“It would be my pleasure,” Prince Grigori said. He didn’t sound quite as rehearsed, but he was obviously not at all surprised by the request. “However, the small matter of my duty to the king will still remain,” he added, making a face.

Petunia tried her best not to feel snubbed or to read too much into the strange playacting of both grandmother and grandson. She picked up her toast and continued to spread marmalade on it as calmly as she could.

“What duty to the king?”

“I have promised your royal father that I would hunt down these two-legged wolves,” Prince Grigori said. “And as yet I have had no luck.” He shook his head in self-deprecation.

Petunia felt a little sick. Had her father really ordered Grigori to hunt Oliver and his people, as though they were deer or foxes or … actual wolves? And if Grigori caught them, what then? Was he supposed to bring them to Bruch, or had her father given Grigori the authority to mete out punishment on the spot?

“How long have you been hunting them?” she finally asked.

“Since King Philippe of Analousia’s brother was accosted in the autumn,” Prince Grigori replied. “They took everything: gold, jewels, even his wife’s fur cloak. The only things of value they left the poor lady were her wedding ring and a mourning brooch containing a lock of hair. Things of sentimental value, of no worth to the bandits.”

“How kind,” Petunia murmured.

Prince Grigori snorted his agreement, thinking that she was being facetious.

“Your men may continue the hunt,” the grand duchess said. “But I would like Petunia to not sit here all day, bored as a brick, dancing attendance on an old lady like me.”

“I don’t mind,” Petunia protested.

“Don’t be silly,” the grand duchess said, not taking her gaze from her grandson. Her face was hard. “Grigori can spare some time for you.”

Petunia busied herself with her breakfast, and so did the prince. Petunia didn’t know what to say. Prince Grigori clearly did not want to argue with his grandmother, and Petunia could hardly blame him. The grand duchess was so very sharp, both in wits and speech, and there was an air about her as if she could not tolerate the weakness of those around her.

If there was any truth to the legend of the Nine Daughters of Russaka, Petunia thought suddenly, this is precisely what one of them would look like now. Beautiful and hard and full of secrets.

Once breakfast was finished, Petunia walked to the entrance hall with Prince Grigori, where they found Olga waiting with Petunia’s cloak and some white mittens. Petunia wondered if her maid had been eavesdropping on the breakfast room conversation, or if she was such a good lady’s maid that she simply knew these things through some sixth sense. Grigori’s valet appeared mere seconds later with his overcoat, hat, and gloves.

As Petunia put on the mittens, she thought with a pang of the fingerless gloves she hadn’t finished knitting. They would not be as warm, but they would look less childish. And she was accustomed to wearing knitwear with considerably more embellishment than this.

“Are you ready?” Grigori sounded impatient, but like he was trying to hold it in check.

“Of course,” Petunia said, pulling away from Olga, who was attempting to retie her cloak with a more flattering bow.

Petunia gave the bow a tweak of her own, no doubt only making it crooked, but not really caring. The cloak was so glorious that it could hardly be marred by having a crooked bow. Even Grigori’s hard eyes softened as he got a good look at Petunia with her black hair framed by the scarlet hood with its scrolls of silver embroidery. He held out his arm to her, and she took it, wishing that there were not quite such a discrepancy in their heights. He had to hold his arm down low and she had to reach up a bit more than was comfortable. Still, by the time they had gone out to the path to the gardens, they had fallen into a kind of rhythm with their steps that felt quite natural.

But it soon became apparent that Prince Grigori knew next to nothing about gardens. Petunia had to stifle her giggles as he waved his free arm vaguely at “Some sort of trees. The hedges. A statue.”

Petunia finally couldn’t conceal her laughter. “That was a rosebush,” she said when he looked at her questioningly.

“I beg your pardon?” He stopped and looked back at the rose, which had been trimmed into a small ornamental tree. “It is a very stunted tree, I believe.”

“Forgive me, Your Highness, but I can assure you that it is a rosebush. It has been pruned into that shape.”

She gently touched the bare branches with her mitten, wondering what color the rose was. If it was yellow, she might take a slip home, but she guessed that most of the roses in this garden would be white, pink, or red. They always were, in gardens where nobody truly cared about such matters. This garden was very clean: everything neatly pruned or wrapped for the winter, the grass short, the paths swept, but it was … well, boring. She could almost predict the hedge maze that was sure to appear on their left, just past the large fountain shaped like a nymph pouring water.

“It’s true,” Prince Grigori admitted with a laugh. “I don’t know much about these gardens. Well, can you forgive me? They are all your Westfalian trees and flowers!”

Petunia had to laugh too. But when she looked around to point out some of the better features of the common Westfalian garden in winter—such as they were—she realized that he was wrong. These weren’t Westfalian trees and flowers; they were Bretoner.

Her laugh died on her lips as she realized that this was Lady Emily’s garden. Oliver’s father must have planted it for his new Bretoner bride just the way her father had planted the garden for Maude in Bruch. It was on a less grand scale, true, but all the signs were there that someone, here in the middle of the Westfalian Woods, had tried to make a small corner of Breton.

“What’s the matter, princess?” Prince Grigori stopped, looking at her with concern. “Are you homesick already? Or tired from walking? Let me take you back to the house to rest.”

“Oh, no, it’s …” She realized that she could hardly tell him what was the matter. She hesitated. “Well, perhaps I am still a little rattled by the accident with the coach.”

She looked down at the ground so that he couldn’t detect the lie in her eyes. No one but her sisters could ever understand that the possibility of Rionin and his brothers crawling into her bedroom was far more terrifying than being in a runaway carriage.

As she stared at the lawn around them, however, avoiding the prince’s piercing eyes, she got another shock. This one nearly made her reel, and as she swayed just a little, Prince Grigori held her even closer.

“Are you faint? Are you ill?”

“No. Yes. Please take me inside,” Petunia said, her voice shaking.

His black brows drawn together in concern, Prince Grigori put one arm around her waist and guided her swiftly back to the manor. He must have thought Petunia was nearly swooning because she could not seem to raise her head, she was so busy staring at the lawn.

The winter-dead grass, still lightly dusted with frost despite the weak sunlight, bore the tracks of a half-dozen men. The trail of footprints led directly from the far end of the gardens to the flowerbed beneath her bedroom window. Any doubt in her mind fled, and she knew that Kestilan and his brothers had slipped out of the Kingdom Under Stone and come after her.

Supplicant

You’re going to be executed; you know that, don’t you?” Having said this, Simon lay back on Oliver’s bed and watched him pack, not appearing all that concerned.