“You know why Rionin allowed me to come here and gather these twigs, don’t you?” Petunia’s voice was arch. “He wanted me to find his mother’s chalet. If I hadn’t found it by accident, I’m sure that Grigori would have come to collect me. Rionin promised me to Grigori, you see. Rionin’s mother likes me too much to let me marry the son of some feather-brained Belgique countess. At least, I believe those were her words. Grigori’s reward for bringing his grandmother here, along with my sisters and me, is that he gets me.”
She said it so lightly, as though it were of no consequence, but Oliver’s hands curled over his weapons. How could she say and do these things and act like she didn’t care whether Rionin gave her—gave her like she was a piece of property—to Grigori or to his brother Kestilan?
Oliver couldn’t stand it. He drew his pistol as quietly as he could.
A hand came down hard on his arm.
“She will be all right,” said the crown prince in Oliver’s ear. “Remember, she has known them all her life.” Galen let go of him, and Oliver slowly slipped the pistol back into the holster.
A moment later they were at the shore of the black lake. There were two small boats; it would be a tight fit, but better than they had planned for.
“You ride with Petunia,” Galen murmured in his ear.
Oliver relaxed just enough to realize that he had had his jaw clenched shut. He loosened it, trying to breathe normally as he watched Kestilan help Petunia into one of the boats. He would need to get in without making any noise, just before they pushed off.
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.”