Page 157 of A Dance of Shadows

She latches on eagerly. As she suckles, her tiny hand drifts against my chest. Looking down at her, my heart swells all over again with this love I expected but somehow wasn’t prepared for.

The flame is still flickering in the lantern the maids left on my vanity, but there’s plenty of light seeping past the curtains too. I’ve slept well past dawn.

At the sight of my usual pitcher of water at the other end of the vanity, a pang of thirst fills my throat. I have a vague memory of one of my maids scurrying in with a fresh one toward the end of my labor.

I can’t remember the last time I had a drink, but the thought of getting out of bed makes me want to groan. My head is foggy and most of the rest of me aches.

How am I supposed to make what might be the most important decisions of my life—the decisions I was supposed to think through before I drifted off? I still don’t know how my princes and I are going to stop Linus from ruining everything we’ve fought for.

And is there anything we can do with Marc other than murdering him in cold blood?

I swallow past the dryness in my mouth. My princes will find another moment to check in on me—they can tell me how the saner twin is behaving now that he’s had more time to stew on the many offenses I admitted to. It’s very possible I won’t want to do anything other than murder him after that.

I have no hesitations at all about seeing Linus’s blood spilled. The real question there is how to topple him without any of us taking the blame.

Where is he likely to go now that we’re back in Vivencia? What will his first acts be? When will his guards be the least, well, on guard, so a sudden fatal accident might befall him?

If I’d laced the lip paint I gave Bianca yesterday with poison rather than a sedative …

No, I already knew that wasn’t the right course of action. If he died in her bed after she openly seduced him, with the medics unable to determine the cause or detecting the toxin, she’d be accused of the murder. The recent banishment of her husband from court would even serve as cause to anyone unaware of her true feelings about Ennius.

And I couldn’t expect her to keep her loyalties to me when faced with execution, especially if I betrayed her so badly first.

I need a ploy that doesn’t putanyone’shead on the chopping block—except my husband’s.

Coraya’s mouth slips away from my breast as she lapses back into sleep. I gaze at her, momentarily forgetting my purpose, and then force myself to ease upright.

It only takes a few halting footsteps to get from my bedside to the cradle. Aches spread through my pelvis with the movement. I tuck the blanket tight around her tiny body and hobble back to the bed.

Putting a little distance between me and my daughter doesn’t open up my mind the way I hoped. As I sprawl on the bed, my thoughts still float off on currents of fatigue when I try to concentrate.

Isthere anyplace Linus might go—or could be prodded to go—where a rock or some other heavy object could plummet at his head from above? Is there an “accident” we could arrange in his bedroom that his guards wouldn’t sense?

Perhaps if he could be encouraged to drink some wine laced with a subtle sedative and then take a bath? One deep enough that he could slip down into it with the water closing over his head?

Would the guards pick up on a non-violent drowning? I don’t know exactly how attuned they are to his physical state. They’ve never raised the alarm about him being drugged to unconsciousness before, but I’d imagine that wouldn’t come across any different from an exhausted or drunken stupor.

Outright organ failure is another matter entirely.

We’re going to have to take some kind of chance. He wants to destroy me, and he knowsIknow that now. We don’t have time to meticulously plan every?—

A harshly exuberant voice carries from just beyond my door. “All right, off with you all!”

I can’t make out the words of the response, only a muffled murmur presumably from the guards.

Linus lets out an even harsher laugh. “We don’t need the lot of you hovering around. I know what you’re like. It’s the first day of my daughter’s birth. Can’t I have a visit with my beloved wife with a little privacy for once?”

Whatever the guards say to that, he lets out a huff. “You already know that no one else has come this way. Our apartments are the only ones in this hall. What could harm us? Go stand at the entrance to the imperial wing and make sure no maids or medics disturb us.”

A chill seeps into my bones. He’s sending the guards—both his and mine, from the sound of it—far enough away that they won’t be able to sense what happens in this room, while still ensuring everyone else leaves us alone too.

I can’t think of any good reason Linus would have to prevent their monitoring. It’s certainly not because he wants toadoreme without being spied on.

I slide my hand under the other pillow and close my fingers around the hilt of my knife. Tugging the blankets up to my shoulder, I tuck the weapon close to my chest beneath them.

Linus must convince the guards to abandon their post. He nudges the door open without further argument.

I’m lying facing him, with my eyelids almost shut so I look as if I’m sleeping. As I watch him through my eyelashes, he glances toward me. He steps slowly inside and shuts the door with only a soft click.

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