Beatrice walked out of the library, the sound of Alistair’s laughter chasing her down the hall. She didn’t go to her bedroom to weep. She went out the back doors, crossing the lawn to the private greenhouse where she spent her days.
The air inside was humid and thick with the scent of earth. She walked past the prize roses and the orchids she had once pruned with such aggression.
She stopped at the back of the garden, in the section marked *TOXIC / MEDICINAL*.
She looked down at the tall, purple spires of the *Digitalis purpurea*–Foxglove. It was a beautiful flower, but every part of it was deadly. In the right dose, it could stop a heart–or simulate a heart attack, the very method Alistair had used to fake his death ten years ago.
“You forgot one thing, Alistair,” Beatrice whispered to the silence, her face setting into a mask of cold, terrifying resolve. “I made the tea.”
She reached out and snapped the stem of the most potent plant. She wasn’t the victim anymore. She was ready to be the executioner.