

“Then it’s working.” Oma’s decision to remain cryptic chafed at my nerves.

“What’s working?” I snapped. “What have you done to me? Tell me what’s going on.”

Oma fixed me with a gaze of steel. “Coralythe.”

That single name threw open the door restraining the memories. Regret hit first. Coralythe’s sons: dead. Me: guilty. The frozen canal. Coralythe finding me. Blaming me. Hunting me.

My breaths came fast. Faster. I’d murdered. Again. Children. With my Talent.

Gasping.

After all the years of regret and grief over my parents, I’d done it all over. After all of Oma’s warnings, I’d done it again.

Something inside me was screaming. Screaming. Screaming. Coralythe had come to kill me, but she didn’t. Why? Why would she let me live with this?

I clutched my head in my hands. What had I done?

“Myrthe.” Oma’s bark lifted my head.

“She cursed me.” My voice broke, and the burning moved from my chest to my throat to my eyes.

Oma slapped a wet cloth over my nose and mouth. Instinctively I jerked away, but whatever herbs were soaked into the cloth did their job. I fell back against the pillows into darkness’s embrace.

My next awakening happened faster. I sat up before my eyes were fully open. A headache blossomed behind my eyes. I groaned and lifted a hand to my head. Oma sat in the same seat as before.

“You drugged me!” I accused.

“I had to. What do you remember about Coralythe’s curse?” Oma’s practical presentation of the question—as if we were discussing arithmetic—helped settle my emotions. I needed to understand. I needed to remember.

“She cursed my Talent.” Thinking of my Wishtress gift and all the bitterness that had built during Oma’s control of it tensed my sore muscles. “I’m to die by my next tear.”

“That’s what I heard too.”

“You were there?”

“I entered the house when Coralythe was cursing you,” Oma said. “I heard her but didn’t reach you in time to stop her.”