Rickie limped through the party. The hanging chandeliers burned into her eyes and she sweated under her black suit. She tore into a cocktail sausage and grabbed a handful. She ate by bringing the entire handful up to her mouth and biting whichever piece of meat was closest. Her other hand was tucked tightly in her jacket pocket, with every appearance of having been glued there. From across the room Elizabeth Woodville made a disgusted face, then suppressed it. The mark of good but not quite good enough breeding, thought Rickie, smirking.

She saw their new CEO coming from a long way off. Edwina had been like that as a child. You could hear her coming down a corridor before she entered a room. Rickie would have thought that it couldn't get any worse, but now Edwina had people employed to announce her. It could always get worse.

Rickie tucked her fistful of meat behind her back and bowed low.

'Your majesty,' she said, smiling wide.

Edwina laughed and clapped Rickie hard on the back as she came up from the bow. Pain shot down her spine but she smiled through it.

'That'd make you, what, a baroness?' asked Edwina.

'A duchess,' said Rickie, but Edwina had already moved away, drunk but never staggering, embracing her new bride with barely even a glance towards her mistress. Rickie smiled at everyone, chomped through the sausages, and sought out her other sister.

Georgia and Rickie took a great deal of delight in addressing each other as "Clarence" and "Gloucester": the names of the divisions of the company now under their charge. Out of London too, that had it perks. But it was a little quiet for Rickie, after the clamour and clash of the struggles that had brought them to these seats of power.

Georgia moved away in the direction of Jane Shore and Rickie went to speak to Anne Neville, but neither met with any success. Jane Shore was almost ethereal, and Anne Neville turned and fled to the elderly Mrs Neville at the first sight of Rickie.

And there was no way Rickie was going anywhere near her mother tonight. Or at any following time, if she could help it.

Instead she made her way out of the penthouse and towards the elevators. Once the doors had closed, she straightened. She stretched her legs and rolled her shoulders. She pulled her hand out of her pocket and practiced twisting it into a misshapen claw, a parody of a hand. She grinned. Some gloves would enhance the effect, she thought. By the time the doors opened and let her out in the foyer, she was back to her limping stooped persona again.

Her war wounds did pain her, that was true. It wasn't as if she was lying, not really. She was merely presenting people what they wanted to see. They hated her no matter how upright and dolled-up and pleasant she was. So why bother? If they thought her a monster, she might as well make some effort to look like one. It made it easier for everybody to hate everybody that way.

She walked outside, smiling and greeting the workers, and went across the street to smoke and watch them change the large letters above the doorway from "Lancaster" to "York". She'd been practicing at getting a cigarette out, to her lips, and lit, with only one hand, and didn't slip as the workers watched her while pretending not to.

The only time people hadn't hated her, she remembered, was when she was carving through the opposition to get her sister to the top job. A hostile takeover, she thought, smiling at the memories. Deals that were legitimate but nasty, deals completely off the books, bog-standard bribery and intimidation. All of which paled in comparison to her favourite: the out-of-office activities. When negotiations broke down, Rickie got her hands dirty.

Spring was coming, she thought, but there was still a chill in the air. Time enough to stand like this and enjoy the cold that was her own and wait for the first gear to click into place.

And it did, just as she'd lit her second cigarette. There came Georgia, marched through the foyer by Brakenbury, one of Edwina's flunkies. Edwina had a lot of flunkies these days, but Rickie knew them all. Brakenbury was a devoted stickler. She followed the letter of every instruction handed down by Edwina as if the boss were God Herself. Rickie had always found the younger woman's firm shoulders rather attractive, however.

Rickie took a moment to put on her confused and shocked face, and limped hurriedly over the street to intercept the pair. She dropped her cigarette to indicate a little extra urgency.

'Georgia!' she called. 'Brakenbury! What's the meaning of all this? This is one of our most senior executives you're tugging around.'

'Our most gracious chief executive officer,' said Georgia, 'has appointed this one to take me to be held in the tower.'

The tower was the company's slang term for what the secret services would have called a black site, what Edwina called her personal fortress, and what Rickie called a gateway to delights. Someone standing outside the tower, counting the comings and goings, would notice more people coming in, than going out. A black car with tinted windows pulled around the corner and halted beside where the trio stood.

'What possible reason could our sister have for that?'

'Because my name is Georgia.'

Rickie laughed, then cut it off, her realisation of the statement's seriousness playing out across her face.

'But that isn't your fault,' she said. She threw her free arm wide. 'Edwina might as well drag off our godmother who gave you the name. Maybe she has, and you're due for another christening.' She shook her head. 'But really, what the hell is going on?'

'She wouldn't speak to me,' said Georgia. 'But… you know she's been spending time with that psychic.'

