by Thea Devine
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.
He should never have let Senna out of his sight, Dominick thought grimly. Never. Because now—with the rush and chaos of the Queen’s return and all it entailed: the entourage, the streets full of passersby waving and cheering, the bobbies, the palace guards—it was so crowded it was impossible to detect anything or anyone.
He curved his way around the crowd, a tiny, black sliver of a shadow that no one noticed flying overhead.
Senna had not been at her post on the town-house roof when he finally got back there. She had not been anywhere in the house, nor had been Charles. Peter, however, was abed in the coffin, wrapped in the rotting shroud, when Dominick found him.
Peter was dying.
The night of violence at Drom Manor and the knife wounds Senna had inflicted—or the flat rock that she had heaved at his head—had obviously damaged his organs and his brain irreparably, and all the coffin regeneration in the world could not save him now.
“Forgive me for not standing,” Peter said in a muffled voice.
“No formality needed,” Dominick answered with a touch of irony.
“The child is Tepes,” Peter grunted.
“We can’t know that yet.”
“I know that.” Peter coughed. “The Tepes will win. Charles has taken the Queen, you know. It will all be over soon.”
“Yes, it will,” Dominick agreed, with not a trace of compunction.
“This is all Senna’s fault. I’m dying. She did it. She didn’t stop, she kept at me with that knife, in my ribs, my chest—and the rock—she destroyed something up there. All that blood—all her fault, all . . .” Peter’s raspy voice petered out.
“Where’s Charles?”
“In hell.”
No point to continue with Peter. He was rancid with hate and futility. All he could do was lie there until his body and brain drained of blood and life. Not even Dnitra could bring him back now.
She’d be coming after him again soon enough, though. He was her priority, her task.
He transported back to the parlor. There, even after all the bloodshed, all the lies and deception, nothing had changed. It was as if Lady Augustine would walk in the door at any moment.
Charles has taken the Queen, you know. . . .
What the devil had Peter meant by that? There hadn’t been enough time—and nothing had happened en route. He himself had followed the carriage to the Palace.
Maybe there was a moment at the train station before the Queen debarked—a moment to substitute Lady Augustine in scrim . . . and then the train would have rolled on with Charles.
He needed no more impetus than that. A Tepes in control of the Palace, the government, the army—and Charles ramping up the Keepers of the Night.
He flew out the door before he even finished the thought.
Senna met the Queen.
She was shocked that she hadn’t had a moment’s trouble being accepted as Lady Constance.
She lined up with the seven other ladies as the carriage drew up, then there was still more waiting until the Queen was helped down, the luggage was off-loaded, and the Queen entered the reception area by way of a red-carpeted carriage port.
She was in person as every photograph had ever portrayed her: stout, dressed in black, sad, formal, gracious.
The senior lady-in-waiting, the Lady of the Bedchamber, Clementina Augusta, Countess of Mallett, introduced the others, and each acknowledged the Queen with a nod and a curtsy.
As the Queen came to her, Senna felt a tremor as she looked into the Queen’s eyes. She briefly sensed an aura of green, but it was gone before she knew what happened.
Senna shook herself and curtsied as the Queen acknowledged her, “Lady Constance,” and moved on.
When the introductions were done, the ladies were ushered into yet another large formal room, and they talked about their initial impressions of the Queen, and having been so close and exchanging pleasantries.
At length, Countess Clementina dismissed them and led them back to the salon in the distant residential wing so they could prepare for dinner.
“The Queen most definitely wishes for her ladies’ company at dinner,” she told them. “You have several h
ours to prepare.”
So this was what it was like: they were like a child’s toy, pulled back and forth at someone else’s whim. Senna didn’t like it. She didn’t like feeling that Lady Augustine somehow had the upper hand.
“Constance—come tell us, how did you like meeting the Queen?”
That much still was going right. No one had questioned her identity; no one had noticed her stomach. The binding worked.
But the goal had not been met. Her fancy about the Queen was nonsense. She was no more evil than Lady Clementina, holding court in the corner over there.
