“But what really did me in was when I was looking at this one enormous painting. A real labor of love. And the date written on it . . .” He cleared his throat, a small, strangled noise. “It was the same day as Sarlazai. While I was off in the mountains, doing . . . well, that . . . somewhere, miles away, this man was just sitting in his garden, painting his plain wife with the reverence fitting a fucking goddess. And that just . . . hit me. It hit me so hard that I wept like a heartbroken fourteen-year-old girl. Because I had forgotten.” “Forgotten?” I whispered. “I had forgotten that
  
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