It wasn’t a secret that rooms were being used for storage—but only Kordas, his cousin, Isla, and a few choice servants under his cousin knew just how much was stored here. He and his father had had a plan . . . and with every year that passed, the feeling never left any of them that the need to implement that plan became ever more urgent.

Well, they had an idea, rather than a plan. They still didn’t have every part of the idea figured out. And when (not if) they did see that idea through—it had to be iron-clad and foolproof. They would never get a second chance, and the repercussions for failure did not bear thinking about.

Isla stirred a little, interrupting his thoughts, and he smiled at her. She was staring at the fire, and he wondered what she was thinking.

If he had not known that Isla and Delia were sisters, he never would have suspected it. Isla was gifted with a lush figure and a cascade of red-tinted brown hair; Delia was small, thin, and dark, and did not look sixteen at all. Isla had wide, luminous green eyes and a perpetual expression of pleasant welcome; Delia had dark gray eyes and a constant look of brooding, even when nothing was wrong. Neither were conventionally beautiful, though Isla had an edge over her sister. The place where both sisters were a match was in their heads; both of them were smart and very clever. Smarter than he was, he often thought, and blessed the fact that neither of them had ever turned their formidable intellects against him.

“So you have undoubtedly given the Emperor’s little bird something to sing about again,” Isla observed with amusement. He had to laugh aloud at that.

“I’m going to enjoy reading that particular dispatch, though I confess it would have been even more amusing if I could have somehow coerced him into being there for the foaling,” he replied, the thought sweeter than the mead. “Arial was particularly gassy.”

She laughed at that. “You will never get him near the stable after Delia’s old pony nearly savaged him.”

“Delia’s pony is a good judge of character.”

She chuckled, and fell silent. There really wasn’t much to say, and he was enjoying the peace and comfort after the ordeal of the foaling. He was perfectly content to sit and sip in the quiet.