But Senna had gotten into the Palace and successfully made herself into a fraudulent lady-in-waiting. She’d be able to roam and root and listen to conversations and search the Palace and the grounds surreptitiously.
In short spurts, she amended to herself, as the child moved within her.
For the moment, it was enough.
The closer she came to the Queen’s bedroom, the more guards there were.
There was no way that Senna could penetrate the wall of guards. All she could do was map out where everything and everyone was and keep alert.
Lady Augustine was somewhere in the Palace. She felt in her bones.
“Lady Constance.”
She had unexpectedly transhaped just outside the long corridor and a guard had nearly caught her.
There was no excuse really. The ladies-in-waiting were all in bed, and she had no reason to be roaming anywhere this far from her room as a bat or a human.
The guard escorted her without comment to her room, but she was certain a black mark had been struck against Lady Constance’s name.
Worse, she needed to feed. She hadn’t considered that when she’d hared off without half a thought to usurp the place of an unsuspecting lady-in-waiting.
So far her rash action had produced one unconscious lady-in-waiting, one suspicious guard, one possibility that Lady Augustine had taken the place of the Queen, and one ravenous vampire.
The easiest problem to solve was slaking her hunger. It meant spending more of her waning energy until she found a likely victim, but even a dozing guard would do. A nick on his earlobe—earlobes bled easily, as she had learned when Dominick had initiated her into this particular bloodletting.
It wasn’t meant to kill or sire; it was an expedient way to feed: quick, harmless to the victim, and with minimal loss of blood.
She ruffled back into bat form, too aware of the heaviness of her midsection, and went roaming down the hall.
Walking just behind the Queen as she took her afternoon stroll, Senna still couldn’t tell whether it was Lady Augustine. A movement of the Queen’s hand reminded her of Lady Augustine, but then her brisk stride did not. Lady Augustine had been feminine. The Queen was not; she was stoic and sad in her mourning clothes.
As far as Senna could tell, the Queen methodically attended to business, greeted visitors, spent some leisure time with her ladies-in-waiting, took her meals alone, or with several particular ladies-in-waiting, unless dignitaries were in town, and she altogether acted as expected.
Of course, Senna wasn’t privy to the private moments. If it was Lady Augustine in the Queen’s place, she’d be finding excuses not to deal with problems or meet with visitors.
But even if she did, it would nominally be seen as the Queen stricken with sadness and still mourning her beloved Albert. Even after twenty or more years.
Senna was on a fool’s errand.
She’d let Charles scare her when he couldn’t possibly wield all that much power among the Keepers. The most he could do, in the scrim of Peter, was convince Lady Augustine that it was necessary for her to act.
And if Lady Augustine did manage to disable the Queen, so much the better for him. His hands were perfectly clean. Lady Augustine would suffer the consequences if indeed she could even be caught. Charles would probably kill her first.
He was the danger and him alone. He was the one who had to die.
Senna had to find Lady Augustine before she attacked the Queen. And she had little time in which to do it.
The next day the ladies-in-waiting were summoned to accompany the Queen on her daily afternoon stroll in the Palace gardens. They lined up obediently behind her, floating across the neatly trimmed lawns and flower beds in their pristine white dresses, their murmuring conversation carried along lightly on a breeze.
It was a perfect moment—an unusually bright and sunny day, the warm breeze, the light flow of voices, the vivid colors—as the Queen led the way back, where she mounted the steps to the terrace to the rear entrance to the Palace. Suddenly she tripped and fell forward, before any of the Palace guard could reach for her.
From behind, Lady Clementina rose and launched herself onto the Queen’s prone body, and Senna, comprehending what was happening, jumped on top of her.
She could just see the features of Lady Augustine’s triumphant smile along with the guards’ arms grasping her shoulders and hair to pull her off the Queen.
Simultaneously, several others pulled and shouted at Senna to move.
Lady Augustine flipped and vanished, a slice of shadow, leaving Senna heaving on the prostrate Queen, a cacophony of voices shouting at her.
Even now Lady Augustine must be above them circling, watching, enjoying herself. Thinking that Senna would be arrested for assaulting the Queen.
