“You would be,” the old woman said rather rudely.

“Where is Herr Vogel, good frau?” Bishop Schelker changed the subject. “Did he not come with you?”

“He’s visiting his gardens,” she said, waving a gnarled hand at the window. She shoved the purple cloak up beneath her shawl, making her look like a hunchback. “Like my shawl, do you?” She turned around so that Oliver could admire it. It was blue, with ruffled edges. “One of the girls made it for me. I don’t know which one. All those foolish flower names are impossible to keep straight!” Another cackle of laughter.

“Walter Vogel, the gardener?” Oliver remembered the name his mother had given him, the name of the gardener she thought could help.

“Is there any other?” The old woman crowed.

“We had better arm ourselves and be going,” Bishop Schelker said. “Young Oliver will need the cloak until we are out of Bruch, good frau.”

“I will?” Oliver’s voice rose embarrassingly on the second word. His blood pounded at the bishop’s words: “until we are out of Bruch.”

“Yes, yes,” the old woman said. “He can have it when he needs it.”

“So, you mean that I will be going with you? To help? You trust me?” Oliver looked from the bishop to the old woman and back again. Galen had said Oliver would join them, but until that moment he had been afraid that Schelker or one of the others would decide to dismiss him.

“Here,” the bishop said by way of an answer. He handed Oliver one of the small bags. What ever it held crackled and released a scent of cooking herbs. “Wear it around your neck, under your shirt. And take a box of bullets; we’ll get you a pistol in a moment.”

Oliver slipped the cord of the little bag around his neck and took the pasteboard box of bullets before he could tuck the bag out of sight. Judging from the weight and the noise the box made, it did indeed contain bullets, which he assumed were silver as the crown prince had requested.

“It seems you passed muster, lad,” said a gentle voice as another person came into the room, making the small study rather crowded.

“You’re late, Walter,” the crone snapped.

The newcomer was an old man with a peg leg and the weathered face of someone who spent his days in the sun. “We need all the help that we can get,” he said.

“When we’re in the palace, we will have great need,” agreed the crone.

Captive

When Kestilan brought Petunia to the Palace Under Stone, she was taken to the very bedroom that she had dreamed about the night when she had tried to shoot Rionin in her sleep. She laid the bunch of yellow roses on the black-lacquered dressing table with shaking fingers. Kestilan left, to her relief, but then the ladies of the court came flooding into her room.

There were few servants in the Kingdom Under Stone, mostly silent musicians and footmen at the Midnight Balls, and the sisters had long suspected they were magical constructions: shadows brought to life. It was the courtiers, the immortal followers of the first King Under Stone who shared his exile, who had waited upon the sisters. The court ladies had taken away the princesses’ clothes that terrible night they had spent in the castle before Galen had helped them escape. And it was the court ladies who came now, screeching with triumphant laughter, and stripped Petunia of her clothing.

They dressed her in a midnight-blue gown laced with dull silver and put silver slippers on her feet. Then they scraped her curly hair up into a coiffure so rigid that she felt like she could lower her head and run one of them through like an angry bull. They gave her a necklace and earrings of sapphires that looked faded with age, set in tarnished silver, and then they gathered up her old clothes.

Petunia had no particular fondness for her riding habit, but when one white-faced gloating woman tried to fold up her scarlet cloak, Petunia snatched the heavy velvet out of her hands. The woman actually hissed at her, like a cat, but Petunia would not let go.

“I will kill you if you touch it again,” she snarled at the woman.

Her heart was racing, not just because she wanted to keep her cloak, but also because she didn’t want them to feel the heavy lump in the inside pocket. The pistol-shaped lump. They’d taken her silver dagger with clear distaste, but they had left her specially knitted garters, which seemed to irritate their fingers as they changed her stockings. So the garters had worked a bit, at least, even if they hadn’t prevented her from being brought here.

“There are some who would give a great deal to join us here,” the woman said with a sneer. She seemed to be the leader of the ladies, a tall creature with unnaturally red hair and eyes like chips of ice.

“Name one,” Petunia snapped.

“That maid,” the woman said. “Olga.”

Petunia’s head jerked at the news. She wasn’t all that surprised, just startled at having her suspicions confirmed.

“It will be so nice to have a maid again,” sighed one of the women, a shrill little creature who reminded Petunia of a rat.

“Olga is really that eager to leave the grand duchess and be a maid here?” Petunia could hardly credit such a thing. What sort of appeal did a world without sunlight have for Olga? Especially since she would be the only maid, with more than two dozen cruel mistresses to order her around.

“Well,” the tall leader of the ladies said in an artful voice, toying with the tattered lace of her sleeve. “She may have gotten the wrong impression about the offer. She may have thought she was to be a lady … even a princess.”

Screams of laughter pummeled Petunia’s ears, and she took an involuntary step back, bumping into one of the ladies behind. The woman growled and pushed her back, and Petunia stepped on the hem of her own gown and almost tripped. The leader watched Petunia right herself with hooded eyes.

“You’re very short, aren’t you?” She smirked at Petunia.

“And you’ve got a nose like a stoat,” Petunia replied. “But I can always have my gowns altered.”

“Dinner is in an hour,” one of the other women told her while their leader swelled with anger. “You will eat with the princes.” She gave Petunia a spiteful look, as though angry that Petunia should be so honored.

“And to night there will be a ball, of course,” their tall leader added, now that she had recovered herself.

“Am I expected to dance with all the princes?” Petunia couldn’t resist asking.

“You will dance with your betrothed,” the woman snapped.

“But he isn’t here,” Petunia said, blinking at her innocently.

She knew that the ruse would mean little to Kestilan, since Rionin was not even deterred by Lily’s marriage to Heinrich. But she wanted to give them something to chew on. Kestilan wasn’t the only man interested in her, after all. There was Oliver, and Prince Grigori …

Prince Grigori, who had clearly led them into the forest for the sole purpose of sending Petunia to the Kingdom Under Stone. She had been right: he was in league with Rionin. But what had he been promised to make him do such a thing? Petunia had been certain that he truly liked her; why would he give her up to Kestilan? And why not capture Lily instead?

“This betrothed of yours, what is his name?” The freakishly tall lady asked.

Petunia opened her mouth to say Oliver’s name, and a face flashed before her eyes. Prince Alfred, their horsey-looking second cousin, who had come to solve the mystery of their worn-out slippers when she was just a little girl. Come to solve the mystery and died for his efforts, so that the first King Under Stone could show the sisters the power of his displeasure. Alfred’s face, blurred by time, was followed by other blurry images: a Belgique prince who had tried to spy on Rose while she was ill, a foppish Spanian with more luggage than all twelve sisters put together. All dead now, because of the King Under Stone. And, to be honest, because of Petunia and her sisters.