Page 80 of These Vile Hearts

They move back to the flowers.

Oleander.

I remember hearing my parents discuss a story they read in the newspaper about a kid dying from ingesting oleander flowers. My mom was at the edge of hysterics, begging my dad to search our yard for the plant, as if I would go chomp on a random bush at the age of seven. Out of her earshot, I asked my dad if it was just the petals that were poisonous.

“Every bit of them is poisonous,” he told me. “The leaves, the stems, the petals, the seeds.”

“Why do people let them grow, then?” I asked.

“Because poisonous things can still be beautiful.”

Over the past few nights Magesté has acquired a hoard of wine from visitors—the fancy ones like to use it as a bribe to get the best orchids. Just last night, I saw a bottle of Aronia wine from Willamette Valley. The same kind Castor waxed poetic about the first morning he brought me coffee.

It’s as if every single piece of this homicidal puzzle has lined up for me. So perfect, it almost seems too easy.

The oleander tree clacks against the window just outside of my room, beckoning me.

Just do it.The tree taps.Do it.

I finally listen.

Ducking around the building, avoiding the line of visitors, I climb with great difficulty into my room, falling with a thud onto the floor. The kitchen is blissfully empty thanks to the raging party going on upstairs. The show is already in full swing by the sound of it. I gather the supplies I’ll need and a pair of thin leather gloves to protect my hands.

Then I return to my bedroom window and lean out to pluck flowers, stems, leaves, and even a cluster of seeds from the oleander tree. More than enough to poison a king. Opening the Aronia wine, I pour some out into a decanter filled with the oleander to let it soak.

While my poison marinates, I find a card and some gold string, writing a note inside and labeling itFor the king, signed with a heart and a swirling letterM.

The longer the oleander steeps in the wine, the more my hands tremble, the more my heart palpitates. It’s my own fault that I’ve taken this long—long enough to stop hating the dryad king. Long enough to even like him. Ache for him.

The ghost of his fingertips on my thighs sends an uncomfortable shiver across my shoulders. This kingdom is full of ghosts. Ghosts of my father’s choices. Ghosts of a life I could have here if I weren’t chained to this bloody pact, to my insulin and needles.

All of this started with my father. He told me so much and so little all at once. All those stories and comments about the dryads and the Myrtle Queen, yet I never asked him formore. I never asked him to stop speaking in riddles and explain what he knew. I was justglad to be with him, away from my mom for long enough to be able to breathe.

If anyone were to understand my desperation right now, it would be him. And I think I understand now. My dad did what he did because he had to. Because he made a desperate pact like I did. He knew that making a deal with a dryad queen came with a price, and yet he did it anyway. Just as I did.

I stare at the decanter of wine, the oleander petals floating like a drowned girl in a white dress. I’m beginning to think maybe we are both the villains in this story.

And yet…I still pour the oleander-soaked wine back into the bottle and drop a couple more leaves inside. I still find an unused cork in the Magesté cellar, pushing it into the top with an old metal corker. I still place the bottle back on the counter with the others to let the leaves continue to bleed their poison in the king’s favored beverage. Then I sneak back out my window and enter through the front doors as if I just arrived from my dinner party.

“Oleander,” Fern greets with a desperate grin, carrying a clinking tray of chalices as I sidle past a group of waiting dryads. For a moment, my breath catches, as if she’s just pointed out my treachery. “Thank the tree gods you’re back. I can’t keep up with the numbers. There are somany.”

Joining her behind the front desk, I take charge of the books, cringing at her messy scrawl and inaccurate calculations. “Why is it so busy tonight?”

“With the Sylveris Solstice so near, dryads and arborfae from across the two kingdoms will be arriving every day now.”

The mention of my deadline makes my stomach somersault. “That’s not for a few days, though.”

“A few days of drinking and debauchery, both of which Magesté has in excess. Magesté has it all.”

“Mmm.” I stare down at the disheveled papers, not really seeing them.

“Are you doing all right, Oleander?”

I tear my eyes away from the numbers and letters on the orchid log currently swimming together in my vision. “Huh?”

Tonight, Fern wears a sheer blue gown, ebony hair tied at the nape of her slender green neck. I’ve long since grown used to her near nakedness. Especially since, as we speak, there are at least twenty fae fornicating in the adjoining room. Sex and nudity have never shocked me. I’ve always been open and unapologetic about the things I’ve done—a proud and confident bisexual. For me, sex was just another way I could maintain control of something.

But tonight, I lost that control when Castor kissed me. And somehow that bothers me more than not killing him when I had the chance.