A Long-Buried Past

No matter how thoroughly you erase the past, it always finds its way back.

Like pencil marks that remain even after you erase them.

Those pencil marks were plain to see on Camilla’s face, too.

The corner of her eye, where Duke had cut her, was scarred,

and her neck bore stretch marks, as though it had been forcibly put back in place.

Her tiger ears were raggedly cut off halfway, as if by a saw, and the scales that had once densely covered her face were now sparse.

It was hard to find any trace of her former self in that face, but Jane was certain.

Camilla had come back from the dead.

“You’re alive?”

[You should’ve made sure I was dead.]...