“At least one of us will be spared a life of villainy,” Oliver said, and was surprised by the bitterness in his own voice.

“I’m sorry,” his mother said. “I should have fought harder for you, but I didn’t know how, and I … I was afraid. I was afraid that they would take you and Simon away from me, or that we would be driven out of even this poor shelter. I didn’t know what to do then, and every day I see our chance to make things right slipping away.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Oliver said. He got to his feet, lurching against the altar as he tried to maneuver in the tiny space. “You did the best you could.”

“Did I?” She sounded more thoughtful than selfrecriminating. “Perhaps. It will be for future generations to judge.”

Oliver felt rather at sea. He wasn’t entirely certain that Lady Emily was even talking to him, at this point. “It will be all right.…”

“Did you hear that poor child crying in the night?”

Oliver felt a fresh stab of guilt. “The princess? She was crying?” She hadn’t seemed that frightened…

“Some terrible nightmare, I think,” his mother said. “She was calling out strange names, arguing with them, I don’t know what all. I tried to go to her, but she had barred the door from within.”

Oliver shook his head, not sure what to make of this. “Do you think she and her sisters really are witches?”

“No,” his mother said earnestly, not laughing off the idea the way he’d half hoped. “No, I don’t think so. But something unnatural happened after the war. And Maude … poor Maude! She was prone to strange fancies. That’s why I’m so surprised at where our little Petunia is headed.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has no desire to bring you to justice, and she doesn’t want to go home to Bruch,” Lady Emily said. “She wants to continue on, to the estate of the Grand Duchess Volenskaya, the Duke of Hrothenborg’s widow.”

Oliver felt his mouth go dry, and a surge of emotions rose in his breast. He had escaped hanging for another day. The estate was closer than Bruch, which made his job of escorting the princess much easier, but …

“That’s our estate,” Oliver said, his voice coming out strangled. “Our home.”

“It should be, yes,” Lady Emily conceded. “In happier times, it was. But that’s not the strange part: do you realize who the grand duchess is?”

“A reclusive old lady whose husband stole my estate?”

Oliver was surprised at how angry he felt. Maybe it was the way the princess had lied about being the daughter of an earl, as though earls had nothing to steal. Maybe it was the way she had looked at him when he’d seen her just before going to bed last night, staring at him so intently, like he was some rare animal in a menagerie. He’d known then that his mother had told her their history, and the princess would forever think of him as the earl without even enough land to keep a herd of sheep.

“Oliver,” his mother said, a warning in her voice to shake him out of his self-pity. “The grand duchess is one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka! You know the story: about how they were placed in a tower by their father, because they were so beautiful and he wanted to discourage unworthy suitors?”

Oliver looked at his mother, incredulous. “That old fairy tale? About the nine sisters having nine sons by a sorcerer who stole their babies away that same night?” He snorted. “I saw the puppet show once in a marketplace.”

“Scoff if you will,” his mother said, “but Queen Maude believed there was truth in that story. She spoke of it often.

“And something strange did happen in Russaka years ago,” she went on. “I remember hearing reports of it—real reports, from the Russakan court, not just fairy stories!—when I was a girl. The Russakan emperor tore down the tower and all nine sisters married within the year. The grand duchess’s husband wasn’t even a duke at the time, but an earl like your father. The emperor gave him the title of grand duke as a wedding gift, and it was for valor during the Analousian war that he was elevated here—”

“And given my estate?”

“Yes,” his mother said with a sigh. “The grand duke died shortly after that. But do you not find it odd that Princess Petunia, after having had the childhood she has had, is being sent to this woman’s house? Alone? The grand duchess’s life is shadowed by rumors of strange and violent magic. Surely Gregor would be more cautious!”

“Would he?” Oliver shook his head. “Didn’t he farm the princesses out to any court who would take them? He might as well have offered to marry them to anyone who volunteered, just like the Russakan emperor!” Oliver had actually felt rather bad for the princesses when the news had come of the royal heir exchange a few years ago. To be traded around like an unlucky card at Devil’s Corner must have been truly humiliating. “He was probably just angry that they didn’t all come home betrothed, and now he’s trying again.”

“Now, Oliver, there is no need to be disrespectful! Gregor is your king, after all.”

“We’re on Analousian soil right now,” he reminded his mother. “And I never swore fealty to him. He was too busy to bother with me, remember?”

“Oliver,” said Lady Emily firmly. “I am sorry that this is your life. But we must make the best of it that we can. Petunia wants to go to the grand duchess’s estate—” She held up one hand to stop him before he could correct her. “It is her estate, Oliver, no matter how it galls us. And you must take her there. But I want you to be careful. Not just to avoid capture, but I would also like you to be … sensitive to anything that seems untoward.”

Oliver gave his mother a baffled look.

“If it seems like the princess is not safe there, I want you to bring her back,” Lady Emily clarified.

“You want me to kidnap her all over again?”

Lady Emily gave a sigh of great suffering. “I want you to ask her to come with you,” she explained. “Insist, in fact.”

“What if insisting doesn’t work?” Oliver was not about to throw Princess Petunia over one shoulder and run off with her into the forest. Not that it would be all that hard, she wasn’t very big, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Just do your best, please,” his mother said.

“All right,” Oliver agreed, though he still felt like the conversation was slightly beyond his grasp.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about his mother’s believing in fairy tales, and that one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka was currently living on his estate. According to the stories, each of the Nine Daughters of Russaka had been visited in the night by the King Under Stone, had borne him a son, and then wept bitter tears when he took the children away to his invisible kingdom. What on earth would lead his mother to believe that one of the Nine Daughters would take up residence in the middle of the Westfalian Woods?

And how did his mother expect him to know if the princess was in trouble? He wasn’t going to go into the manor house with her. He was going to leave her at the gates … just within sight of the gates, actually, and then run for it. It was his very fervent hope that he would never have to see Princess Petunia again, despite her thick, dark curls and blue, blue eyes. It could only lead to discovery or death for him, and either would be a disaster for his people.

But his mother seemed satisfied that he was going to look after the princess and so she left the little chapel after giving him a warm smile. Oliver wondered why she even cared. Being friends with the late Queen Maude hadn’t helped their family one whit. Still, he gathered himself mentally and went out into the weak winter sunshine to find the princess and take her to the estate that should have been his home.

Guided