“Unless Grigori killed your husbands after we left,” Jonquil said bleakly.

Hunter

Oliver had been robbing coaches since he was thirteen years old. He knew every inch of the forest along the highway. And yet that journey through the Westfalian Woods was the strangest two days of his life. Oliver found himself riding on a fine horse, dressed in his faded leathers, wolf mask bobbing on his shoulder, in the company of an extremely old woman, a one-legged man, and a heavily armed bishop who rode what looked like a cavalry horse.

Despite the seeming fragility of the old woman—who apparently didn’t have a name and was merely referred to as “good frau” by everyone—she proved to be a skilled rider. Walter Vogel, too, was at ease on a horse even though Oliver would have thought that his peg leg would be a hindrance. And it seemed that Bishop Schelker’s father had been a general and had insisted that all of his sons learn to ride and shoot, no matter that one of them had been called to the Church at a young age.

They set a swift pace, and as they rode, Walter Vogel, who had once been a gardener at the palace but was also a sorcerer or some such improbable thing, explained to Oliver that if the princes Under Stone could come out of their prison through the hothouse, it might be possible to get into the Kingdom Under Stone through that same hothouse.

“Why would we want to do that?” Oliver looked over at the old man in consternation. “Shouldn’t we just scrub away that spell and keep them in there for good?”

“Whoever created a gate in the hothouse will just make another,” Walter said. “The best thing to do is to reseal the prison.”

“Or kill them all,” Oliver said.

They had slowed to a walk to rest their horses before Walter answered Oliver. He brought his horse in close to Oliver’s, his face grave.

“Wolfram von Aue summoned terrible powers from spirits of the dead and other unholy sources,” Walter said in a lecturing tone. “He held all these powers within him, gathering more strength by feeding off the energy of his followers. That power still exists. It needs to be contained. If it gets loose, it could destroy all of Westfalin.”

“Westfalin?” The good frau had brought her horse close along Oliver’s other side. “Don’t coddle the boy! If the powers that Wolfram gathered get loose, Ionia would be a smoking pit in the ground!”

“Galen was lucky,” Walter went on. “Very lucky. He killed Wolfram when his oldest son, the perfect vessel for those powers, happened to be standing right at hand. If Wolfram’s sons had not been there, the powers might have scattered and broken out of the cage we created. Or they could just as easily have gone into Galen, twisting and using him even as Wolfram had twisted and used them.”

“I wonder,” Bishop Schelker said from Walter’s other side, “if Galen would have killed the king so readily, had he known the danger he was in.”

“And young Rose,” said the crone. “If we had had a Queen Under Stone, would that have been any better?” She clucked her tongue in disapproval. Her horse took it as a sign to move back to a canter, so they did.

As they moved steadily down the road into the depths of the forest, Oliver pondered everything that he had now learned. They could not kill the dark king or his brothers, at least not all of them. One of them would need to remain alive to hold the power in check.

“What are we going to do?” Oliver asked all three of his companions as they slowed again. “If we can’t kill them, and they’ve broken the lock on the prison, what do we do?”

“We remake the walls of the prison, stronger than before,” Walter Vogel answered.

“But how?” Oliver looked at his horse’s mane in despair. “According to a book Princess Poppy gave me, most of the wizards who made the prison died working the magic! And those who survived have been dead for centuries now anyway.”

“The young are so sure of themselves, aren’t they?” The good frau sucked her remaining teeth and rolled her faded eyes. “Dead for centuries, bah!”

“Indeed, good frau,” Oliver said, his voice strained as he tried to conceal his frustration. “Wolfram von Aue was imprisoned well over fifteen hundred years ago.”

“Has it really been so long?” Walter studied his own horse’s mane for a moment. “I suppose it has.”

“I don’t worry about such things as age or death.” The old woman sniffed. “I have too much to do yet.”

“Er,” Oliver said.

“He talks even less than the one Lily married,” the crone remarked to Walter. “Though when the mood strikes him, he asks just as many questions as Galen.”

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said weakly.

The old woman nodded. “You are forgiven,” she pronounced in queenly tones. Her sharp eyes bored into his. “And that is because once I was a queen.” And with that she spurred her horse to a gallop.

Oliver looked over at Walter, concerned that the woman’s mind was as feeble as her body appeared. But Walter was rubbing at the leg that terminated in a polished wooden peg and gazing after the crone with a wistful expression.

“Long ago we were all something else,” was all Walter said, then he too sent his horse forward, leaving Oliver and the bishop to catch up.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to the estate, but just when they could see the stone fence peeking through the trees, bandits surrounded them. Oliver and his companions brought their horses to a sharp halt on the hard road as men in wolf masks stepped out of the trees on all sides. Oliver looked around, nonplussed. They had to have recognized him: he recognized them even with their masks in place. He was about to call out to Karl, who stood directly in their path, when Karl unmasked and spoke.

“All right there, Oliver?”

“I’m well,” Oliver replied. “Yourself?”

Karl nodded.

“What’s the reason for this?” Bishop Schelker looked around. “Aren’t you Lord Oliver’s men?”

“Indeed we are,” said Johan, taking off his own mask. “And that’s why we’re here. Lady Emily told us that you intend to rescue the princesses. If that’s so, then that is the path you must take.” He pointed to a narrow side road, little more than a deer path, that skirted around the back of the estate wall.

“What’s down there?” Walter peered through the trees.

“That Russakan prince’s hunting lodge,” Karl said with a grunt. “He took them all there, four days ago. Though not all of them made it.” He looked pained.

“What do you mean?” Oliver’s mouth went dry.

“The littlest princess, your Petunia, Oliver,” Karl said. “She disappeared somewhere along the trail.”

“How should you know such a thing, Karl Schmidt?” The good frau narrowed her pale eyes at him.

“How did you know his name?” Johan glared at the old woman.

“I know a lot of things, Johan Mueller, and most of them would turn your gray hairs snow white,” the crone retorted.

“It’s all right,” Karl said, swallowing loudly. “We’ve kept a watch on the princesses, good frau. Lady Emily ordered us to do it.”

The old woman looked at Walter. “Emily? The skinny one with curly hair?”

“Yes,” Walter said. “She married the Earl of Saxeborg-Rohlstein.”

“And then gave birth to him?” She jerked a thumb at Oliver.

“What do you mean Petunia disappeared?” Oliver demanded, ignoring the good frau. “Tell me exactly what you saw, Karl!”

“They were taking a picnic to the hunting lodge, so far as we can tell, with six of Grigori’s men as escort. We followed, staying in the trees. They were within a few minutes’ ride of the lodge when Petun—Princess Petunia—stopped and got down from her horse. She went into the trees and was cutting some flowers. They were roses, yellow roses in full bloom,” said Karl, his voice taking on a hint of wonder. “The others yelled at her to stop, and she just … disappeared. They searched for her but there was nothing. Then they continued on to the hunting lodge, but we haven’t seen or heard from any of them since.”