Or a disillusioned shell would sneak into the palace and stab her sixteen times in the chest.

Even as Levana became afraid to think that these were her own thoughts, she could hear herself justifying them.

She was a great queen. Luna was better off with her, not some ignorant child who would be a spoiled, self-absorbed brat by the time she took her throne.

The transition when Selene turned thirteen would be difficult and confusing for the people. It could take years for them to get on track again.

Channary had been a terrible ruler. No doubt her daughter would be the same.

No one would love this country like Levana did. No one.

She deserved to be the queen.

Because she had never truly hated the child, she believed she was being practical in her rationalization. Her thoughts didn’t come from envy or resentment. This was about the good of Luna. The betterment of everyone around her.

Months ticked by, and she found herself inspecting the few moments she spent with her niece for weaknesses. Wondering how she would do it, if the opportunity came. Wondering if she could get away with it.

Levana didn’t realize she was making a plan until the plan was already half formed.

It was the right thing to do. The only choice a concerned queen could make.

It was a sacrifice and a burden that she couldn’t hand to anyone else.

She chose a day, almost without realizing she had chosen it.

The opportunity presented itself so clearly. Her imagination sparked. It was as though some unseen ghost was whispering the suggestion into her ear, coaxing her to take advantage of this chance that might not come again.

Winter had an appointment with Dr. Eliot that day. Levana would ensure that she was the one who would get Winter from the nursery. She would send Evret on some other task. The nanny would be there. Supposedly there was a new nanny, one that people didn’t know well yet, one that may not be entirely trustworthy. Levana would coerce her, making sure it seemed like an accident. She would …

Would what?

This was the part that Levana could not figure out.

How did you kill a child?

There were so many possibilities, but every one of them made her feel like a monster for even considering it. At first she tried to think how best to make sure the child didn’t suffer. She didn’t want to cause her pain; she only wanted her dead. Something that would be over quickly.

Then, on Selene’s third birthday, they decided to host a party. Something intimate. It had been Evret’s idea, and Levana was so delighted to see him wanting to plan something, as a family, that she didn’t argue. It was only the two of them, and little Winter, of course, and the Clay family, as always. All gathered together in the palace nursery, drinking wine and laughing like normal people, like there was nothing strange about this mingling of royalty and guards. The children played, and Garrison’s wife gave Selene a stuffed doll that she’d made, and the palace pastry chef brought up a little cake shaped like a crown. In each of the cake’s tines was a tiny silver candle.

Evret tried to show Selene how to blow out the candles, while wax dripped into the frosting. Winter, too, wanted to take part in the celebration, and baby spittle was left all over the pretty cake before young Jacin Clay got annoyed and blew out the candles himself. They all laughed and clapped, and Levana stared at the black smoke curling upward and knew how she was going to do it.

She would do to the child what Channary had done to her.

Come here, baby sister. I want to show you something.

Only, unlike Channary, she would be merciful. She would not force the child to then go on living.

*   *   *

She stood in the doorway to the nursery, listening to the girls giggling in their playhouse. They had covered the top with blankets from Evret’s bed for added privacy. From here, Levana could see intricate apple blossoms embroidered around the edges of one of the blankets, and it surprised her to think that, no matter how many times she had slipped into Evret’s bed, she had never noticed those designs. The blanket was not something commissioned for the palace, which meant that Evret had brought it from his previous marriage, and had kept this secret part of Solstice hidden these past years.

Realizing that she was fidgeting with her black wedding band, Levana let her hands fall to her sides.

Inside the playhouse, Winter said something about being princesses in the tower, but then it all dissolved into childish nonsense and laughter that Levana couldn’t follow.

It would be over after today, and that knowledge was a relief. She could stop thinking about the princess that would one day grow up and take everything from her. She could stop being haunted by the ghost of her sister and the legacy she’d left behind.

After today, all of Luna would be hers.

It had occurred to her that she could choose not to take Winter away after all, and to let the fire claim them both. Then all of Evret would be hers too. But then she thought of what a hollowed-out shell of a man Evret had been in the months following his wife’s death, and she couldn’t stand to watch that again.

“Oh, pardon me. Are you—”

Levana turned and the girl drew back with a gasp, before falling into a hasty curtsy. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I didn’t recognize you.”

The girl was no great beauty, with limp hair and a nose too large for her face. But there was a delicateness to her that Levana thought could appeal to some, and a grace in her curtsy that befit someone who had been hired to raise their next queen.

“You must be the new nanny,” said Levana.