“Alexei,” Petunia said again. “Catch!” And she tossed the needles like darts.

They struck him in the chest, not hard enough to wound, but he hissed and swatted at them. While he was distracted Poppy shoved the last needle down the barrel of her pistol and then took her shot. A black flower blossomed on the white breast of the King Under Stone’s shirt. He looked up at the sisters with horror.

His scream tore at their ears.

“Ha!” Poppy shouted again. There were tears on her cheeks.

Rionin’s scream went on as he crumpled in a hideous, boneless way. When Petunia tore her attention from the king, she saw the remaining princes slinking away, hands to their ears, as the voice of the spell grew. Petunia and Poppy shot at them, but their shots went wild, as though the air were warping inward toward the palace. Petunia thought with horror that Rose and Oliver might be trapped half-inside and half-outside the new wall when the spell finished.

“Go,” she shouted to Poppy. “I’ll help Rose and Oliver.”

“But I can’t let you—”

“Yes, you can,” Petunia said. “Christian is waiting.”

Poppy grimaced, but then she turned and ran up the stairs.

Petunia went to the pair slumped between the gateposts. They were so caught up in the spell that Petunia doubted either of them knew she was there. But as she leaned down to get a grip under Oliver’s arms, Rose’s voice brought her up short.

“Galen. He always came back for us, Pet,” Rose said. Her eyes pleaded with Petunia as she continued to hold her wand steady in front of her.

Looking up, Petunia saw that Kestilan had turned back and was coming toward her, straining against the onslaught of the voice. There was a black dagger in his hand.

“Mother, please protect us,” she whispered.

Then Petunia reached into the bodice of her gown for her matches. She lit one and dropped it back into the box. The matches flared and she tossed the tiny ball of flames into the woods at her right.

The silver wood went up in a great sheet of blue-white flame. Kestilan and the tattered remnants of the court of the King Under Stone fled back to the lake. Petunia grabbed Oliver under the arms and dragged him to the foot of the golden stair, grateful that he was holding so tight to Rose.

The heat from the fire was intense. Petunia drew her cloak around her, gathering what little protection she could. Then she took a deep breath and plunged into the smoke and flames, looking for any sign of Galen or Bishop Schelker or Walter Vogel and the crone.

There was nothing, nothing but silver trees burning white and blue. She reached the shore and saw that the court had taken all the boats. They were well on their way back to the palace, and Petunia was alone. She swayed and nearly went to her knees at the edge of the lake. But the oppressive heat from the burning wood drove her on. She ran along the shore, calling out for Galen and Bishop Schelker.

When she found them, she hardly knew what it was she had found.

In a sudden clearing in the wood were four figures made of light, and for a moment she thought they were just more burning trees. But this light was green, as green as new grass or tulip leaves or the glass of her father’s hothouses. It rose up like four shining columns in the clearing. She stopped, gasping for breath, and through the intense glow she could make out the dear familiar face of Galen, and beyond him Bishop Schelker, Walter Vogel, and a tall, beautiful woman who was speaking the endless words of the spell.

“The crone?”

The words burst out before she could stop them. Galen and Oliver had told her of the toothless old woman, but the face she could see through the green was wrenchingly beautiful. Long, dark hair fell on either side of the serene features, and a crown rested on her brow.

“My queen,” said a familiar voice, and Petunia looked and saw that through the green, Walter was also young, and handsome, standing straight on two strong legs.

“Your queen?”

The heat forced her farther into the clearing, until she stood in the cool protection of the four columns of green light. Galen and the bishop smiled at her, though their faces were otherwise rigid with the intensity of the spell.

“One of the greatest queens Westfalin has ever known,” Walter said. “Beautiful, brilliant, and just. When Ranulf, her husband, was killed by Wolfram von Aue, she learned magic that she might bind him in this prison. And I learned it, too, so that I might help her.”

“Then she was … Oh!” Petunia put a hand to her mouth in awe.

“Ethelia,” Walter said. “Blessed Ethelia, they called her. And I was her knight.”

Petunia did not know what to say. The grizzled old gardener who had shown her bird’s nests when she was a child had been the knight protector of a queen? And one of the great wizards who had bound the King Under Stone?

“Pet, you have to go,” said Galen, his voice strained.

“Come with me,” she begged.

“I can’t, not alone.”

Queen Ethelia’s voice was rising, and the figures in the columns of green light were stretching and wavering with the force of it.

“Go, Petunia,” said Walter. “Go and save the others.”

“Get Rose out of here,” Galen said.

Petunia whirled and ran, racing along the shore until she reached the path. The flames rose ever higher, and the smoke choked her. She ran down the path, pulling the hood of her cloak up over her hair as sparks and burning leaves rained down.

Just before she reached the gate, a tree fell across the path.

The blue-white flames were staining her vision, and the heat made her cloak feel like it was made of lead. Beyond the fallen log she could see Oliver and Rose, huddled at the very foot of the stair. She turned, seeing nothing but flames and more trees falling as the fire tore away their roots.

“There’s nothing for it,” she said. She pulled the cloak even tighter around her. “This velvet was once a gown worn at the Midnight Ball. The silver was given to me by Bishop Schelker for my nameday. It’s all I’ve got, and it had better be enough.”

Petunia rose up on her toes, took two quick steps, and then leaped through the flames.

The fire did not touch her. She landed within the arch of the gate and dropped to her knees beside Rose.

There was no movement from Oliver or Rose, save for the blood that continued to ooze from Rose’s side. Petunia tore off a strip of her skirt and pressed it against the wound.

The powerful voice of the ancient queen rose to a crescendo, and Petunia swayed on her knees. And then there was a sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Petunia wasn’t even sure she had heard it with her ears; it might have come from inside her body for all she could tell.

The darkness overhead glowed green, and within the green Petunia thought she saw a face of ineffable beauty smiling down at her. From the ground at the outer edge of the burning forest, a band of silver light stretched upward and became a massive wall without a door or gate as far as she could see in either direction.

It was done.

Tears slipped down Petunia’s cheeks, and she keeled forward over Rose for a moment in sheer relief. Her ears felt like they were full of cotton, and she wondered if the spell had damaged her hearing for good. She freed her sister from Oliver’s grip and began to drag Rose up the stairs. Halfway to safety her burden was lifted by a pair of large, rough hands, and there was the giant bandit Karl, grinning at her.

Petunia hurried back for Oliver, but when she reached him someone stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The older bandit, Johan, had followed her and was saying something, but she could hear only her own heartbeat. Seeing that she didn’t understand, he just smiled and leaned down to hoist Oliver across his shoulders. Then he began slowly climbing the stair.