Poison

Bridget Zinn’s young adult fantasy novel Poison was published in 2013, two years after her death from cancer. The story follows sixteen-year-old Kyra, a Master Potioner who has a vision that the kingdom will be destroyed by her best friend, Ariana, the future queen. Kyra believes she must kill Ariana to save the land of Mohr. When her first attempt fails, Kyra becomes a fugitive from the law but is determined to do what she believes is right and kill the princess. Over the course of her journeys, Kyra learns valuable lessons about trust, friendship, and love.

The novel begins three months after Kyra’s poisoned needle misses its target, Ariana. Kyra is one of three elite Master Potioners, having run away from home at the age of ten to apprentice with them. Taking pride in her skill, she enjoys practicing what she thinks of as a logical science: making everything from truth serums, to potions that create glamours or sleep or confusion, to lethal poisons. Kyra also carries a “witch’s spark” within her, but she does not want to be a witch. Kyra has denied that part of herself, even though her visions mean she could be a powerful Seer.

Now wanted for her assassination attempt on Ariana, Kyra is being pursued by the King’s Army and its elite special forces, including Dartagn, the same soldier who trained Kyra, and her ex-fiancé and fellow Master Potioner, Hal. Not knowing where to find Ariana, Kyra goes to the King of Criminals, Arlo Abbaduto, for help locating her. Arlo has no good reason to help Kyra: she once turned him into wood instead of administering a truth serum. Kyra doesn’t trust Arlo, either, because she knows that Arlo has plotted more than once to destroy the kingdom but has always managed to finger someone else to take the blame. Still, Arlo gives Kyra a special tracking pig that will lead her to Ariana.



Ariana is promised in an arranged marriage to the Prince of Latana and due to be wed soon. She must kill Ariana before she gets married and becomes magically bound to the kingdom.

While crossing a river with her pig, Kyra nearly drowns. She is saved by Fred, a charming, handsome, good-humored adventurer and his wolf-like-dog, Langley. Although embarrassed and soaked, Kyra notices that Fred is very attractive: he has mischievous green-gold eyes and looks like “a painting of some kind of trickster god.” Fred names her pig Rosie, saying “everyone should have a name.”

Kyra goes on her way but later finds Fred being attacked by goblins. She rescues him, then slips away again. Fred catches up with her, admonishing Kyra that she doesn’t know much about people or friendship. Later, they stumble into a witch’s sticky trap. Noticing Kyra’s witch’s spark, the witch says that she has been touched by an obeeka, a shape-shifting parasite. The witch plans to make them both slaves, but when Fred claims he and Kyra are married, she decides to eat them instead. Kyra uses a confusion potion on the witch and the two escape.



Ditching Fred again, Kyra follows Rosie to an inn. Instead of finding Ariana, she encounters Ellie the hermit. Kyra is angry, thinking that Arlo took revenge on her misleading her with Rosie. Kyra gives Rosie away to a little girl. But Kyra wonders if perhaps Rosie was right, and Ellie the hermit is mixed up in the plot against the kingdom. She finds the girl again, hoping to get Rosie back, but discovers that Fred bought her from the girl. Kyra steals Rosie back from Fred.

Kyra remembers a time before her vision of death and destruction when Ariana seemed to change personalities. Ariana never wanted to get married and even ripped her green wedding dress. Then suddenly, she became excited about the marriage, picked out an incongruously frilly pink dress, and stopped seeing her best friend. Kyra runs into Hal and manages to escape him, but is tagged with a tracking potion by Ned, the third Master Potioner. While they are on the run from soldiers, Rosie is badly injured. Kyra stumbles upon a Gypsy camp hidden in an illusion and meets Nadya, a Gypsy woman who heals Rosie and removes Kyra’s tracking tag. Nadya shows Kyra that she can be both a potioner and a Seer.

Kyra visits the dress shop where Ariana’s wedding gown is being created. There she finds a mannequin that looks identical to Ariana. Kyra uses a potion on the mannequin, and it becomes her friend. Ariana had been turned to wood and a fake Ariana put in her place. Together the two friends discover that Fred is the prince betrothed to Ariana. He had decided to strike out on his own to find Ariana’s assassin. Knowing that there is an imposter in line for the throne, Fred and the two girls, now disguised as men, sneak into the ducal castle. Fred learns that the Duchess Genria is not only the queen’s sister but Kyra’s mother—which makes Kyra a princess and Ariana’s cousin. Using a truth serum, Kyra reveals that the Ariana imposter is an obeeka, a shapeshifter planted there by Arlo.



Kyra is forgiven for attempting to kill her cousin since she was trying to stop the imposter. She joins Hal and Ned and the King’s Army in raiding Arlo’s lair. They capture Arlo and he admits his hand in the plot. Ariana announces that she is not going to marry Fred, and given the recent scare for her life, the queen will now allow her to choose whom she marries. Fred tells Kyra he’s not in love with Ariana and doesn’t want half the kingdom, but he does plan to stick around Mohr for a while, since he finds a certain funny and talented potioner very appealing. They end the story with a kiss.