The maids in my village talked of falling in love with a man at first sight. That has always seemed naught but foolishness to me. Until I enter Sister Serafina's workshop. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, full of strange sights and smells, and I tumble headlong into love.

This is what I want to be. An instrument of mercy, not vengeance.

I am sorry,' he whispers. 'I am sorry I treated you so ill. I thought only to protect Duval.' 'It was not I who was poisoning him,' I say. 'No, but you had stolen his heart and I was afraid you would rip it from his chest when you left.

In the distance a wolf howls. Let it come, I think. Beast will most likely simply howl back, and the creature will either turn tail and run or fall into line behind him, like the rest of us have.

I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch's poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.

It is all we have left to us. And while it is more than I ever dared dream, it is nowhere near enough.

It is a good thing I no longer have a heart, because if I did, it would surely break.