“Well, I am. We’re going to the kitchens,” Iltani said.

“What? No, we’re not. We need to get out of here! People are looking for us!”

“No, stupid. Listen to me.” She grabbed my hands and I ignored the insult. “It’s the easiest way into the Palace. It’s how we left when we were running away after you found the monkshood, remember? There’s that narrow passageway down the back. Since we have that gochala stuff, there is no way we’re leaving here without poisoning that worm Uruku with it. We’ll put the whole bottle in his food and watch him die.”

“What? Stop it! We can’t go do it right now! We don’t have a plan!”

Besides, we were being watched. Bikku and her friend were chewing their grapes, openly staring at us. They turned back around when Iltani bugged her eyes half out of her head at them.

“This is the plan! Right here, right now. We’re doing this.” Iltani pulled Nanaea and me so close, her brew-drenched breath assaulting us. “We have poison. We sneak in through the kitchens. I run up there and pour it down his throat.”

“Yes, and then you die. Iltani, we need to think things through. Take our time and deliberate—”

She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “NO, we will miss this opportunity if we don’t act now. Sometimes you need to go with your gut and make a move!”

“We told Dagan we’d meet him at Assata’s so we could plan, and that’s what we need to do. Anything else is too risky. Besides—” I lowered my voice, for who knows if these women were loyal Uruku followers. “What’s the point in doing you-know-what this very second if the ensis aren’t in agreement to let Arwia take over the throne?”

“Well, we could figure it out.” She cocked her hands on her hips, which looked ridiculous considering she was wearing a man’s beard.

I stared at the walls of the Palace, which were merely fifty handsbreadths to our right. At Nanaea’s face, which was too beautiful even if she put the beard back on. At my own shabby disguise that was rapidly disintegrating in the midday sun. How many times could we get back in here to do this? How many more times would we be this close?

“Kammani, surely with the level of poverty in the city, a majority of ensis would welcome her in,” Nanaea said. “People are starving. Wouldn’t they want to get out from under his rule?”

It would only take a few hours to ride back and get Arwia. If we delivered the poison, and he died, the Palace would be in shambles trying to figure out what to do. In that time frame, we could ride in with her and she could announce that she’d never died in the tomb and take her throne. In fact, if Uruku was already dead, Sarratum Tabni would likely send in her army to make sure it went smoothly. Without Uruku pulling the strings, surely the guardsmen of Alu wouldn’t fight.