Rickie sneered. 'We used to burn them for witches, in the good old days.'

'Well. This psychic somehow gave Edwina a fascination with the letter "G". That something or someone to do with that letter would be responsible for her daughters not inheriting her estate.'

Here Brakenbury opened her mouth and even got out a syllable, before Rickie spoke over her.

'Seems a little specific, for a psychic.'

'So naturally Edwina assumed it had something to do with me.'

'Prophecies, libels, and dreams. This is not the way a York works. The Woodvilles, however… look to Edwina's wife, plucking her strings again. Remember how those Woodvilles had Hastings sent away? Only just now has she been released! We are not safe, sister, we are not safe.'

'None of us are,' said Georgia, frowning up at the night sky, rendered starless by the city lights. 'Maybe Woodville's own. And little Miss Jane Shore. Did you hear it was her who got Edwina to release Hastings?'

'Indeed,' said Rickie. 'Elizabeth Woodville and Jane Shore: two women who hate each other, yet hold more influence in this company than anyone else.'

Brakenbury cleared her throat. Rickie fixed her withering gaze upon this makeshift jailer. Brakenbury tried to stand straight, then thought better of mocking Rickie's stoop, and tried an awkward and unflattering slouch instead.

'Please, my lady,' she said—and this was a form of address Rickie thought she could use more of in her life—'Mrs Plantagenet told me very clearly, in no uncertain terms, that nobody should speak privately with her sister.'

'Not even little old me?' asked Rickie, grinning.

Brakenbury took a step back. She swallowed. 'Not even you, my lady.'

'There's no sedition here, girl, you can hear it all. File it all in your report. We say—what do we say, Georgia?—that Edwina Plantagenet is wise and virtuous, that her wife Elizabeth has the fine seasoning that comes with age and is never struck with the point of jealousy. We say that Miss Jane Shore has pretty feet, cherry lips, a darting eye, and a voice that could be mistaken for that of a deity. We say that Elizabeth's people are advanced through the ranks of the company thanks to her marriage.'

Rickie wrapped her arm around Georgia's shoulder and looked back and forth between her sister and Brakenbury.

'Well? Do we say a single untruth?'

'Pardon me, my lady, but I must insist on the orders given to me by the head of this company.'

'Which head would that be, then?' asked Rickie.

'We know, Brakenbury,' said Georgia, exhaling. She tugged herself away from her sister and held up a hand to forestall the coming words. 'We know. And I'm going.'

'We are bound by Elizabeth,' said Rickie. 'And Edwina. And to the latter I will go. And if I must call Elizabeth'—she chewed the next word around her mouth—'sister, then I will do it, if it will bring you to freedom.'

'Enough,' said Georgia, grasping Rickie's hand. 'I know your feelings here.'

'It is not enough,' said Rickie, gripping tighter. 'I must let you go now, but not for long. I will restore you to liberty, else be imprisoned myself. Be patient, for just a short while.'

'Can I be but patient?' asked Georgia. She allowed herself to be helped into the car and raised a hand in farewell before the door was closed. Rickie stood and watched the car go. The workers had long since finished their task and run out of excuses to hang around.

A straight road to the tower, thought Rickie. And Georgia would never think to look down any other route. A straight road to her death, if everything was in its right place.

It was a few days later, almost exactly at the same spot, that Rickie ran into Hastings, coming from opposite directions to reach York HQ. Hastings was a bulky woman, with features that looked as if they had been shaped roughly from clay. Rickie had always wanted to punch her in the face, but had hidden that fact so well that Hastings was under the impression the two of them were friends.

'Good morning, Hastings!' cried Rickie. 'Freshly delivered from captivity, I see. Welcome to the open air.'

'Whatever time of day it may be,' said Hastings, 'I wish it good for you.'

Rickie took Hastings inside and settled her on one of the plush couches that lined the foyer.

'But what's the news? Abroad?'

'Nothing worse than here,' said Hastings. 'The York matriarch is sick. Weak. She falls into fits of… they call it melancholy.' She looked up. 'The doctors and relatives circle like vultures.'

Rickie shook her head. 'I told her. Fine food and fine wine… but she would never listen. Now…' Her voice cracked. 'Is she in her bed?' Hastings nodded. 'Go. I need a moment.'

'Of course,' said Hastings. She rose and headed for the elevators. Rickie waited until the doors had closed before she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Enough performance for the workers who littered the edges of the foyer. All of them knew who she was. She would have been unmistakable, even without her affectations.

Edwina could not die, not yet, thought Rickie. Not without Georgia being got rid of first. But all things moved towards their end. Edwina, really, only needed to last the day. And with both gone, the world would be left for Rickie to bustle in. It was time, she thought, to think of finding a wife.