No, no, my lady. Not I, said the fly.
Senna found herself being lifted upward by a guard.
She looked around the gaping ladies. They’d seen everything, they would gossip about everything.
She took a deep breath and looked at each of them, guards and companions, one by one.
You saw nothing. The Queen did not fall. Lady Clementina did not vanish. Lady Constance did not disappear. You saw nothing. You saw the Queen walk up to the terrace and into the Palace. She did not trip, she was not attacked. All is well.
She turned to the Queen, who stood above her, furious.
Nothing happened, Your Majesty. You are and were perfectly safe. You did not fall. Your ladies followed you up the steps and into the Palace. There was no accident. All is well. You are safe.
Senna needed to escape—fast. With every ounce of energy she could muster, she transhaped into a minuscule fly, leaving the astonished guard with empty hands and the Queen leading her ladies back into the Palace as if nothing had happened.
Senna circled for a moment, to ascertain that the compelling had taken. She felt heavy and nerveless once again, and guilty for subjecting the child to this kind of compression.
But a bat could be spotted and followed just as she was trailing Lady Augustine now. A fly was as good as invisible. A fly could get lost in the clouds, in the rain, in a crowd.
She couldn’t go on this way much longer. She was exhausted and weary. Which meant Lady Augustine would win: she’d get away and the threat of a Tepes takeover would not be mitigated.
As enervated as she was, she felt a renewed sense of purpose. She couldn’t bring her child into a world dominated by Tepes. As Lady Augustine climbed high above the trees where Senna couldn’t follow, Senna realized that she was heading for the town house.
That made sense—at this point, Lady Augustine would need to confer with Charles and Peter. She’d tell them how Senna had spoiled everything. It would be suicidal to put herself at risk of being imprisoned by them. She should go back to Mirya’s to feed and to rest.
But a little eavesdropping wouldn’t hurt. Just to hear how thoroughly she had thwarted their plans.
Peter was in the throes of his final moments.
It shocked Senna to see him so lifeless in the dirt coffin, blood seeping from his head, his chest, his middle, and soaking into the dirt.
Blood was all over his face too, his chin and neck oozing from a gaping wound on his head. She’d done that, with the rock, af
ter he’d fanged her. After she and the Countess had saved Dominick that ghastly night when Drom had burned.
Senna felt no remorse. Peter had been her adversary, suspicious, baiting, threatening, possibly her sire. He would have killed her as soon as kissed her. She felt nothing for him as he writhed in pain while Charles and Lady Augustine, now transformed into human shape, impassively watched. Lady Augustine sat on the bottom step leading into the dirt coffin, which afforded Senna the perfect platform to set her compressed body down to rest.
“Too bad,” Lady Augustine went on with no sympathy. “I blame Senna for this. For everything. I almost had the Queen in my grasp. She jumped me. She has murdered my son. There is no forgiveness, no matter what the disposition of the child. If he is Tepes, then he’s mine.” She slanted a look at Charles as he started to protest. “Ours, then.”
“If he’s Iscariot, he’s already dead.”
“If he’s commingled?”
“I’ll play Solomon and slice him in two,” Charles spat. “And then we start again.”
That statement chilled Senna to the bone. They would not rest until they sired an Eternal Ruler.
“And which Iscariot will bear this new incarnation of the Eternal Ruler?”
“Dnitra.”
Senna shivered. The Other? It made too much sense She had no allegiances in this world. She was made for procreating. She could conceivably be the mother of a king.
Lady Augustine caught her breath. “She just walked right in the door, didn’t she?”
“Dominick doesn’t want her. She’s ripe for seduction.”
“Isn’t she, though?” Lady Augustine said thoughtfully. “That should be quite a challenge for you.”
“She’s thoroughly vampire. Her mandate is to breed. But maybe there is a different agenda. Nevertheless, she won’t resist me. And it’s not even a matter of desire or sex. She will mate with me just to get Dominick’s attention, and I will mate with her for another child with commingled blood.”
“Brilliant thinking,” Lady Augustine applauded. “How soon can you arrange to take her?”
