The poison daughter

I frown. That’s odd. I was expecting a location for a target we vetted three days ago, but Bea wants me to come straight to her bar.

Footsteps behind me startle me into action. I slam the mailbox shut and dart down the nearest alley. I follow the twists and turns until the familiar facade of Guardian’s Crossing comes into sight. The watchful painted eyes of a warrior look out over the heads of two men leaning against the wall, smoking. The man in the painting has his sword drawn, like he’s ready to cut down the men for daring to smoke so close to the front door, but for all the painting’s handsome menace, he’s just a folktale for the people of the city. The greater threat to the smokers is the bar owner.

I ignore their leering as I shove open the front door.

Guardian’s Crossing is an easy choice for meeting clients. It’s full of potent cocktails, loud music, and discreet liaisons. Pushing through the crush of people, I make my way to the bar.

Beatrice Grange looks up from behind the bar and meets my eye.

Even in a glamour, she recognizes me. I try to ignore the way her smile hits me in the chest. No matter how many times I remind myself that we’re just friends now—that she’s moved on—my heart still kicks up a beat for her.

Bea always looks so confident and beautiful behind the bar. Her hair is short but styled impeccably into a shiny bob. Her high-waisted trousers accentuate her full hips and narrow waist, and her shirt sleeves are rolled up to show off flawless brown skin and strong forearms that she’s earned pulling pints, hauling casks, and tossing out any man foolish enough to get too handsy with her barmaids.

I walk to the end of the bar, dodging a waitress with a precariously stacked tray of drinks, and lean over the bar toward Bea.

“You summoned?”

She smiles tightly. “I did. I have a new client here for you. There’s just one problem.”

I groan. “Please, no more problems today. I’ve had a long night already.”

“It’s a rush job. She wants it done tonight.”

Of course. This couldn’t just be a normal job and a normal night.

“Fine,” I grumble. I rub the bridge of my nose, the ache from earlier growing worse with the sudden rush of noise and scent.

Bea’s brow pinches in concern. “You’re not doing this if you have a headache.”

I sigh. “It’s just the itch of the glamour.”

The lie comes easily because it’s born out of years of pretending I feel fine when I’m in excruciating pain. It used to make me feel powerful—that I could hide such wretched agony from the world. Now it just makes me feel lonely.

In truth, it’s not that bad right now, and I don’t have the bright, shining aura that I sometimes get around my eyes. Tonight, my pain is manageable, and I have to push through because there will be too many nights when I can’t.

Bea’s doubtful frown suggests she doesn’t believe me, but she nods toward the table tucked behind green velvet curtains in the back corner as she hands me a pint.

I grab it, but she tugs it back.

“I don’t like this,” Bea says, her low rasp cutting through the bar noise. “We agreed no rush jobs. We have a vetting process for a reason.”

“Don’t go soft on me now. You’re the one who summoned me here to meet a new client instead of sending me out to take out a vetted target,” I snap. “I suppose it’s for the best. I have so little time.”

Maybe it’s foolish to think that one last kill will be enough to calm the restlessness that’s settled in my stomach since my father a

But that could all end tomorrow. Maybe one more abuser choking on his dying breath won’t make a big difference in the city, but it will make a big difference to one woman.

“Why don’t you have time?” Bea presses.

I yank the pint glass from her hand and take a long pull. “Well, Bea, it seems I’m being married off.” I offer her a brief rundown of the earlier events of the evening.

A muscle in Bea’s jaw clenches. “I thought once would have been enough.”

“You and me both.”

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t served as my parents’ beautiful assassin before—discreetly flirting and sneaking away with anyone they deemed knew too much about our family. Keeper of the Well getting too big for his britches? That’s a job for Harlow. An old tutor drinking until his lips loosened about my brother’s magic? Harlow will take care of it.

I hated every minute of it, but I never complained because our survival relied on unified strength. The only time I ever hesitated was when they asked me—or, rather, told me—to marry Marc Beckley.

I may be toxic to a chosen few who deserve it, but that man was a poison to the entire city. He’d managed to carve out a place for himself as a sort of antagonist to my father, and before he could gain too much political strength, my father proposed a marriage alliance. He accepted because he wanted a pretty, powerful wife who was half his age.

I’d hoped I could just kiss him and get it over with quickly. But my father didn’t just want Marc gone. He wanted the man discredited entirely.

Though the magic at my lips is ever-present—coming to life with the swift and deadly poison of the Nightsong flower any time I anticipate a kiss—I’ve learned that with a little focus, I can summon other types of plant poison instead. All I have to do is read how the plant works and take the time to touch it.

