The first time Katya Duvernay had ever taken a life was when she was 11 years old.
Her etiquette teacher lay sprawled on the floor, her eyes bugged out and wide. A tongue thick and swollen lolled out of her mouth, the body's sickly pallor further defiled by blue-black veins that were visible through her skin.
It was poison obviously. But not in her etiquette teacher's cup, but Katya's own. She had bribed one of the cleaning maids in her room, one of the younger ones who was frequently bullied and easy to manipulate. Giving the girl a little sweetness in the form of leftover treats and the occasional gold coin, it had been child's play to convince the maid to sneak to one of the unauthorized and unsavory apothecary houses that littered the slums and West Bend and purchase a deadly poison.
