What is it, sweetie?

I think this was a Botticelli, I said.

Just a few splashes of colour now, crumbling in my hand. I let it drop to the floor, and straightened up again.

Why would the enemy take time out from fighting the Droods to destroy so many important works of art? These paintings were priceless, irreplaceable. Why not take them and sell them?

Because whoever did this was only interested in destruction and revenge, said Molly. I used to be like that. I would have torched every painting in every museum in the world to get back at your family for killing my parents. The Droods have angered a lot of people in their time, Eddie. Sometimes hurting the one you hate can be far more important than profiting from them.

Are you saying we deserved this? That we had it coming? That we brought all this on ourselves?

Of course not! I m just making the point that really angry people often don t stop to think logically.

I liked the paintings, I said. And there were photographs, too, towards the end of the corridor. A whole history of my family. And the only photograph I ever saw of my mother and my father How am I ever going to remember what they looked like, with the only photo destroyed?

I don t have any photos of my parents, said Molly. But I still think of them every day. You ll remember them.

We moved on. All the statues and sculptures had been blown apart or just smashed to pieces. So much concentrated rage I couldn t even tell which piece was which from just looking at the scattered parts, though here and there I d glimpse some familiar detail. The rich carpet that had stretched the whole length of the hallway was gone; just a charred and blackened mess that crunched under our feet.

It was like walking through the tomb of some lost civilisation and trying to re-create its original glory and grandeur from what small broken pieces remained.