Part 11 (2/2)

She and Pansy had gone to Rose's room, which she was sharing with Jonquil for the night, to tell them what had happened. Jonquil was sitting up, and Lily was trying to coax her to drink some chamomile tea and try to sleep, when the two youngest sisters entered. Soon they were all huddled on the wide bed, with Petunia describing her dream in detail.

Maybe she should have asked more questions of Kestilan, she thought, and done less. .h.i.tting. And shooting. But she didn't particularly enjoy these dreams, and attacking Kestilan and Rionin had been deeply satisfying.

”Galen thinks ... he thinks Rionin will make his move soon,” Rose said with a little catch to her voice. ”I just wondered if they'd hinted at how soon.”

”Now, Rose,” Lily said comfortingly. ”It was three years ago when Blathen went after Poppy in Breton. We thought then that Rionin would try to do something, but there was nothing except the dreams.”

”Yes, I know,” Rose sighed. ”But now the dreams are coming nearly every night. And they're more than just dreams ... the line between dreaming of the b.a.l.l.s and being there physically is blurring somehow. Their father couldn't do such things.”

”And they're trying to come into the house, through the garden, like they did that time at home,” Petunia said, then rather wished she hadn't when Jonquil made a small sobbing noise.

But Rose just nodded. ”Keep whatever charms you've got on at all times,” she said.

Petunia self-consciously checked for hers. She had both a knitted bracelet and a charmed garter on, even though she was in her nightgown and not wearing any stockings.

”I gave you those sachets to put under your pillows, though it doesn't seem to have worked for Petunia tonight,” Rose went on. ”Also, keep your pistols handy, and plenty of bullets. The silver daggers that Bishop Schelker blessed for us too.”

”I feel strange carrying weapons around,” Pansy admitted.

”We're at war,” Petunia told her. ”A soldier needs his weapons close during a war.” It was something both Galen and Heinrich had always told them.

”I don't want to be a soldier,” Pansy whined.

”I don't think we have a choice, Pan,” Lily said gently.

Petunia's pistol and dagger were hidden under her mattress. She hadn't been carrying them at all, here at the estate, even though she knew it was foolish. But it wasn't as if she could wear a leather belt and holsters over a morning gown. She'd tried cutting slits in her skirts so that she could wear her weapons underneath them, but Olga kept sewing them up again. She supposed she'd just have to settle for hiking up her skirts, flas.h.i.+ng her legs at Kestilan, and then shooting him, if it came to that.

”I keep thinking about the silver wood,” Petunia said. ”Galen and Lily shot four of the princes. But if they become king, they have to be killed with blessed silver and their true name. Do we know Rionin's true name? Is it Rionin?”

”We can hardly ask to look in the family bible,” Pansy grumbled.

”But ... maybe it's foolish, but I just keep thinking of how the wood was Mother's ... it sprouted from her brooch,” Petunia said. ”I wonder if it has extra power. I wish we could get a few branches, and make arrows or bullets or knives out of it.”

”To do that,” Jonquil said in a faint voice. ”You'd have to go back there.”

”It would be worth it, to get some of their silver branches,” Petunia said stubbornly.

Rose just shook her head. ”There's simply no way to sneak into the Kingdom Under Stone,” she said. ”For one thing, we don't know how to get there anymore. And once you got there, you'd have to unlock the gate ... and goodness knows that Galen's chain is barely holding it closed as it is. I think that's the only thing that's keeping Rionin and his brothers from coming to take us away.”

Jonquil gave a small moan, but the others ignored her.

”And Galen's working on a way to seal them in permanently?” Lily asked.

Rose nodded.

This made Petunia want some of the silver branches more, before they lost that piece of their mother forever. Their father had created the gardens around the palace for Maude, but the silver wood had been truly Maude's, and only hers, in a way.

”He is working on a spell to close the gate for good,” Rose told them. ”If he can't find a way to destroy the Kingdom Under Stone completely.”

Spy.

In the end, Oliver arrived at the estate at the same time as the princesses' husbands, though they arrived in coaches, and Oliver was on foot. And, while the princes were welcomed at the front gates, Oliver went to the back wall and climbed over.

Of course, Oliver could have walked through the front gate with the princes. He had been wearing the dull purple invisibility cloak since he'd left the old hall.

Being invisible made Oliver feel very strange. Animals sensed him coming, heard him, smelled him, but panicked when they could not see him. He walked openly along the road, and other travelers pa.s.sed him without pausing, as though he didn't exist. He wasn't sure he liked the feeling, and invisibility was dangerous besides. He thought constantly of all things that could happen to someone who could not be seen: coaches could run him down, stray bullets from hunters might hit him, and who would find his body? Even if he fell, broke his leg, b.u.mped his head ... if he were unconscious, there would be no way to receive help.

