Is there no end to their toying with me? I swallow my rage and reply. “The first two tasks resulted in death. Death wrought by inaction, and death wrought by wrongheaded justice. I know the third task will bring death as well—and you say it is the worst of all.” My voice is hollow, as if it comes from someplace far away. “The worst death of all—is the slaughter of the innocent.”

“He is clever, so very clever!” Larkspur quivers with delight. “I think he is as clever as our prince—”

“Hush, child,” Snakeweed snarls, and then addresses me. “Well done, Master Weed. You must slaughter the innocent. For if you dare demand the power to cure, you must also embrace the power to kill. That is the lesson of the poison garden.”

“You are mad to bid me do this!” My temper is unleashed now, and I have no control of my words. “If there is one thing I have learned, from loving Jessamine and even from the evil tasks you have made me do, it is that all forms of life are worthy of compassion. There is no life without death, true, but needless killing is an abomination.”

One of Dumbcane’s thick, broad leaves falls and drifts to the ground. “Stand at the crossroads. Slaughter the innocent. Only then can your beloved be saved. So commands the Prince of Poisons.”

My breath comes fast, my heart pounds. I reach down to pick up the leaf, and in doing so I know I am beaten.

“Who is this prince?” I ask in defeat. “Is he the one I have done so much evil to please?”

“You need not ask who he is,” Snakeweed croons. “If you earn his regard, he will reveal himself.”

This time I take Dumbcane’s advice. My murder weapon is in a small vial in my pocket, a lethal tincture of leaves from the poison garden mixed with a small amount of whiskey I steal from Mr. Luxton’s cabinet.

I stand at the crossroads as I have been told to do. People go by, farmers, merchants, women and children, beggars and pilgrims. They are on their way to the sea, to market, to Alnwick.

Who among them will be my victim? Is it truly up to me to choose?

If only I could choose. I think of all the persecutors I have known in my life. Not only Tobias Pratt, but so many others who reviled me as a witch, a freak, an outcast. If one of them would walk by, perhaps I could bring myself to kill, I think. But they would hardly be innocent.

The parade of humanity passes, singly, in twos and threes. I watch, and wait. And mourn, for what I must now do to save Jessamine’s life makes me unworthy of her love. Whether she lives or dies, I know I have lost her.

I have lost her, forever.