I’ve been careful not to let my family know about the nuances of my skill. As far as they are concerned, all of my poison is the same and it’s only how much I use on a victim that affects whether they die immediately or slowly.

Poisoning Marc was delicate work—a huge test of my concentration as much as my ability to wield my magic.

We courted for three months, during which time he incessantly pressured me to go to bed with him and I feigned chastity while sabotaging his political campaign. Every time I served him tea, I dipped my poison fingers in it and watched him slowly unravel to the point of madness. A week after we were married, his political career and bid for mayor imploded. Finally, I made it look like he’d poisoned himself in his shame.

The city is better without Marc, and I don’t regret what I did, except it means that I’ve had to accept condolences with some semblance of faux grief for the past six months. That is the truly exhausting part.

While much of the family’s magic is bold and dazzling, mine is invisible unless you’re looking for the purple tinge to my lips. That said, there’s no secret so closely guarded as how each Carrenwell’s magic manifests. We only ever show off as a family unit so that it’s impossible for adversaries to tell who would make easy prey. The only magic they know for sure is Vardek’s protective blessing of holy fire that my father and Able wield.

Bea’s eyes dart around the room. “So you’re to be married again? To who?”

“Apparently Fallen Hold has come in from the cold and their heir needs a wife,” I say. The words taste bitter on my tongue.

Bea’s shock is an echo of my own. “I don’t understand. They’ve rebuilt?”

I nod.

“From complete a

I shrug.

For almost ten years, Mountain Haven has been Fallen Hold, a dark fairy tale—a threat whispered by parents to naughty children at the market—you better behave or I’ll ship you off to the haunted Fallen Hold where they’ll steal your soul and keep you as a little ghost puppet.

I was twenty when the wall fell—old enough not to believe the macabre folklore—but I can’t help but wonder what kind of grim things the people of Mountain Haven had to do to survive all these years in hiding.

Bea stands a little straighter, her interest piqued. “Does that mean we could get trade back with the outside world?”

I cock my head. “I thought you loved me, and here you are willing to offer me up for a chance at importing wines from beyond the mountains.”

She shrugs a shoulder. “I do love you, but those wines make me money. You just cost me.”

The words are more teasing than barbed, but they still sting.

Bea glances at the bottles on the shelf behind the bar. “Sorry. It’s just been so long. It’s hard to imagine what trade routes could do after almost ten years of isolation.”

“Yes, I’m delighted for you, but I have more pressing concerns than you being able to stop making your terrible wine,” I say.

When the fort fell, the visiting traders that used to come biweekly dwindled, their visits stretching longer and longer, until finally they stopped because of the lack of shelter and the growing number of Drained.

Bea brushes her dark hair behind her ear, her brow pinched with concern. “But why marry you to their heir? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

I laugh bitterly. “It’s less punishment than bad luck. I’m the last Carrenwell available to marry off. Offering a wife from one of the other magical families would have been an insult. Plus, Kellan thinks my parents want me to spy on the Havenwoods. It’s suspicious that they haven’t made contact for ten years and the first thing they ask for is a wife for their son.”

“You’re not a spy.” Bea shakes her head. “They can’t do this. Haven’t they learned after Aidia?”

Aidia’s bruised face pops into my head, and I fight the urge to tell Bea about the latest injury. It’s not the first time I’ve lamented this to her. She started helping me vet clients a year ago when I first found out about what Aidia was going through. I can’t help my sister, but I can help the client in similar circumstances who’s probably already sitting in the curtained-off booth in the back of this bar.

“I can take care of myself,” I say.

Bea’s eyes narrow, her cheeks flushing a dark berry color. She rounds the bar, drags me into the back room, and shoves me up against the wall.

The storage room had once seemed dark and romantic, but now it just seems dingy. A water spot stains the plaster ceiling, and the scent of stale beer hangs in the air. The room is dim, but I can still see the fury in her eyes.

I bite back a startled laugh. “This is familiar, but I thought you and Josie were exclusive now.”

Bea scowls, but her gaze drops to my mouth before meeting my eyes again. “Just because you and I are not together anymore doesn’t mean I don’t care.” She swallows thickly. “You’re my best friend.”

Bea’s tough bartender exterior is completely gone, and seeing the raw concern in her eyes is too much. I shouldn’t tease her. It’s not her fault that she couldn’t do without the intimacy of being kissed. I wouldn’t choose it myself if I could help it.

I cross my arms. “I’m not here about that, and I didn’t anticipate you being so sentimental about it. You left a note in the box. There’s a client here and my days are numbered in town.”