Lenora's POV
Three weeks after the blood-moon ceremony, someone tried to poison me.
It wasn't dramatic. The best poisons never are. It was in the tea — a pale, bitter addition to the fennel blend I kept on the refuge kitchen shelf. If I hadn't been the one who dried and stored every herb in that building, if I didn't know their scents the way I know my own heartbeat, I might have drunk it.
I set the cup down. Picked up the loose-leaf remains and held them to the lamplight.
Moonsbriar. Colorless, tasteless in small doses, lethal in large ones. Used historically to slow the wolf's healing enough that a second agent could finish the work.
I went very still.
Then I put the cup on the shelf, walked to the door, and locked it.
I needed to think before I told anyone.
The refuge had been o
