Note: This chapter focuses on the preparation of the toxins that Esme uses as well as how she uses them and how it gets to her targets. You can skip to the next chapter if you want, but I recommend reading it.
The greenhouse of Everflora didn't smell like flowers anymore.
Not tonight.
Tonight, it smelled like steel and bitter roots, old blood and memory. Esme stood at her workbench in silence, sleeves rolled up, gloves tight, her breathing slow and controlled. A single hanging bulb swayed above her, casting long, skeletal shadows across jars of dried leaves, vials of oil and essence, and pages torn from her mother's old journal—a compendium of death bound in love.
The target was clear now. Silas Dorne.
Esme had spent days weighing her options, sketching dosage notes into the margins of florist invoices and rewriting poison formulas into the backs of grocery receipts. Dorne wouldn't die by accident. He wouldn't die quickly either. She wanted precision. Quiet inevitability. A death that bloomed slowly and could never be traced.
She reached first for the foxglove.
Digitalis purpurea.
She remembered the day her mother had taught her to handle it. "It slows the rhythm of the heart," Helena had whispered, gently touching the petal as if it were sacred. "Enough, and it stops it altogether."
Esme snipped the petals, placed them in a mortar, and crushed them with smooth, circular pressure. The scent was faintly bitter, earthy with a whisper of sweetness. She added ethanol—a solvent to separate the active glycosides—and stirred until the pigment bled out. The liquid turned a deep, wine-soaked red.
She set the mixture aside and reached for her aconite.
Aconitum napellus. Wolf's bane.
The powdered version was kept in a sealed, opaque jar, tucked behind her preserved orchids. It was deadly even through the skin. A tiny grain beneath a fingernail could kill in hours. She opened it slowly, the way one would handle a viper—respectful and afraid.
Sifting half a teaspoon into a new vial, she added distilled water and then, carefully, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The latter was the key. A chemical agent that bonded to toxins and carried them through skin and tissue with merciless efficiency. With DMSO, a poison no longer needed to be ingested. It could enter a bloodstream through a single touch.
The blend shimmered faintly, pearlescent under the work light.
She combined both—foxglove extract and the aconite-DMSO solution—into a new vial, swirling slowly as the colors merged. The result was a viscous fluid the color of spoiled cream.
She set it aside to cool.
Next came the bouquet.
Every bloom mattered. Every choice was deliberate.
She selected white roses for reverence and innocence, knowing Dorne wouldn't notice the irony. Calla lilies for death, the kind shown at polished funerals where men in suits cried crocodile tears. Monkshood, deep violet and nearly black—a nod to the aconite's origin.
But more than that, she picked each bloom by weight and texture. The ones with waxy petals absorbed the toxin best. Those that bruised easily wouldn't work—the illusion had to be flawless.
She dipped a sable brush into the cooled poison and painted each petal layer by layer. The monkshood got two coats. The roses only one. The calla lilies she coated at the base, where fingers would naturally adjust the stem.
She worked slowly, almost lovingly. Like a painter layering oils, like a priest preparing sacrament.
Each flower was laid out on parchment paper to dry. The air grew heavy with the faint bitterness of toxins hidden under floral notes. To anyone else, the bouquet would smell like grace. To her, it reeked of justice.
When the petals were dry, she wrapped the stems in silk ribbon, white as bone, and slipped a note card between the folds.
"For everything you've done."
Anonymous. Simple. Final.
Delivery would be easy. One of Silas Dorne's shell companies received anonymous gifts all the time—Everflora had even delivered some of them before. She'd pay a college student in cash. He wouldn't even need to know what he was delivering.
No fingerprints. No trail. No signature.
The poison wouldn't kill Dorne instantly. That was the beauty of it. He would touch the bouquet, maybe arrange it himself, not realizing the thin layer of oil coating the petals had already begun leaching into his bloodstream.
His heartbeat would begin to slow. Tingling in the fingers. Nausea. Disorientation.
He might even smile before the convulsions started.
It was perfect.
Esme sat back, finally exhaling. Her gloves were streaked with residue. Her heart was steady. She hadn't rushed. She'd been careful.
She cleaned everything with bleach and gloved precision. Burned the leftover parchment. Packed the bouquet into a satin-lined white box. Tied it with string.
When she was done, she stood in the dark and stared at her reflection in the glass door. Her eyes were glassy, her hair pulled back in a silk scarf, her breath fogging the pane.
This wasn't revenge.
This was a vow fulfilled.
She touched her collarbone, remembering Helena's voice:
"Every flower is a choice. Every petal a weapon, if you know how to listen."
And tonight, they would speak for her.