the change. Maybe they’d been wrong about the time. After weeks of living half lives with short times at sunrise and sunset, they’d both learned how long they typically had together, but maybe they’d been wrong.
“You didn’t want to become a ferret,” Gifford continued, “so you stayed human.”
“It wasn’t that,” she breathed. “I wanted to stay with you. That was my heart’s desire.”
Wonder and disbelief warred on his face, but finally a wide smile won as he cupped her face in his hands.
Heart pounding, Jane leaned forward. They were close. So close.
Cloth rippled and torchlight shone in. “G—” Edward stopped halfway into the tent. “Oh. I’m sorry, Jane, I thought you were a ferret.”
For a moment, Jane wished she were a ferret. It’d be less embarrassing than her cousin walking in on . . . something. A kiss that didn’t happen.
She leaned back and caught her breath, resigned. The kingdom had to come first. “It’s all right. I learned how to control it at last. I think I’ll remain a girl tonight.”
“Good. That’s good.” Edward flashed a tense smile and turned to Gifford. “We’re having a strategical meeting in my tent.”
Gifford turned to look at Jane. “You should come with us.”
Jane froze. Go with them? To plan? To strategize?
Edward stared at Gifford. “We’ll be planning a battle, G. The men, I mean. Well, and Bess, of course.”
“Which is exactly why Jane should join us,” Gifford said. “She’s excellent at planning.”
Jane looked back and forth between them.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go. I have lots of ideas.”
The three of them walked to the tent where the leaders of their assembled forces—Archer, Bess, the commanders of the French and Scottish armies—were standing around a table that bore a map of London. Gifford spent a few minutes pointing out different places of interest—what might be a useful hill and where they might focus their attempts to enter the city.
“That’s the plan?” Jane asked after a few minutes of listening to Edward and Archer bicker over the best place to attack the city wall. “To besiege London?”
Edward shrugged. “We have to take London somehow.”
“London has never crumbled under siege, not in all of recorded history,” Jane pointed out.
“But it’s not as though Mary will meet us on the battlefield.” Edward coughed lightly. “She won’t send out her army when she doesn’t think she needs to. The rules of engagement mean nothing to her.”
Jane had a sudden idea.
“Then the rules of engagement must mean nothing to us,” she announced. All the men in the room frowned. “London cannot be taken. And it doesn’t need to be taken.”
Mary hadn’t needed an army to take London. Yes, she’d had one, but they’d just sat around the wall being scary while Mary intimidated the Privy Council into submission and seized the throne.
“What do you propose, Jane?” Bess gave her an encouraging smile.
“We take Mary.”
“Take her where?” asked the French commander.
“Take her how is probably the better question,” G said.
“Take Mary. Yes, that’s clever,” Bess said, ignoring G’s concern. “All Edward needs to do is show up to confront Mary. When everyone sees that the rightful King of England is alive, they won’t be able to deny his claim to the throne. But it must be in the proper place, where there can be no question about his identity. And we must not give Mary any time to prepare.”
“Mary will be holed up in the Tower of London, won’t she?” G asked. “In the royal apartments at the top of the White Tower?”
Jane slammed her palm on the table. “Then we break into the Tower.”
“The Tower that . . . also hasn’t been breached, ever?” Edward eyed Jane.
“Right, but we have advantages others haven’t.” Jane counted on her fingers. “One: an intimate knowledge of the layout and inner workings of the Tower of London. Two: a kestrel.”
Everyone looked at Edward. (Even the French commander, though he wasn’t sure why everyone was looking at Edward. In spite of all the hints, he hadn’t figured it out yet.)
“I can’t go in there alone,” Edward protested.
“I’d volunteer,” boasted Archer. “But I can’t fly over the walls.”
(Here, the French commander’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. France was still a country run by Verities, after all.)
Edward glared at Archer. “The problem isn’t the walls. It’s that I’d be naked. And unarmed. I’d have to land and change on the Tower Green, conveniently in the very same place Mary executes people like me, and I’d rather not make it that easy for her.”