I wanted her to teach me what she said she’d teach me. She spent so many years caulking the crevices of my brain with fear, I always hoped she’d be just as thorough in providing me instruction. But now . . . I’m certain she never meant to teach me anything. All that talk of “when you’re of age” was nonsense.

Perhaps she knew I’d gain a mind of my own—that rebellion would strike and I wouldn’t stay compliant forever.

She didn’t count on a curse.

“I kept the promises that mattered.” She nodded toward the book. “Where do you think I got such a thing?”

I didn’t want to hear her excuses. She could have wished this book into existence for all I cared.

“I knew the last Wishtress. I, a mere girl, helped my mother tend her as she was dying. The Wishtress used her final wish to pass on the Talent to my blood. My blood.” She pounded a fist to her chest. “She entrusted me with that book that had only ever been in the hands of the current Wishtress. She told me I was of the right heart. The Talent should have been mine. But her final wish was a raw wish. No time to draw up a contract and specify details. It took a path of its own. It didn’t connect to my blood. It didn’t even connect to the blood of my own son. But finally you were born and there was my Talent.”

I listened to her share a secret that had formed her into the coldhearted oma she’d become. Through the shock and emotions her story roused in me, I couldn’t help but see the irony. She’d spent her life being loyal to the Wishtress she served as a girl. And then she betrayed and used and suppressed the next Wishtress. Me. Because she saw my Talent as belonging to her. So she’d set aside any sort of kindness or motherliness to control me. Perhaps that was why the Talent skipped her and went to someone else.

The worst thing for Oma would be if I no longer had wishes to give her.

She felt the loss of my Talent more than I did. I had a sudden desire to be away from Oma. Forever. Even if that meant death. “You can’t stop me from crying, Oma. You’ve trained me too well to let the tears come.” Even with the book about the Wishtress, I didn’t have the ability to keep my emotions in check for the rest of my life!

“It’s your duty. As Wishtress. You must find a cure.”

I was already shaking my head. “There’s nothing in this life for me. There never was.”

“Not even your own mother? Mutti?”