Just as one of the princes—Blathen—was stepping into the stern, Oliver also got in. Then he discovered a little hitch: he couldn’t sit in the middle because he would be cheek-to-cheek with Kestilan, but the bow was very narrow.

“These seats are so uncomfortable,” Petunia fussed.

She twisted about in the bow until her skirts were wrapped around her legs. She was leaning on her side, one elbow propped on the gunwale. If Oliver leaned on one hip, he could just fit next to her.

Oliver lowered himself gingerly into the little space beside Petunia. He had to grab hold of the gunwale on his side to stop himself from falling on top of her. As it was, they were pressed very closely together. Her perfume smelled like roses and cinnamon, or perhaps, he thought, that was just Petunia herself.

Blathen pushed them out into the lake with a grunt and nearly fell face-first into the water. He leaped aboard at the last minute, panting, and Kestilan laughed at him.

“Feeling your age?” He began to stroke with the oars.

Oliver looked over and saw that the other boat had also pushed out, with only slightly less effort.

“The boat is heavy,” complained Blathen.

“You’ve crossed this lake thousands of times,” Kestilan sniped.

They rowed the rest of the way in silence, and Oliver did his best not to crush Petunia. It was hard not to put an arm around her, both for balance and because he very much wanted to. He did sigh with relief when the bottom of the boat scraped onto the coarse sand of the island, but he didn’t think anyone noticed.

Other than Petunia, who gave a small laugh.

“What are you laughing about?” Kestilan turned to help her out of the boat.

“Nothing I’d share with you,” she retorted.

She stalked into the palace, Oliver at her heels.

Once inside, she went straight through the main hall and into a smaller corridor. Oliver would have liked to stop and stare: everything was silver and black, blue and violet, muted colors that somehow seemed garish. He could see the resemblance between the decor of the palace and that of the grand duchess’s chalet. It was really quite morbid.

But Petunia did not stop. She didn’t stop when a courtier popped out of a room and demanded to know what the to-do across the lake had been about. She didn’t stop when a very tall lady in a black lace gown stood in her path and asked what she was doing with an armload of filthy branches like a servant. Petunia just walked around these people, and Oliver stayed with her.

At last she had to stop, because they turned a corner and the King Under Stone was there.

Oliver knew at once who he was, and not just because he wore a jagged black crown. He had long white hair with fine streaks of black, and his face was weirdly ageless: seeming at one moment to be very young, at others, immeasurably old. He stood in the middle of the corridor and stared at Petunia.

“You’re back,” he said in a hollow voice.

“Yes. I do not wish to marry Grigori,” she said. “I don’t wish to marry Kestilan, either, but Grigori would be even worse.”

“I have promised—”

“I don’t care what you promised your mother or your nephew, Alexei,” Petunia interrupted. “I’m not going to be given as a prize to the man who tricked me into coming here!”

She waved the silver branches in his face and he flinched and stepped aside. At the end of the corridor she went into a room that was full of women—and not just any women, but her sisters—who all greeted her with cries of delight. Oliver slipped into the room and pressed himself against the wall, and felt Galen brush against his arm as he did the same. One of the princesses shut the door and then braced a chair against it.

“Hush, all of you!” Crown Princess Rose called out. When they had quieted she looked Petunia over. “I was going to ask if you were hurt, but by the look on your face, you have good news for us.”

“The very best,” Galen said, shrugging off his gray shawl.

“Galen!” The crown princess flung herself into her husband’s arms with a glad cry.

The other princesses shrieked and threw themselves at their brother-in-law only a moment later.

“Don’t scream so,” Petunia said to her sisters in a low but carrying voice. “Rionin was right outside this room.”

The others calmed down somewhat, and Petunia came and stood against the wall next to Oliver. Even though he was still invisible, she fumbled until she found his hand and gripped it.

“Is Heinrich with you?” Princess Lily—for Oliver guessed that this was she—put a trembling hand on Galen’s arm.

“He’s waiting for you at the gate, Lily,” Galen said, and embraced her. “You’ll be with him to night.”

She burst into tears.

“Who’s holding hands with Petunia?” The princess with the round spectacles was watching them with a shrewd expression.

Oliver tried to let go of Petunia, but she held on. So he reached up with his other hand and undid the fastening of the cloak. He nodded uncertainly at the princesses, and they all smiled back.

“Oh, good,” Poppy said. “We need all the help we can get.”

While Petunia told what had happened and Galen explained their plan, they all whittled the silver twigs. They were roughly the length and thickness of knitting needles, but into each one they scratched the name of the King Under Stone.

“Blessed silver will kill any of the princes or courtiers,” Galen told Oliver. “But in order to kill the king, you must have his true name on the weapon.”

“I could have sworn that I put a bullet into that … that … bastard ten years ago,” Lily said as she scraped a long curl of silver from the tip of a twig with one of Oliver’s knives.

“I too,” Galen said gently. “But unfortunately it was after he was king.”

“No, not then,” Lily said, and her frantic hands went still. “I shot him. In the boats, as they chased us over the lake. I shot Parian, who had been my partner, and then I shot Rionin for Jonquil. He fell back into the bottom of the boat.”

“I remember that,” Galen said slowly.

“How did he survive?” Lily looked at Galen, then appealed to Rose and even Oliver, who shrugged uncomfortably. “Illiken was the king then.”

Petunia, sitting next to Oliver, suddenly bolted to her feet. “He does have a secret name! I’ll wager it protected him!” She pointed at Oliver. “You heard me, out in the passageway.”

“Alexei?” Oliver had heard her say the name but had had no idea what she was doing. He thought perhaps she was being insulting in Russakan. “His true name is Alexei?”

“His mother wanted to name him Alexei,” Petunia said. “She told me that in her heart, she had always thought of him as Alexei.”

Jonquil made a sound of disgust. “Are you telling me that I’ve been scratching the wrong name on all these sticks?”

“Just put Alexei in front of Rionin,” Daisy said, and began to do so with the sticks in her lap. “Alexei Rionin Under Stone. A very handsome name.”

“Twenty-three years of being my twin and you’re just now starting to use sarcasm?” Poppy looked at Daisy for a long minute. “I don’t think I like it.”

“I don’t think I like this,” Jonquil said, fingering the scratches she had made in a silver twig. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“We’re going to seal him inside his precious kingdom as well,” Poppy said. “So it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or not. No nightmares, no shadows in the garden.” She sighed. “Won’t that be a nice change?”

“But what if it doesn’t work?” Jonquil fretted.

“It will work,” Galen said. “Walter and the good frau have spent centuries studying magic. They are certain it will work.”

Oliver saw Lily turn from pale to ghostly white. He got up from the stool he was sitting on, ready to catch her if she fainted.

“The last time they did this, most of them died,” Lily whispered. “Oh, Heinrich!”

Rose and Galen exchanged looks. She knows, Oliver thought. She knows that Galen will not make it out alive. Oliver wondered if he would. He would gladly die for Petunia … he realized that he would gladly die just to stop the King Under Stone and his brethren.