Fortunately, she'd prepared for this eventuality. She'd spent almost all the wealth she had accumulated so far in her career on a few drops of a certain rare and precious toxin. Aqua Lethis. Poisons to put people to sleep – or to kill them – were common enough. She'd studied many over the years. But none would do here. If these guards fell it would be noticed too quickly. The Steward had guards guarding the guards.
Would the Aqua Lethis work? She'd given the slightest dot of the clear liquid to a rat captured in her stables to observe the effects. At first nothing had happened. The rat drank, then stood unmoving, nose twitching. Swan had wasted her fortune on mere water. But then she'd moved a hand towards the rat. It didn't react. She touched it and still it remained stationary. It was a
