The note lay on the table like a viper coiled and waiting.

The poison was only the beginning.

Seraphina read the words again, her slender fingers smoothing the parchment though her chest was tight, her stomach a pit of unease. Whoever had slipped it under her door had either been bold or invisible and both possibilities unsettled her.

The letters were jagged, written in haste, yet precise enough that she knew it was deliberate. A warning? A threat? Or worse… a trick meant to turn her ...