“I have to stop Lady Augustine,” Senna said at length.

“We will stop her,” Dominick said.

They stared at each other. Senna ignored the tug she felt. He had another woman. “There is no we,” she said finally.

“We won’t argue that now. Or about our child. Or how you possibly think you’re going to stop her as encumbered as you are physically.”

“I will.”

She felt his admiring glance.

“The Queen has been traveling back and forth between Windsor and here,” Senna went on, keeping her tone neutral. “She’s due at the Palace sometime this week. It would be a perfect opportunity for Charles. He fakes an attempted assassination, just injuring the Queen so she must be confined. Lady Augustine takes the Queen’s place. She has the body, the size, the hair. When she is in the scrim, she looks terrifyingly like the Queen. No one could tell. No one will know.”

“And then she dies,” Mirya put in.

“Who? Lady Augustine or the Queen?”

“Both,” Mirya said.

“Charles is crazy. He always was.”

“So in preparation,” Senna went on, ignoring that, “I gained entrance to the Palace; there should be no impediment to my compelling one of her ladies-in-waiting and taking her place. Which will put me close enough to watch Lady Augustine. And then all will be well.”

“Except for the army of the Keepers. How will you defeat them?”

Senna’s eyes sparked. “I’ll kill Charles.”

“Not if I do it first.”

“You have that Other to take care of.”

Dominick gritted his teeth. “Dnitra can take care of herself.”

Mirya made a slicing motion. “Enough. Dnitra has no allegiance to anyone but herself. She will reap the consequences.”

“How do you know?”

“I know,” Mirya said. “She is of no importance.”

“Then I am staying here with you,” Dominick said to Senna.

Senna clenched her fists. “Not possible.”

“I’ll tuck myself up into the eaves. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“No.”

“Charles will be hunting me now,” Dominick pointed out.

“And he’ll assume you’re with me, and there goes our plan and Charles wins,” Senna said. “The Tepes win. The Keepers will win.”

“No, the Tepes might think they’re winning. But they’ll be dying.”

He was so confident about everything when anything could go wrong. And probably would.

“And who will kill them?” she demanded.

“Me. One by one if I have to.”

But Dominick would die. She felt a chill at the thought. He must not die. However much she despised him right now, she didn’t want him to die.

“Where do you think Lady Augustine would hide?” she asked.

Mirya held up her hand and cocked her head as if she were listening. “I don’t know. She is not there. Not now.”

“Lady Augustine, you mean,” Senna said.

Mirya nodded.

“Then isn’t it likely she’s somewhere on the Palace grounds?”

“Waiting for the moment?” Dominick asked.

“I will hunt her down,” Senna said fiercely.

In the fervor of the moment, Dominick reached for her hand. His touch set off sparks and crackles all up and down her arm.

It obviously hurt. She turned her head away as tears shimmered.

“Devil’s bones. How can I not touch you?”

“There is an Other for you to touch and play with,” Senna said tremulously, her head still averted.

She didn’t see him shake his head, and she didn’t want to hear explanations, not now. There were only two imperatives: save the Queen and save her child.

“We need a plan,” Dominick said abruptly. “Senna, you don’t have the strength for twelve-hour vigils at the Palace. You will keep an eye on the town house.”

She started to protest and he made a quieting movement. “You’ll be right in place to see and hear everything, but it will be less taxing for the child.” Which was perhaps the only argument she would listen to. “We’ll start tonight. We need to destroy Lady Augustine before the Queen returns to town.”

Senna touched her belly as she sat restively on the roof of the town house, listening for movement or conversation. Obviously no one was about—or one of them was shrouded in the armoire coffin.

From her rooftop vantage point, she saw faint flares of green moving stealthily through the streets. The Keepers of the Night on the prowl, looking for victims.

She was no better. Were it not for Mirya, where would she be? She would never get away from being one of them. That she was now a monster and that she didn’t care about temporal things anymore, except her child. And before that perfect vampire Other appeared by his side, Dominick.

She was crazy to have listened to him. She was always destined to be the one to confront Lady Augustine. She would be the one who attacked. It was already foretold: she was the one who would die.

“Ah, dear Senna.” Charles’s voice was suddenly in her ear. A moment later, Charles leaned against her and she instinctively wriggled away. “Sent to Siberia by our hero, were you?”

She glared at him.

“There’s nothing here. Peter is in the coffin, I’m afraid. I have no idea where Lady Augustine is these days.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“I gave her a free hand to accomplish our objective. It will be very soon now.”

“How soon?”

“Days, Senna. Maybe even hours.”

That sent a chill through her. Dominick was already in the Palace, and the Queen’s carriage could be approaching.

“Senna. Have the child. Let Lady Augustine go through with the plan.” Charles grasped her arm, ignoring the burning pinpricks that shot out from her skin. “Ah, Senna, you don’t have to run away from me.”

“Really?”

“The ladies-in-waiting are arriving even as we speak.”

She started to get up. If the ladies were arriving tonight, it meant the Queen would be in residence tomorrow.

He tightened his grip as she pulled away, ignoring the sparks.

“There’s nothing you can do now.”

Oh, but there was. She wrenched her arm from his grasp and her body catapulted across the roof as she transhaped into a large bat.

“Senna!” Charles shouted, just before transforming into a bat as well and chasing after her.

She recognized she was much too burdened to evade him. She aimed at the treetops, cautiously weaving her way through the leaves and branches, before heading toward the Palace.

Ladies-in-waiting arriving . . .

It wasn’t that late—she should have been there, Senna thought desperately. Dominick should have found some way to alert her. So much for planning.

