A crib carved from heartwood stands in a nursery that smells of old stone and older grief. The princess does not cry. She has learned, at two years old, that crying brings no one. The kingdom buried its queen and forgot the child she left behind. Then the door opens. A woman with calloused hands and a face the church has burned into effigy kneels beside the cradle. Iris used to kneel only to slit throats. Now she ties ribbons and sings lullabies in a dead language, and the infant who has never smiled reaches for her.

The royal court does not know their nanny is the Serpent of the Crimson Communion, the empire's most infamous assassin, a woman whose name priests whisper in confessionals. She took the job to hide. She stayed because the child's pulse against her collarbone became the first honest thing she has felt in years. The king suspects nothing. The spymaster suspects everything. And someone from Iris's former life has just deposited a contract on the palace steps — a hit with the princess's name stamped at the bottom. The nanny who once killed without blinking must now decide what an assassin actually protects: her secrets, or her charge.

Also known as: Once an Assassin, Now a Royal Nanny, 암살자였던 시녀로 살다, Amsaljayeotdeon Sinyeoro Salda, Living as the Assassin's Nanny.