“Such as you would be wholly unsuited to being my queen,” he went on. “An accident of birth made us partners during my father’s reign, but it seems silly for me not to have a choice, when there are more princesses than princes.”

He laughed, but none of the courtiers did this time. Looking at them, Petunia thought some of the gentlemen seemed almost sulky. She wondered if they had petitioned to be partnered with one of her sisters and been denied. Served them right, she thought. Nasty things.

“At first I thought to marry the eldest and make myself king of Westfalin as well,” Rionin continued in a smooth, amused voice. “But the taint of that common gardener and his dribs and drabs of magic has become offensive to me,” the King Under Stone said to Rose, who was now holding a silent, semiconscious Jonquil in her arms.

“I’m married too,” Lily murmured. She rubbed her ring finger, but in this nightmare, there were no rings there.

“What’s that, my beloved?” The King Under Stone looked down at Lily with a smirk.

“I am married,” Lily said in a louder voice. She slammed her elbow into the king’s ribs and twisted out of his arm in the same motion.

“We do not recognize the mumblings of your quaint little religion down here,” the King Under Stone sneered, straightening his jacket as though Lily’s strike had been nothing. His smile grew even wider than before. “And,” he added, “it’s not as if you have any children to tie him to you. I may not have my father’s temperament, but I do have all his powers.” He threw back his head, his black-and-silver hair rippling down his back, and laughed.

Petunia’s heart turned to ice. Lily sank to her knees.

“You bastard,” someone screamed. To Petunia’s shock, it was Hyacinth. “I will see your head mounted on the front gate!”

Hyacinth made a run at the king but was caught by Pansy and Daisy, who had gathered near to help Rose with Jonquil. Jonquil now appeared to have fallen unconscious, and Rose sagged beneath Jonquil’s weight, her face bleak. Poppy stood by Rose’s side, watching the king with calculating eyes, and Petunia wondered if there was some way that Poppy could bring her beloved pistols into this nightmare.

“Let her go, Daise,” Poppy said. “I, for one, would like to see him torn apart. And if Hyacinth is willing …”

“You can’t do a thing,” the King Under Stone said lightly. He raised Lily to her feet and kissed her on the cheek. She shuddered and tried to pull away, but he held her all the more tightly, both arms winding around her. “After all, it’s just a dream.”

Petunia woke in her bed, sweating even though the window was open.

She got up, closed the window, and lit the candle on her bedside table. She took a moment to look at the flame as it grew and steadied; fire always soothed her. Then, holding her candle before her like a weapon, she marched across the corridor in nothing but her nightgown.

Petunia entered Prince Grigori’s room without knocking. She yanked the bed curtains aside and looked down at the sleeping prince. He was terribly handsome, but Petunia didn’t stop to stare, just grabbed his shoulder and shook.

“Wake up,” she said. “Wake up, Grigori!”

“Hmm? What is it?” He blinked around sleepily, but then his eyes widened when he took in Petunia in her nightgown, her candle held just over his head. “My petal, what has happened?”

“I need to go home,” Petunia said tersely. “Now.”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t care,” Petunia said. “I need to go home.”

Dodging out from under her candle, Prince Grigori struggled upright. “Have you had a bad dream?”

Petunia started to laugh. She laughed so hard that the prince had to take the candle out of her hand before she dropped it on the bedclothes. She laughed until she was crying, sobbing, in a heap on the floor by his bed.

The prince set the candle aside and climbed out of bed. He scooped Petunia up in his long arms and carried her back to her own room, where he tucked her into her high bed and summoned Olga to sit with her. Then he sent for his grandmother’s physician, who brought extract of poppies to help her sleep.

“No,” Petunia gasped as the physician held the cup to her lips. He tipped a little down her throat. “No! Not poppies!” He forced her to drink a little more. “No! Not unless Poppy can take her pistol! And where’s mine? I don’t want to sleep without my pistol!”

“She’s delirious,” Petunia heard the physician say as she slipped into the grayness. “You’d better send a letter to her father.”

And then she heard the sound of a valse being played, shrill and just slightly out of tune.

Prisoner

Things had not gone as Oliver had hoped, but they had certainly gone as he had expected.

He was being held in a tiny attic room at the palace while Karl and the others had been taken to the Bruch jail. King Gregor didn’t believe Oliver was an earl, but apparently being the leader of the bandits, the abductor of Princess Petunia, and the claimant to a divided earldom made him too interesting for the regular jail.

But not interesting enough for immediate questioning. Oliver sat in the little room until evening, when the door was unlocked and a dinner tray shoved inside. An hour later the door opened and a hand groped around for the tray. Oliver obligingly pushed it closer to the door with his foot.

“Every compliment to the royal chef,” Oliver called as the door closed.

The guard only grunted.

He grunted, too, when Oliver thanked him for the breakfast tray. And Oliver thanked him for lunch as well.

And that was all Oliver did. Sit in the room. Sleep. Eat. And try to get the burly guard to do more than grunt.

In the late afternoon, he heard voices outside his room, and the door swung all the way open. The guard stood in the doorway, his rifle held crosswise, and behind him Oliver saw skirts of red-sprigged muslin.

“Hello,” Oliver said cautiously.

“Hello,” said a voice, and Poppy peeped around one of the guard’s large arms. “Are you well?”

“A little bored,” Oliver said. “But otherwise unharmed.”

A spark of amusement lit her eyes. “I’ll send up some books. You can read, can’t you?”

“All the Wolves of the Westfalian Woods can read,” Oliver said grandly.

“Even the ones with four legs?”

“Poppy,” someone whispered loudly from a hiding place a little way down the passage. “What are you doing?”

Oliver guessed that it was Daisy, who seemed a good deal more timid than her twin. He gave Poppy a wink over the guard’s arm and raised his voice a little. “I have endeavored to teach them myself,” he said. “And they are coming along nicely.”

“So tell me,” Poppy said, “what is an educated young man with courtly manners, who even teaches wolves to read, doing robbing coaches in the middle of the forest?”

“Poppppyyyy,” moaned her sister.

“Hush, Pan,” said Poppy without taking her eyes off Oliver.

Not Daisy then, but Pansy, who was less than a year older than Petunia. Oliver considered his answer for a long time. It was possible that Poppy and Pansy were here out of mere curiosity, without their father’s permission. But it was also possible that King Gregor wanted Oliver to reveal some dastardly intent while flirting with Gregor’s beautiful daughters.

“Well, Your Highness,” Oliver replied at last, “I needed to feed my people. And after the depredations of the war, and with our homes and farms gone, we had no other recourse.”

“Your people?”

Poppy asked it at the same time Pansy asked, “What happened to the farms?”