Balthazar dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Let’s get back to Alina’s life, shall we? I don’t think you’ve seen enough.”
“No!” I cried out. “I don’t want to see anything more. You’ve shown me enough!”
“Would you rather I leave and release my cockroaches? Those were merely the babies,” Balthazar said, leering at me.
My whole body quaked at the thought.
The room shimmered with an image of my mother picnicking in a field with several other men and women. The Dolomites, an immense mountain range in northern Italy, loomed behind them. Mom laughed, picking up a green and gold enameled wine goblet and tapping it with the goblets held by the others. Then, as did the others, she tipped back her head and drank.
“Your mother was popular and beloved. She and her family loved to travel to places like this when she lived in Italy. She adored Italy, and Italy adored her, embracing her passion and exuberance for life. Here she’s pictured in the 1500s when the Medicis were alive, surrounded by family and friends,” Balthazar said, much like a travel guide. “Everyone loved to be around her.”
“Don’t listen to his mind tricks,” Roman said. “Please, Olivia. He’s only trying to poison your mind.”
So captivated by scenes of my mother, I paid Roman’s voice no mind.
The next scene revealed Papa in a clock tower. He stood precariously on the ledge of the stone windowsill, gazing down at the ground from several stories up.
“Papa! No!” I screamed.
My mother rushed forward and pulled him away from the ledge.
My heart swelled.See? My mother loved my father. She saved him. And she loved me.
This thought was slugged from my mind like being hit by a baseball bat; the next scene showed Mom in a dark cave, her belly swollen and heaving.
That’s when I was born. It had to be!
Then, Mom picked up a stone and beat at her stomach.
My father rushed forward and wrenched the rock from her hands.
Mom fought with him, shoving and kicking. Then, she used her fists to pummel me as I tried to exit her womb.
A wellspring of grief bubbled up inside of me. I wasn’t wanted. Mom had never cherished me.
A transparent image of my mother, holding what looked like my dagger in Moon Lee’s apartment, appeared before me. She opened a vial. Smoke, or perhaps fumes, wisped from the small opening.
As carefully as Balthazar poured a drop of my mother’s blood onto her dagger, Mom poured a drop of whatever this concoction was onto my blade. She waved her hand over it as the substance seeped inside the metal, infusing it.
The memory of nearly dying when I arrived in Rome, being poisoned, and Roman and Amara nursing me back to life filled my head.
Mymotherhad tried to kill me.
Hot, angry tears spilled down my cheeks as a cry of anguish fled my throat.
“Don’t believe this, Olivia! All these scenes—they can’t be true. It’s all lies!” Roman shouted.
But it couldn’t be lies. It had to be my mother who tried to poison me.But how? Wasn’t she already dead when she’d poisoned my blade?Then, it struck me. She’d sneaked into Moon Lee’s apartment shortly after I was born. There, she’d spread whatever poisonous substance she possessed onto my knife, ensuring I’d die once I time-traveled.
A bolt of rage flooded my bloodstream, searing my mind, and blotting out any sense of reason I possessed. I wanted to kill someone. How could my mother be so evil as to want to kill her own child? I was fueled with anger. I longed to snuff out someone’s life with a kind of bloodlust I’d never before experienced.
“Shall we continue, my sweet?” Balthazar cooed.
“No!” I shouted, squirming in my restraints. “I’ve seen enough!”
“Olivia, stop. All he’s shown you are lies, I swear it.” Roman’s expression looked wretched as he spoke. “He’s mind manipulating you. He has to be. He’s trying to poison your mind!”
“Shut up!” I yelled at Roman. “Shut up! It’s all true. I know it is!”
