The Devil's Debt

They buried her in the dark. They didn't know they were planting a seed. East Anglia, 1645. The Civil War bleeds the country dry, but in the village of Oakhaven, a different kind of war is waged. Ursula Marlowe is a healer, a mother, and a woman alone—a dangerous combination in the eyes of the Witchfinder General. When a jealous friend, a zealous prosecutor, and a lustful magistrate conspire to destroy her, Ursula is stripped of her life. She is not hanged, but remanded—thrown into a forgotten cellar beneath the Magistrate's manor to rot in the dark. She loses her husband. She loses her son. She loses her name. But in the silence of the earth, Ursula does not die. She learns. Guided by the whisper of a fellow prisoner through the stone walls, she masters the arts of commerce, chemistry, and patience. She claws her way back from the grave, not as Ursula Marlowe, but as Madame Corvis. Wealthy, unrecognizable, and armed with a terrible brilliance, she returns to the valley that broke her. She does not come for justice. She comes for a reckoning. She will buy their debts. She will expose their sins. And she will turn their own desires into the cages that destroy them. Revenge is a dish best served cold. But Ursula Marlowe prefers hers carved from the bone.