“And you need time.” Snakeweed’s voice seethes with scorn. “Time to perform your third, and final, task.”

“Final it shall be, for I grow weary of your evil games.” Bitterly I take the packet of herbs and begin walking in the direction of the gate.

“A word to the wise, Master Weed,” Dumbcane calls after me. “Next time you want to kill something, use a little poison. It’s so much easier—and less messy—than bashing in heads with a stick.”

His laughter increases and grows out of control, until it becomes a rolling, rumbling, sickening sound, like the fall of an avalanche. “Use a little poison, why don’t you? Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Mr. Luxton hovers near me as, with trembling hands, I spoon the mixture between Jessamine’s lips. As the potion trickles down her throat, she shudders and gasps, as if this would be her last breath. Before our eyes, she sinks into a blue-tinged stillness it would be all too easy to mistake for death.

“Fascinating,” Mr. Luxton says, gazing at his daughter’s lifeless form. “Does she feel any pain, I wonder? Is she aware of us at all, or has she been sent into some mysterious, twilight sleep, in which she has no knowledge of the passage of time?”

“I hope she feels no pain,” I say softly. My heart breaks as I look at her. Will I ever hear her voice again? I think. Will we ever again walk together through the fields and forests? And her lips—how alive they were, once! How still and cold they are now.

I tuck the blankets snugly around her. Her chest barely rises. The pulse I seek in her wrist is slow and so faint as to be nearly imperceptible. I knew nothing of love before meeting Jessamine, and now I am left to wonder: Is this how it works? A teardrop’s worth of happiness dissolved in an ocean of loss?

I would do anything to save her, no matter how base or cruel. I know that now. The Poisons have taught me that. For the love of her, I did the one thing my beloved—my betrothed!—made me swear not to do. And now she lies before me, all but dead.

“You must try again, Weed,” Mr. Luxton urges. “You must go back to the garden. You must learn everything you can, so we can save her from this curséd, nameless disease….”

He talks on and on in this insistent way, as he scribbles away in his book of cures. Gazing down at the lifeless mask that now stands in for my dear Jessamine’s face, I fear it has all been a mistake. I should never have listened to the Poisons, or gone to them for help.