“She didn’t kill it, Ramona. She grew it. Created it.” Zara held up the bark. “Banewood doesn’t grow naturally. It has to be cultivated through ritual magic. A witch plants the curse and anchors it to the earth. As long as the tree stands, the curse stays active.”
“No.” Ramona was shaking her head. “No, you’re wrong. Iris wouldn’t?—”
“When did your magic start failing?” Zara asked quietly.
Ramona opened her mouth. Closed it. She didn’t remember. Not exactly. She’d always struggled with magic. For as long as she could remember, it had been hard. Unpredictable. Wrong.
“I think it happened then,” Zara said. “When you were eight. I think Iris cursed you — maybe not understanding what she was doing, maybe out of jealousy or fear. She was eleven. Just a child herself.” She paused.
“That’s insane,” Ramona whispered. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t mean to. Maybe it was an accident — a ritual that went wrong, magic she couldn’t control.” Zara’s voice was gentle. “Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Either way, it’s interesting that she became a curse-breaker after that and dedicated her life to it.”
“But why?” Ramona asked, the question directed to no one in particular.
“Maybe to learn how to eventually break what she’d done.” Zara held up the bark again. “I wanted to be certain before I toldyou. But this morning, seeing that tree, seeing your mother’s reaction when I questioned it — I’m certain now.”
Ramona sat down hard on the fallen log. The fox pressed against her leg. “My entire life,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“Twenty-seven years since then.”
Zara nodded, pocketing the bark.
“And you think my sister — my sister who has always been so perfect… You think she did it.” The implications crashed over Ramona in waves. Every time Iris had helped her. Every time she’d defended Ramona to the Council, convinced them not to strip her magic, been there after Simone left and Thornwood expelled her. Had that all been guilt? Iris trying to make up for what she’d done?
“I don’t want to believe it,” Ramona said, but her voice was hollow.
“You don’t have to. Not yet.” Zara knelt in front of her. “But we can find out. The restricted archives will have curse identification texts. We can verify the signature. See if I’m right.”
“And if you are?”
“Then we break it.”
Ramona’s hands were shaking. “I can’t… I can’t process this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Zara’s voice was thick with guilt. “I should have told you sooner. Or I should have had more proof before I said anything, but I couldn’t keep it from you any longer.”
Through the tether, Ramona felt Zara’s sincerity. Her fear that she’d made the wrong call. Her desperate need for Ramona to understand.
Silence fell. Ramona stared at the corrupted convergence point, at the spreading darkness that mirrored the darkness she’d been carrying inside herself for twenty-seven years without even knowing it.
“But maybe I’m not… broken,” she said finally. Testing the words.
“No,” Zara said quietly.
“Maybe I never was broken.”
“No.”
“Someone did this to me. Maybe Iris. Maybe someone else. But someone cursed a child.” Ramona’s voice was flat. “Watched her struggle for twenty-seven years.”
She stood. The fox rose with her.
Ramona looked at Zara, then at the corrupted stones, then back to Zara. Her jaw set.
“We break into Thornwood tonight.” Her voice was steady, certain. “I’ve spent twenty-seven years feeling broken, and that ends right now.”
