“Only if you let Luxton go.”

“He deserves to die!”

“So do we all, I’m afraid. Yet some of us live on, and on, and on—”

Luxton watches me, transfixed. “Who are you talking to?” he whispers in hoarse amazement. I ignore the wretch, for Oleander still dangles the antidote just out of my reach.

“Fine. I will let him go,” I say desperately. “He is free! Look, I have released him; he can go where he will. The farther away, the better. Now—please—”

“You misunderstand me, Weed. Luxton must stay here and care for Jessamine, of course. And you must leave, now, and never return.”

“What! Why should I be the one to leave?” This final cruelty is too much for me. My knees buckle and pitch me to the earth.

“You know why. You are lost, Weed. A killer, a monster. You are no longer fit to be a husband for Jessamine Luxton, if you ever were—and what else could you be? You love her too much to be a servant, or a friend—”

“But she loves me, too,” I insist.

“She loved you before. But now? Now there is blood on your hands, Weed. She deserves better, so much better, than you—if you truly loved her you would see that.”

The antidote bobs in the air.

I am trapped. Oleander has plunged me into the very pit of evil, where there is no power to do right. And yet I must do something. I am at the crossroads again, but the four directions lead to ruin, misery, loneliness, death—

“All right!” I cry, my heart breaking even as I say it. “I will go. I will leave.”

With a graceful swerve, Oleander drops the antidote into my outstretched hands. He rises up above us then, and circles higher and higher, until the black speck of evil disappears into the hellfire of the sun.

Luxton stares at me, and past me. His eyes scan the sky, but he sees nothing. He looks even more terrified than when I had my hands on his throat.

“Give her this mixture at once; make haste!” I shove the antidote roughly at his chest. “It is the cure to your filthy poisons. Give it to your daughter now, or you will surely die. And beware, Luxton,” I add, my voice dripping with menace. “There is nowhere on this green earth you can go but where I will have news of your evildoing. Every patch of moss, every blade of grass, every weed that grows in the stone walls of your home is my spy and ally. If you ever harm one hair on Jessamine’s head again, you will die a death more horrible than even your wildest nightmares could imagine.”

Time is wasting, Weed—

“Go!” I scream it to the heavens. “Go now, for the next time I lay eyes on you, I swear, it will be to kill you.”