“Come here.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll come when I’ve finished gathering twigs.”

“Gather them from the path,” he snarled.

“No.”

She kept walking deeper into the woods. She heard slow steps behind her: Kestilan braving the blessed silver. She hoped the pain was excruciating.

“Petunia, come back here!”

“No!”

“Haven’t you learned not to wander into the woods?”

That brought her up short.

It was true that she was in the Kingdom Under Stone because she had been picking flowers that any sane person would have known signaled a trap. But how could she get into any more trouble? And now she was walking in her mother’s silver wood, perhaps the safest place in this realm.

She went forward and came through the trees into a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a beautiful little house, like an Analousian chalet with a sloping roof and ornately carved wooden balconies. It was all in black, and there was none of the traditional paintings on the walls, but otherwise it looked precisely like a chalet from the southeastern mountains.

“Petunia! Come back at once!”

She stepped into the clearing with Kestilan’s voice growing fainter behind her. Despite her reasoning, she still wished she had her pistol or a silver dagger or something. She gave the top of her bodice a little pat, feeling the matches there. At least she had them.

The door of the chalet swung open and someone strolled out onto the porch. Someone tall and slim, dressed in black, and Petunia froze, thinking it was Rionin. How had he gotten through the wood?

“My Petal! Welcome!”

It was Prince Grigori. Petunia felt as though a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head, and she nearly did run right back to Kestilan then. But anger got the better of her.

“You! What are you doing here?” Petunia demanded. “What is all this?”

He gave her a broad smile of delight. “Have you come to see my grandmother? She has been pining to see you!”

“Your … grandmother?” Petunia’s knees went weak. The grand duchess was here? In the prison of the Kingdom Under Stone?

“She came right after you did,” Grigori said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He came down the steps, holding out his hand. “I am sorry that I tricked you into coming here,” he said. “But it was necessary. Here is where you belong, and so do my grandmother and I. In order to get us here, I had to send you first.”

Petunia wanted to slap him. How could he bring the grand duchess to this place? She would be trapped here in the middle of the woods forever!

“Your poor grandmother! Take me to her at once,” Petunia ordered, even as her stomach tied itself in a knot. Escaping had just gotten even more complicated. She pushed past him and started up the steps.

Looking startled at her vehemence, but nevertheless pleased, Prince Grigori hurried forward to lead her into the chalet. It was all silver and black with violet upholstery, not unlike the Palace Under Stone, but without the seediness and rot that crept around the corners. Prince Grigori led her down the hall and knocked on a tall door inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“Grandmother? Our Petunia is here,” he called through the door.

“Bring her in, bring her in,” came the grand duchess’s reply before Petunia could protest that she was not his Petunia.

Grigori opened the door on a beautifully appointed bedroom. The black furniture was draped in lacy white. There were white curtains over the windows, a white-canopied bed piled with white cushions, and white lace shawls and antimacassars on every surface.

The grand duchess, sitting up in a froth of lace and pillows on the bed, was also completely in white. She wore a white lace cap over her white hair, and a ruffled white bed jacket. She looked older, and yet strangely more alert than usual, and Petunia wondered wildly if this were the real grand duchess. But who else could she be?

Petunia covered her distraction by dropping a curtsy. “Your Grace, it’s such a surprise to see you here!”

“But why shouldn’t I be here? Here is where I belong!” The grand duchess smiled at her, and Petunia felt a chill run down her spine. The old lady fingered the coverlet with evident satisfaction.

“I— I don’t understand,” Petunia stammered. “This is the prison of the King Under Stone! None of us should be here.”

“Prison? Only temporarily,” the grand duchess said as if it were no great matter. “My only regret is that I was not able to join my beloved years ago, to be his queen before he was cruelly murdered.”

“What?” Petunia blinked stupidly at the grand duchess. Was she really saying that the first King Under Stone would have been … was her … Petunia just shuddered, remembering that horrible, bone-white creature on his throne.

Petunia drew her cloak around herself and studied the old woman in the bed. Was this the grand duchess or had Rionin found some woman of the court to disguise? But to what purpose?

“Now, my Petunia,” the grand duchess teased. “Why do you look at me so? Come here and sit on the bed with me, and Grigori will bring us something hot to drink.”

“Have your eyes always been green?” Petunia could not remember.

“Of course they have! What other color would they have been? There have been sonnets written about my emerald green eyes! And they remain as sharp today as they were in my youth—I can see farther than many a young girl!” The grand duchess laughed, showing two rows of very fine white teeth.

Had they always been so fine and white? Petunia could not remember that either, and could not shake the feeling that she was looking at something … other … something that did indeed belong here in the Kingdom Under Stone and not the world above.

“Come, sit here by me, my dear Petunia!” the grand duchess urged her, patting a small space on the cushion-covered bed beside her. “Let me explain it all to you. It’s not quite as horrible as you’ve been led to believe.”

Petunia didn’t move.

“Oh, come now!” The grand duchess laughed again. “Do you think I bite? Come here, girl, and let me talk to you comfortably!”

The Grand Duchess Volenskaya had shown her nothing but kindness in the past, Petunia reminded herself, had treated her as one of her own granddaughters, in fact. It was not the old lady’s fault that her grandson was evil, and he had clearly tricked her into coming here, just as he had tricked Petunia.

Petunia crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed next to the grand duchess, arranging her cloak around her.

“Don’t you want to take the cloak off? You must be warm,” the grand duchess said, reaching one hand out for the ties of the cloak.

“No, thank you.” Petunia drew back a little.

“Suit yourself, child,” said the grand duchess. “Now let me explain.

“When I was a very young girl, younger than you are now, my father shut my eight sisters and me in a high tower. He was afraid that we would be taken advantage of by fortune seekers, or fall in love with unsuitable men, and so he decided to lock us away until he could find worthy husbands for all of us. I spent ten years in that tower,” the grand duchess said, her tone bitter, “but toward the end of that time, something happened.”

Despite herself, Petunia was leaning closer to the grand duchess. So it was true, after all. This poor woman had been one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka, seduced by the King Under Stone during her captivity.

“A man began to appear to us,” the grand duchess continued. “He was made all of shadows, but he was kind and wonderful. He told us of his kingdom, and how he wanted to take us all away from that horrible tower. He taught us how to make a door in our tower to go to his palace to dance. We spent so many happy nights there.” She sighed, smiling at the memory. “It was a gift from heaven, to be able to escape that small tower room!