Alchemy, like all other arts, evolved over the years. At the start, it was a specialized tool to help life flourish. People made potions that closed wounds, mended bones, and healed illnesses.

  Unfortunately, my family had gotten very rich and powerful by using alchemy to inflict the opposite fate.

  That’s why I was hunched over a book bound in scarlet leather, breathing in noxious fumes and working over an innocuous-looking bowl of pure death.

  The enchanted glass of my mana cauldron offered a perfect view of the purple, viscous liquid churning within. The concoction still held the color of its base ingredient, manticore venom. My mana-sheathed hands didn’t even tremble as I lifted a paste made out of foxglove and gympie needles and fed it into the cauldron’s intake.

  The paste’s reaction was explosive. Only the best alchemists could pacify these ingredients and catalyze their merging.

  The best alchemists… or, in other words, any member of the Belladonna family.

  I sent a stream of mana out, entwined it with the mana of the brewing poison, and calmed the reaction down. The deep purple color lightened a shade. Moonflower and castor beans went in after that. The reaction was much more subdued, the mana-rich plants practically negating each other.

  Of course, I didn’t relax. Just because the danger wasn’t obvious didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  Almost imperceptibly, a vortex had begun to build in the center of the cauldron, threatening to shatter the vessel. Sending my own mana in the opposite direction to counter the spin, I threw in two winter rose roots and a single drop of basilisk venom. The concoction hissed and sparked.

  A drop of sweat snaked down my cheek as the liquid began to lose volume, emitting vile plumes of smoke that snuck out of the cauldron. They would have killed me had my resistance not been carefully built up over years of torturous conditioning. In the end, there was only enough left in the cauldron to fill a single small bottle.

  It didn’t look like much. It reminded me of water, really. Colorless. Tasteless. Scentless. I could hand it off to someone, and they’d never suspect a thing.

  But the poison wasn’t quite ready yet.

  The dangerous and difficult parts were all behind me. All I had to do now was send another wave of my mana through the concoction. This would harmonize the ingredients and sync up their mana frequencies, stabilizing the poison which had made the Belladonna family so feared throughout the world.

  It was the final required proof of my alchemical skills… such as they were.

  The path was nicely laid out for me. I would complete the poison and present it to my parents, who would notify the Royal Family. I would be summoned before the Court. Then Oberon himself would oversee the ceremony of my swearing-in, binding my body, mind, and soul to the service of royalty.

  In perpetuity.

  No amount of regret or objections would be able to change anything after that. If my King demanded I kill my own children in their cribs, I would be obligated to do it.

  He wouldn’t. I knew that. Such an order would only breed resentment, and there wasn’t a single Autumn Fae who was not inclined towards petty and vengeful behavior. (Myself included, no matter how much I tried to resist it.) The King knew better than to anger his best alchemists and assassins like that.

  But this was not the reassurance it seemed to be. Not when I kept remembering the number of people he would order me to kill.

  One more step, and the potion would be complete. One more step, and my fate would be sealed. One more step, and I would enter a life of servitude and murder.

  I couldn’t do it.

  My family was essential to the stability of the Autumn Court. Our skills kept the kingdom’s enemies at bay. I understood that. I really did.

  It was just not what I wanted out of life.

  Funnily enough, I couldn’t even be bitter about ending up here. I’d had plenty of chances to speak out or to rebel against my training. Instead, I kept my mouth shut for sixteen long years, ever since my physical conditioning began at the age of four.

  Why? I couldn’t tell you.

  Maybe it was just stupidity at the start. Simple, blind acceptance that these things were expected of me. That this training was the only destiny available to someone named Lianthorn Belladonna.

  As I grew up, though, things got… complicated. A lack of desire did not equate to a lack of talent. Once royalty got wind of how fast I was blazing through my training, I was showered with praise and rewards. And, of course, there was the biting undercut of implications that should I falter or prove myself unworthy, there would be consequences.

  Alright, so maybe I did know why I had never said anything.

  I wanted to be praised. I wanted my family to approve of me. Maybe even show that affection they so rarely displayed.

  Not that any of those reasons mattered anymore. Because, again, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t finalize my transformation into yet another lethal member of the Belladonna family.

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  Which also meant I couldn’t stay here.

  To be honest, I had known this moment was coming for nearly five years. Right after the fourth murder I committed on my mother’s orders.

  I’d felt nothing about the first three. They were complete strangers to me, and each came with an explanation. A murderer. A rapist. An enemy spy I got to test my potions on before he expired.

  Then one of our butlers was caught trying to steal important documents from my parents’ study, and my mother saw it as the perfect opportunity to give me a little more experience. The man wasn’t as well-trained as I was, even back then, but all servants of the Belladonna family were familiar with basic self-defense.

  My mother handed me a dagger, turned to the butler, and offered him a simple deal: get out of the estate, or kill me before I killed him.

  I’m not sure what it was that made me snap. Was it his blood pooling out of the gash I’d made in his throat? Or was it the fact that he’d gotten so very close to shoving his own dagger into my chest, failing solely because of my superior reflexes?

  Five years later, I still don’t know. I only know that when I left the butler bleeding out on the ground, something inside me shifted.

  That was when the daydreams began.