It was with a profound relief that he made his way to the unused hothouse and went inside. He left the cloak in place, but at least he knew he wouldn't be shot, trampled, or otherwise injured inside the little building. He would be able to investigate the floor at his leisure, in good light, without worrying about one of the gardeners seeing him moving about and coming to look. Which, he supposed, made the invisibility cloak worth the other problems it might cause.

Oliver tried to remember where the shadows had come from. It had been toward the front of the hothouse, he thought. There was a large worktable there, covered with pots and rusty spades with chipped blades. He wondered why they didn't throw such things away: the pots were cracked, the tools broken, and it wasn't as if they were using the hothouse to start new plants. It had clearly become a dumping ground for junk, even more so than in his family's time.

”And now here's a thing,” said Oliver aloud.

Bending down, he could see that there was no dust on the tiled floor under the table. Not like it had been disturbed by the shadow creatures, but like it had been carefully cleaned. The red clay tiles looked almost polished. Oliver squatted to look at the floor more closely.

Nothing about the tiles under the table and leading to the door looked any different than the tiles on the rest of the floor. They were just ... cleaner. But how often were they cleaned? He could see the scuffed footprints he had made both times he had come into the hothouse, but no others. So if anyone had come in to sweep in the nearly two weeks since he had last been here, they hadn't stepped beyond this front area. And how often did someone sweep? It was as clean as if it had been done this morning, and yet the latch on the door had been grimy and hard to lift.

And who swept the way for the shadow creatures, anyway? One of the gardeners? Or Prince Grigori himself?

More baffled than ever, Oliver put one hand down to help lever himself up and felt something on the tiles. Knees creaking, he crouched down farther and rubbed his fingers across the floor. There was definitely something on the tiles, but he still couldn't see anything. He sc.r.a.ped it with a fingernail and came up with a little skiff of clear wax.

Leaning over until his nose nearly touched the tiles; he saw that someone had drawn on the floor with wax. He could feel the marks and lines with his fingers. They had sketched or written something on the tiles under the table and leading to the door.

But once again he thought: who had done this? If this was how the shadows gained access to the gardens and to Petunia, then surely someone else must have done the wax writing, in order to summon them here.

No matter who it was, the princes would need to know. Oliver had told Heinrich which hothouse he had seen the shadow creatures come from, but would he find the wax writing? With their status as honored guests, and without the invisibility cloak, it would be hard for the princes to slip away long enough to thoroughly investigate the place. Oliver wondered if he dared to leave them a message, but he didn't have anything to write with.

His heart thudding, Oliver realized that there was nothing for it: he would have to sneak into the manor and tell someone in person. And the only person he knew he could find easily was Petunia.

At first he wondered how to occupy himself until nightfall, but he remembered that there was no need to wait. No one would see him climbing up to her window, and everyone would be downstairs with the newly arrived princes. Oliver would be able to find himself a comfortable spot to hide until Petunia returned to her chamber.

He almost whistled as he strode across the lawns.

The ivy that grew up the back wall of the manor was just as thick as at the palace in Bruch and easily bore Oliver's weight. He made it to the window ledge without incident, which was a relief. Even though he was invisible, he had still felt exposed scaling the wall of the manor in broad daylight. He couldn't imagine what would have happened if the clasp of the cloak had broken or if a gardener had investigated the strange way the ivy was shaking on a windless day.

He latched the window and searched the room for a hiding spot. He was worried that if he sat in one of the chairs to wait, someone would come in and sit on him before he could move.

The wardrobe? It was so full of gowns that he didn't think he could cram himself inside. Besides, it would be awkward if the maid came in to lay out a gown for dinner and grabbed Oliver instead of the blue silk with the lace sleeves.

He finally settled on the s.p.a.ce under the bed. It was high enough that he could lie on his back comfortably, and the maids were very diligent; there was not a speck of dust to irritate his nose. He crawled under on his elbows and settled himself to wait.

Once again Oliver found himself falling asleep. He pinched his thigh, embarra.s.sed, but it was no good. He had trouble sleeping at night, worrying about everything from Simon's ankle to Petunia's safety. But apparently he could drop off to sleep in places far less comfortable and far more dangerous than his own bed. Still, he was a light sleeper, and he knew he would awaken when someone came into the room, so at last he let himself drift.

”-not going to work,” came Petunia's voice. ”It's already been remade to fit me.”

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