If she knew that each of those peonies were once demigods, would she still covet them so? After finding their gilded blood in the stems? After learning that I buried their bones there in the flowerbeds? How does she think we keep our kingdom warded with such magic? If she knew I prayed to Pluto to put a loop curse on her that day in Thornhall—that I cursed the knight who led the attack on my mother’s home—to relive many lives until I was satisfied with killing them repeatedly for punishment, could she forgive me?
