Page 64 of Bittersweet Revenge

She winked at me. “Anything for you, bestie.”

The day seemed to last an eternity. When the bell of the final class rang, I almost skipped on my way to the library. I found Archie already waiting in front of it.

“Ready?” he asked, hooking his arm with mine.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

“You lied to her,” Archie announced just as we walked into the library.

Okay, then. I rolled my eyes, instantly regretting not taking Caleb with me. At least he had a modicum of restraint and patience.

Anne White frowned. She looked around the library, but it was deserted as usual.

“Ms. White–”

“–or should we say Ms. Valkoinen?” Archie interrupted me.

I glared at him. This was not the way to deal with things. “Archie could you just, just...not.”

He grumbled under his breath, but stopped talking.

“I… Just a minute.” She rushed to the door and locked it before coming back and gesturing us to the closest table.

“How did you find out?” she asked, resting her elbows on the surface.

“I don’t think that’s really relevant now, is it?” I asked, sounding sterner than usual.

“No, I suppose not.”

“I asked you if you knew my mother. You said you didn’t.”

She sighed. “Listen, Esmeralda. It took me years to get out of that life.”

“You seemed to have been in love with my father.” Antoine had already found a few things for us during lunch. “It was even said you were to get married.”

She nodded. “Yes, but your mother saved me from that fate.” She shook her head with a weary sigh. “She took my curse and I was too chickened to help her. As you probably know, my family promised me to William when I was only fourteen. He was eighteen, but was already powerful and charismatic. I was the shy freshman. He was the all-powerful senior.” She pointed to Archie. “Actually, he was a lot like you are now.”

Archie scowled at her, his jaw twitching. He hated being reminded how similar he was to our father.

I rested my hand on top of his in an attempt to soothe him.

“So you were in love with our father.”

“For a while,” she continued. “Or at least I thought I was until I saw he was not for me, until I fell in love with someone else.” She sighed. “Until I realized it was not a world I wanted to be stuck in. But I couldn’t really do anything. My father’s business was dependent on this union. Then your father left for university while I stayed here and studied. At least there was that. But you know, even though I was not yet officially engaged to your father, I’d already been claimed. Therefore every boy around this town stayed away from me.”

I winced. I know she’d lied, but I could only imagine how she’d felt. Her realization at being stuck in something so much bigger than she was, something my mother had experienced first-hand too.

“What I wanted didn't seem to matter anymore, you know? And instead of going to university to study literature as I’d always wanted, I ended up being sent to Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps – a school for reformed girls.” Her mouth tipped down in obvious disgust. “It was basically three years of learning how to be a proper lady. With the Guide of a Good Socialite Woman its Bible, all you really learned was how to be a perfect wife, perfect hostess. How to be smart enough to make your husband shine and make yourself valuable, but without being smart or independent enough to ever outshine your man.”

This couldn’t be real. Such a place couldn’t exist.

I turned toward Archie for confirmation, but he nodded with a grimace.

“Was I to be sent there?”

“You still might,” Ms. White warned me. “If you keep going down this path, you will.”

“I’d never allow it.”

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