The Executioner's Secretary

When Arlina—sentenced for an attempt on the life of a mage—has a visitor, an unknown man who offers her a job as his secretary, she agrees. The choice is obvious: instead of dying on the scaffold, she gets a chance to begin life anew. And that her sudden benefactor is the executioner isn’t so frightening. What difference does it make for whom to boil tea and sort papers? But everything is not that simple. Deadly accidents follow the executioner’s heels. And it seems he himself has more than one skeleton in his closet. Who is he really? How is he connected to what’s happening in the capital? The echo of the past and the heart will tell. But maidenly hearts often make mistakes, and echoes distort reality.