“It is impossible,” I retort, but fear plummets through my body like a stone. “I have scarcely left her side. No one has been to the cottage. No food or drink has passed her lips except what I have fed her myself.”

“That’s just it, my dear Weed. Those vile potions you keep dribbling through her tender, kissable lips—blech! Enough poison in there to paralyze a cow.”

“That medicine was prepared by her father! No one else has been near her.” But already my hands begin to clench with rage—it cannot be—

Oleander’s powerful wings beat in a slow, accusing rhythm. “Think, Weed! Did you never wonder what truly happened that night, the night you and your bride-to-be went half mad with passion and entered her father’s study to taste the forbidden fruit, as it were? Did you not suspect for one moment that there were forces more powerful than your simpering calf love at work? That, perhaps, there might have been something in the tea that Jessamine’s beloved father so carefully prepared for you both before he left for London?”

“How do you know this?”

Oleander’s eyes flash as if they would burst into flame. His voice soars with rage. “I know because it was here he came—without my permission!—to my realm, knife in hand, to shear the tender growth from my loyal subjects and mix their very limbs into an elixir of love that would inflame the blood and erase inhibition! A few sips would all but guarantee that you, you callow, ardent misfit, and that perfectly ripe, lovestruck girl would lose all reason, abandon all restraint—”

“Curb your tongue, evil prince!”

“Evil? I am nearly a saint compared to that clever, wicked Thomas Luxton! He witnessed the spark of affection between you; all he had to do was nurture it into a mighty, consuming flame.” Oleander spreads his great wings fully, until they blot out half the sky. “That you and his quivering, untouched daughter performed so lavishly, even providing him with grounds for a betrothal—why, it must have been more than any proud father could have hoped for! Now you were bound together, in life and in death. Now he could ask anything of you, for her sake, and you, righteous prig that you are, would jump to comply.”

“But to what end would he do this?” I cry. “For what purpose?”