It was not the first request of its kind. Over the preceding two decades, I had been asked several times to dispense a poison that would be administered to another woman, but I had refused these customers without question. No matter the underlying betrayal, no woman would suffer at my hands. My mother founded the apothecary shop at 3 Back Alley to heal and nurture women, and I would preserve this until the day I died.

It was possible, of course, that some of my customers told me lies—that they kept their true intentions from me and meant to slip my tinctures to sisters or courtesans. And how could I stop them? It would have been impossible. But as far as I knew, my poisons had never been used against a woman. Never. And so long as I lived, I would not knowingly agree to it.

I considered how I might say this now—how I might tell this woman no—but her eyes were dark and I felt sure she sensed my desire to refuse her. She seized the moment of silence, my weakness, like I was a rabbit and she a fox. She squared her shoulders toward me. “You do not seem pleased by this.”

I had regained some of my senses, and words no longer resisted. “I appreciate your efforts in seeking me out, but I cannot agree to this. I cannot send you away with this powder, if you mean to kill a woman. This shop is meant to help and heal women, not harm them. That remains the cornerstone. I won’t dislodge it.”

“And yet you’re a murderer,” she accused. “How can you talk about helping and healing anything, man or woman?” She glanced at the open jar of beetle powder. “Do you even care to know who she is, this insect? She is his mistress, his whore—”

The woman continued to explain, but her words deteriorated into a faint hum as I blinked slowly, the room growing dark around me. An old, shameful memory closed in: I had been a mistress once, too, though I hadn’t known it at the time. An insect, a whore, according to this woman. I was the secret kept in the shadows—not someone to be loved, but a form of amusement. And no matter how I adored him, I would never forget the moment that I learned of Frederick’s masquerade—his web of lies. It was a bitter thing to swallow, the realization that I’d been little more than an empty vessel for Frederick’s lust.

If only this had been the worst of his transgressions. The worst of what he had done to me. Instinctively, I grazed my fingers across my belly.