I found myself somehow in an interrogation room;

The walls were white as paper and the window black as doom.

A girl of maybe ten or twelve was being asked her name

She said that it was Oleander. The voices asked, "The same?"

"We're all named after poisons, my friends and I," said she.

"Though Hemlock's name is different he changed to be like me.

Lark is short for Larkspur, and Foxglove is just that:

A clever kid who, with white gloves, pulls rabbits from his hat."

A voice asked Oleander where the other kids had gone.

She murmured "They're in Heaven- after all the battle's won."

I sensed the voices (couldn't see 'em) left her at this time

And Oleander broke down sobbing for a hidden crime.

I heard her thoughts: "My 'Final Agents' final earthly aim

For 'Mandatory Espionage'-I've lost the team of FAME."

Oh, cowardice. If she had tried the second, fearful door,

I knew cruel fate would not have killed the mission there before.

If the mission had succeeded (as Foxglove said it would)

Then he and Larkspur would be safe-but now, who knew what could?

The girl who once was leader of the secret children's team

Was haunted by a memory of Larkspur's dying scream.

Oleander dried her tears as a Voice returned

And said, "We have decided, from the info we have learned,

You and your friends are innocent of any legal charge.

You are free to go now. You are no longer at large."

Oleander stood and nodded, walked through the open hall

Though guilt was on her conscience it would not do at all

To be charged right now for cowardice. She'd suffer all alone.

I tried to offer her my hand, to help her to atone.

For the first time since my coming she looked me in the eye.

"I'm really sorry, Hemlock. I left you there to die."