  Five years of fantasies about running away and starting a life far from all the expectations and poison and murder. Five years of quietly setting aside coins of foreign mint and collecting knickknacks that would be useful on the road. Not that I actually thought anything would come of all my prep work, but it was nice to dream.

  The jewel of my collection was a storage bag. The unassuming leather container opened into a magically expanded space of ten-by-ten meters. Anything brought to the mouth of the bag, so long as it could fit the space inside, got sucked up and stored away. Fetching items was as simple as sticking your hand into the bag and imagining the item you wanted.

  It was here that I kept all my ‘getaway’ belongings hidden. The bag itself was carefully concealed at the bottom of my potion ingredients case.

  Which was, at this moment, open on the workbench right next to me.

  I stared at the vial in my hand for one more long moment. The horrors I’d already been forced to enact… the atrocities that would be expected of me in the future… they all boiled through my mind, clashing with a lifelong sense of obligation. Even familial affection, curdled and sickly as it was.

  Last of all, the butler’s face flashed across my memory, his features frozen in a look of fear and agony.

  I reached my decision.

  Turning to the case, I lifted things out until I reached the false bottom. Gently, I pressed my fingers into the indent that triggered the hidden latch, revealing the space where my bag lay hidden. My hands trembled as I pulled the bag out. I paused one more time, then repacked my ingredients case before placing it into the storage bag.

  I had several blank journals, purchased to keep notes on my alchemy practice. I tore a piece of paper out of one before stuffing all of them into the storage bag. Paper was going to be an extreme luxury where I was likely to end up.

  The final item I packed was the one I struggled the most over.

  The scarlet leather-bound alchemy tome was a gift handed down to every member of my family when they began their training. Its pages were densely filled with recipes, constantly updated through the generations. I was expected to make improvements on the recipes, document my findings, and pass on a worthier legacy to my children.

  I should have left the book right there. But some unseen instinct made me pick it up and shove it into my storage bag.

  That left me holding the scrap of parchment, entirely unsure of what I wanted to write on it. Eventually, I managed to scribble a single word.

  Sorry.

  I gently placed the shiny vial of incomplete poison on top of the parchment and took a moment to collect myself.

  Then I strode out of the room.

  The alchemy labs were located on our manor’s basement level. The cost of the air purification enchantments alone could have funded a lesser noble house for centuries. Still, the ability to keep our work away from prying eyes was supposedly worth the price.

  This secret remoteness worked in my favor, especially when coupled with the late hour. I had worked deep into the night, well past the point demanded by even my family’s strict training. There was no one to see me pull a plain black cloak out of my storage bag and bundle myself up.

  I then applied a useful little technique I’d learned to my eyes and hair.

  My family’s mana was special. As we grew, it slowly acquired the properties of the poison we handled and ingested, allowing us take advantage of certain poisons’ more ‘useful’ properties.

  Within moments, my vibrant crimson hair was dyed black. The striking green of my eyes, which marked me as a Noble Fae of the Autumn Court, dulled before turning yellow. There wasn’t much to be done about my height and my features, but the cloak concealed those. To a casual glance, I could now pass for one of the lesser fae.

  Now I just needed to make it out of the manor grounds.

  Here, I couldn’t deny the benefits of my training. I deftly sank into the shadows as I stalked through the halls of my home. I had long memorized the patrol patterns and schedules of the guards. I’d even put extra effort into confirming those patterns myself after realizing that some of the information available, even to a family member like me, was a lie.

  For example, it was true that none of the patrols went through certain gardens where we nurtured plants for our alchemy. But it was also true that those gardens were strictly monitored using enchantments. Furthermore, the plants’ deadliness had been so enhanced by wards and runic circles that even a member of my lineage couldn’t pass through the gardens after dark without severe risk.

  Far better to slip past the patrolling guards.

  It was easy, to be honest. Too easy. Even once I was finally outside the house, sneaking through the more mundane gardens on my way to a certain spot in our estate’s wall, I kept stealing glances backwards.

  No guards appeared to stop me. Neither of my parents materialized out of the gloom to end my adventure.

  Instead, I quickly reached the wall that separated our manor grounds from the rest of the Autumn Court's capital city. I quietly pulled out a few loose bricks I’d discovered as a child, then used the holes to scale my way up.

  I paused there for a moment, just taking in my home. The manor rose up towards the night sky, its elegant lines and gleaming windows almost blending into the stars. It was the only place I’d ever lived. It was the setting for so many memories, good and bad.

  I strode the few remaining steps across the top of the wall, then let gravity take me.

  I was nowhere near as physically strong as a knight, but assassins had to condition their bodies too. My legs absorbed the landing with accustomed ease. Then I ventured deeper into the city, away from the noble neighborhoods and towards the bustle of the more commercial streets.

  Many people worked constantly to keep up with the demands of the Court, so seeing people up and about in these later hours wasn’t unusual. Neither was it rare for coaches and wagons to depart from the city at all times of the day and night.

  I soon found a small caravan about to set off on their journey and paid them for access to one of their wagons, where I could travel in privacy. I parted with more coins than such an arrangement would typically cost, but received a decent amount of traveling rations in return, along with assurances that no one would disturb me unless I initiated contact.

  Less than an hour later, the caravan departed.

  I didn’t know how long I would stay with it. I wasn’t even sure where I was going. But there was time to figure that out. For now, only one thing mattered.

  I had left the Autumn Court, and my murderous future, behind.