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“I . . .” she starts. “That doesn’t explain why she is here,” she says looking at me.

“It explains everything. Her life is in your hands, just as she once held yours.”

Alessia gasps, her eyes moving to the woman crying at her feet.

“You may give her the same fate she gave you,” I say at last. “Or I will kill her here and now, as I intended, and you will never have to see her again.”

Dahlia begins to sob louder, the sound tearing through the courtyard as she drags herself forward. Her bound hands reach, finding the edge of Alessia’s cloak and clutching it.

“Please,” she begs, her voice breaking. “Please, Alessia, I didn’t know. I didn’t know who you were, please. I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

Alessia looks down at her, and for a moment, she says nothing.

Then she crouches, and the entire courtyard seems to wait for her to speak.

“If I don’t give you a punishment, he’ll kill you anyway,” Alessia states, and she is correct. Either Alessia hands the punishment down or I will.

Dahlia glances at me, and she must see how badly I itch to kill her because she grasps at Alessia’s arms. “Please, don’t let him kill me,” she stutters pathetically.

Alessia’s gaze moves to me and hardens. She doesn’t want to punish this woman. She doesn’t have a cruel bone in her body, but either she does or I will. “Fifty lashes,” she says.

Dahlia’s wails are immediate.

Alessia does not move away. She reaches out instead, her hand lifting, her fingers settling against Dahlia’s cheek with a gentleness that feels almost misplaced in the face of what she just said.

“That is what I would choose if I were like you.”

Dahlia’s sobs go deathly quiet as she stares up at Alessia.

“I was fourteen,” she continues. “You made me count every strike then made me thank you for it afterward.”

My teeth clench hearing that detail. Dahlia shakes beneath her touch.

“That wasn’t punishment. It was torture.”

She pauses. “I should give that back to you,” she continues. “I could make you feel what you made me feel and convince myself that makes me better than you.”

Dahlia’s cries return.

“But it would not,” Alessia says. “It would only make me the same.”

“Please. Please don’t let him kill me.” Dahlia’s voice is soft and pleading, like she’s speaking to a scared child. Her tone doesn’t reach Alessia because she is not a scared child anymore. “You will never harm another person,” she says, her tone shifting, becoming stronger. “You will never again decide what someone else deserves, what pain they should endure, or what their life is worth.”

Dahlia stares at her, trembling.

“I do not wish harm on you,” Alessia says, rising to her feet.

“To restore the past,” she says, turning her gaze to me, “the future must be balanced.”

I watch her. The way she holds herself with pride. The way her voice and hands no longer tremble.

“Send her back to Purgatory,” she finishes.

For a moment, no one even breathes, but I feel eyes on me from every direction. Watching. Weighing my reaction.

“You are going to forgive her?” I ask, and I do not hide the disbelief in it.

She looks at Dahlia and shakes her head.