I shook my head as though this memory of Nella’s was happening now, right in front of my eyes. “H-how did she know where to find you?” I stammered.

“She knew of my mother’s shop for women’s maladies. Remember, she was the one who first sent Frederick to me, when she badly needed the motherwort. She also knew he had a tendency, you might say, to skirt around. She asked me to share the truth with her. This was merely four weeks after I had lost the baby. I was still bleeding, still in a great deal of heartache, and so I revealed everything to her. Afterward, she told me that I was not his first mistress, and then she began to ask questions of the bottles and brews on my shelves. I told her what I have told you—that in large quantities, nearly anything is deadly—and to my great surprise, Rissa asked for nux vomica, which can be used in very small doses to treat fever, even plague. But it is, of course, rat poison. The same thing that killed your master.”

Nella spread her hands wide. “Upon her asking, I hesitated but a moment, then dispensed her a deadly quantity, free of charge, and advised her how to best disguise the flavor. Just as Frederick had slipped a poison to me, I instructed Rissa how to do the same. That, child, is how it began. With Rissa. With Frederick.

“After Rissa left, there was a sense of release within me. Vengeance is its own medicine.” She let out a small cough. “Frederick was dead the next day. I read it that week, in the papers. Doctors blamed it on heart failure.”

Nella’s coughing grew louder and rose into a full-blown fit. She clutched her stomach, her breath hoarse, for several minutes. At last she leaned forward, gasping. “My mother, my child, my lover. And so it went—like a tiny leak, slow and hushed at first, word began to spread through the city. I do not know who Rissa told first, or who that person told next, but the web of whispers began to spread. At some point they started leaving letters, and I was forced to build a wall in my shop to remain unseen. I had not the heart to close up the place of my mother’s legacy, no matter how I had spoiled it.”