And it didn’t bode well that Charles had utterly disregarded the sparks that singed him so painfully when he touched her. It meant something. Only she was too tired, as she drifted down toward the mews, to figure out what.

The connecting door to the service entrance was closed. There seemed to be no undue activity yet. She had no way and no time to try to contact Dominick. She settled in the corner of the nearest empty stall to wait.

She slept. It was almost as if her body and the child took control when she was at rest. And especially after she’d transhaped and felt so deadly tired.

She never heard the carriages rolling into the mews, or the whispers of the ladies as they blew into the Palace, or the voices of staff streaming out of the entrance door to handle the luggage and hatboxes.

Nor did she see Lady Augustine swooping into the entrance behind the ladies, a silent slice of shadow following them down the service hall.

When Senna awoke, it was near daylight, the entrance door was open, and staff bustled to off-load wagons of foodstuffs backed up to the entrance.

The ladies had come and she’d missed the moment. By the damned, this pregnancy was confining her in too many ways. She felt sluggish and nerveless, but she had to gear herself up to fly.

A moment later, she found some lift and winged her way into the service hall.

The Queen was scheduled to arrive, Senna learned, after noon. And everyone had already started to scramble.

She attached herself to the starched cap of a maid who was heading toward another wing of the Palace.

Everything was a gamble now—she was operating on sheer gut, depending on intuition and instinct, clinging here, flitting there, trying to recall what she knew about ladies-in-waiting.

They were appointed. They rotated in and out of service every several months because the Queen didn’t wish to unduly disrupt their family life. They accompanied and served the Queen at her direction.

There was a hierarchy as well, about which Senna knew nothing. So that would entail another educated guess. The lowest rung of service would suit her fine, but she had no way of knowing which lady served in which capacity. She’d just have to make that decision on first glance.

The maze of rooms through which she flew seemed like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, almost dizzying in their opulence and formality.

But she was getting nowhere. As her energy flagged, she snagged the hem of another maid’s uniform and watched carefully as she turned down a corridor, finally, with floor-to-ceiling windows that seemed to be a bridge between two of the wings, and entered a door at the far end.

At last, the ladies’ suites and formally furnished salon. Senna tumbled off the hem to which she’d been clinging and flitted under a table.

From that vantage point she saw four ladies were here already, beautifully dressed, of varying ages, polite and restrained, either reading or conversing.

She listened for a moment. The maid was discussing the Queen’s arrival. They were to meet her as she entered the Palace. These newly appointed ladies would be formally introduced. They would adjourn to a parlor afterward where they would await the Queen’s pleasure.

Simple, then. She had only to wait until one of them was alone in the room. Any one of them would do.

The maid left. The four women conferred in low voices, wondering whether this meeting would require a change of clothes, what was appropriate to wear, what they should say or not say, how to curtsy.

At length, they left, one after the other, until only one stood staring dreamily out the window.

Senna flipped out from under the table and with some difficulty made the transition to her bodily self, just as the woman turned from the window.

“Is there something else?” Her voice was low and throaty.

Senna held her gaze. I am you and you are me. My name is . . . ?

“Lady Constance Byning. Maid of honor.”

I am you and you are me. We are the same and one. I know what you know, and any who see me, see you, know you, and do not question you.

I am you, Lady Constance echoed back, and you are me. We are the same and one.

No resistance. Lady Constance was young and fresh and would never get pregnant at this point in her life.

Who sees me sees you in all your virgin glory. You are not pregnant, therefore, I am not pregnant. All will see it so.

All will see it so, Lady Constance echoed.

Senna leaned in to Lady Constance’s face and felt the scrim slowly creeping over her countenance, blurring her features, taking on the delicate details of Lady Constance’s face, moments before the lady fell unconscious.

Several doors led out of the room, one to the long corridor, one for certain to their individual suites. It might do well to sequester Lady Constance in her own rooms. The challenge was to figure out which one it was.

That became more obvious as she carried the limp Lady Constance down the hallway beyond the door the other ladies had exited.

She followed the line of doors, which seemed to go on forever, until she came to one that seemed unoccupied. She knocked. No answer. She opened the door. The room was dark. Flicking the door closed with her foot, Senna put the girl down on a chair.

As she turned the lights on, Lady Constance blinked.

“Is this your room?” Senna asked.

“Of course it is.”

“Good.” Senna bent over her. “And who am I?”

“You—” Lady Constance looked confused. “You are me and I am you. You’re Lady Constance Byning. And I—”

And you are me and I am you—and you will sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep, and all will see it so.

All will see it so, Lady Constance echoed, her eyes closing, her body going slack.

Senna quickly searched the room. It was large and comfortable, with charm and elegance. The bed was centered and covered in richly colored satin: Lady Constance was in one of the matching upholstered chairs. Beyond a door that led to the well-mirrored dressing room were built-in closets, and that, Senna thought, was the best place to sequester Lady Constance for the moment.

Senna pulled her into the dressing room, made her comfortable, then rummaged through her closets. Her idea was to find a simpler dress to pin to the front of hers that was recognizable as belonging to Lady Constance, which would further cement the impression.

Finally, she was ready to test her mettle. The scrim was in place and she’d found a lightweight silk dress that fit neatly on her body and minimized the size of her stomach. She pinned her hair up similar to the way Lady Constance wore hers. She chose a pair of slippers to match, even though for the most part she wouldn’t put a foot down on the floor.

She took a deep breath, envisioned her destination—the reception room where the Queen would meet her newest ladies-in-waiting—and when she blew her breath out, she found herself slipping unobtrusively into the room just seconds before the Queen appeared.