Imagine you are one of three young sisters, triplets, each with a different special ability and all heirs to the throne of the island of Fennbirn. Sounds pretty great, right? Except only one of you actually gets to sit on the throne, and to do so, you have to kill your other two sisters on your shared 16th birthday. Not so great now, is it? That’s the dilemma facing Mirabella, Katharine, and Arsinoe. And despite Arsinoe sounding like “arsenic,” it’s Katharine who is the poisoner, who has worked her whole life to build up a tolerance to toxins so that now no poison can touch her.

After Signa’s parents died, she spent her childhood being sent from home to home, where her guardians often wound up dead. Now 19, Signa is beginning to think she is impervious to dying, possibly because Death seems to be a friend of hers. When she lands at the home of estranged relatives and realizes her cousin is being poisoned, she will have to get chummy with Death to save her.

Ning was taught about the magical art of tea-making by her mother and hoped to follow in her footsteps. But when she accidentally brews a poisoned tea, her mother dies and her sister falls deathly ill. Seeking a cure for her sister, Ning travels to the imperial palace to compete against others, hoping to become the kingdom’s shennong-shi, the tea master, to obtain what she needs to save her sister. But she’ll have to survive the cutthroat competition and royal politics first.

Piers Corbin has always been drawn to poisonous things, but it is not until she flees her abusive husband and hides out with her estranged aunt that she learns that her interest in toxic things is a family legacy. Piers is a Bane Witch, destined to eat poison and dispose of evil men. But when she begins to practice her magic, like a witchy Dexter, Piers attracts the attention of a serial killer, who doesn’t like the competition.

Lore has lived her life surrounded by death. Having escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire, she now works running poison in the city. A city she wishes she could escape, but is tied to because of her death magic, which enables her to raise the dead. But when a poison run goes wrong, she is exposed and brought to the king. He wants Lore to use her magic to get him answers about who is killing villagers—or face death herself.