Free Beyond the Night by Thea Devine

the palace, and she would derail all their plans.

    She borrowed Mirya’s clothes against Mirya’s protests. “I have to see, I have to find a way to get access before anything happens.”
    â€œYou go to kill,” Mirya grumbled. “My blood was not enough for you.”
    â€œ Your blood?”
    â€œYour breakfast,” Mirya amended. “Dominick will find you.”
    â€œHow? Look at me.”
    Senna had started to swath herself in the rags she’d found at the foot of the bed. “A hood over my head, my face in shadow, my body bent like an old lady’s—how would he recognize me?”
    â€œThere are colors,” Mirya whispered. “Auras.” She took Senna’s foot and began sliding on one of a pair of thick cotton stockings.
    â€œBloodred?” Senna asked caustically. “All I’m going to do is find out when foodstuffs are delivered to the Palace and when the Queen might be in residence. If I plan it carefully, I can take the place of one of the ladies and from there keep my eye on Lady Augustine.”
    â€œIt’s a plan,” Mirya said carefully. “But it’s too dangerous. You’re too pregnant, and you can’t move fast enough if there should be trouble.” She handed Senna a hooded cloak.
    â€œI have the sun stone,” Senna said, ignoring that. “I’ll be safe.”
    â€œDominick will have one too. Perhaps Dnitra. Or she might steal it from him.”
    Dnitra. The mention of her name made Senna’s skin prickle.
    The child moved. She cupped her stomach, now shrouded in rags. It felt larger, she thought, as if it had grown and was stretching to find room after that compressed transformation. Maybe she ought to not transhape into a fly next time.
    Today she would be an old, decrepit woman, limping her way around London, picking and pecking at garbage to find a crust of bread. Rags and a hooded cloak should be enough of a disguise to find out what she needed to know.
    Though in the meantime, Lady Augustine could be anywhere, even back at the town house, reclaiming her property.
    One thing at a time. Lady Augustine hadn’t shown herself yet for whatever reason. She might well be entranced by the idea of impersonating the Queen. They were of a height. Their bodies were a similar shape, and the hair, the posture.
    If Lady Augustine could get close enough. No easy task. She might be nosing around the Palace right now, looking for an opening.
    â€œThey’ll scent you out,” Mirya said. “You’ll be hungry. You’ll want to feed again. What will you do then?”
    â€œWhere did you get my breakfast blood?” Senna countered.
    â€œI have my ways,” Mirya answered evasively. “Which are much less dangerous than yours.”
    â€œYou understand I have to do something.” Senna eased off the bed and straightened the hood so it concealed her face. “I can’t just sit here and wait for the worst to happen. My world has to be safe for this child.”
    â€œThat’s another thing. They want the child.”
    Senna bit her lip. “I know.”
    â€œIt shows even more now.”
    â€œI’m aware.”
    â€œYou will see it sooner than you think,” Mirya added cryptically, handing her a belt.
    Senna notched it around her waist. “What do you mean?”
    â€œThere is a season in which the child is born.”
    â€œWhen? Soon?” It wasn’t possible. Except her belly felt more like five or six months big suddenly.
    â€œIn time,” Mirya said, raising her hand over Senna’s head, almost like a benediction.
    â€œI have to go.”
    â€œThere may be no deliveries. Remember, the Queen is still at Windsor until later this week.”
    â€œI know.” The Queen had been loath to spend any time at all in London since Albert’s death twenty years before. But that had changed; now she periodically returned to the Palace to take