Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) (17 page)

“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 passed 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, bumped 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 scraped 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 space 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, embarrassed, 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.”

“Why must you be so short,” grumbled another voice. Groggily, Oliver placed it as Princess Pansy as she continued to talk. “I mean, honestly, are you
trying
to grow?”

“Do you think I enjoy being short?” Petunia shot back. Then she laughed, taking the sting out of her words. “Cousin Edgar keeps calling me Pocket-size! It’s disgusting!”

Through a bubble of laughter, Pansy replied, “I thought you were just doing it so you wouldn’t have to share your clothes.”

Continuing their good-natured bickering, they went over to the wardrobe. Oliver was about to slide out from under
the bed when he noticed a third pair of feet had followed them into the room. From the plain gray hem of her gown Oliver knew that it was a maid, and one of the grand duchess’s household. If she had been wearing the black gown of the royal household he might have risked it, but one of the grand duchess’s maids was sure to sound the alarm. He stifled a sigh and prepared to wait some more.

There was no fear he would doze off again, as he saw the day gowns of first one sister, then the other, hit the floor. Stocking feet walked all around the bed, and then the stockings were rolled off as well. Oliver tried not to look, but he couldn’t help himself. Petunia’s feet were just as delicate as the rest of her, he noticed, and she had a habit of spinning on her toes when she turned, as though she were dancing.

New silk stockings were pulled on. Ruffled petticoats. Corsets were tightened—judging from the grunting—and satin slippers tied onto narrow little feet. And then came the gowns. Petunia was indeed wearing the blue silk with lace sleeves that Oliver had noticed before, and Pansy wore something pink. Oliver hoped to catch them on their way out of the room, and hoped that the maid would not stay behind to straighten up.

But the princesses’ evening toilette was not yet finished. They each had their hair taken down and redone by the maid, and then there were jewels to put on, and gloves and fans to be gathered. Oliver really began to wonder if he shouldn’t just roll out of his hiding spot and try to overpower the maid. This was interminable!

“Olga,” Petunia said, just as Oliver had decided to risk it. “Would you please go see if Maria needs any help? She’s supposed to be dressing Rose, Lily, and Jonquil, and Jonquil is very particular.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The door closed behind the maid, and Petunia stuck her head under the edge of the bed.

“Oliver, is that you?”

“Petunia! What are you doing?” Pansy sounded startled.

“I can hear you breathing under there,” Petunia announced. “And I smelled evergreen sap.”

She frowned, her blue eyes searching in the darkness under the bed, and Oliver remembered that he was still wearing the cloak.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said.

Pansy let out a small scream, and Petunia shushed her.

“I’ll come out, I’ve got Prince Galen’s cloak on.”

Petunia stepped back as Oliver crawled out from under the bed. Once he was on his feet, he took off the cloak and folded it over his arm. Pansy gasped again as he became visible but didn’t scream.

“What are you doing here?” Petunia demanded.

Pansy had a more pressing question, however. “Did you watch us undress?”

Oliver felt himself turning red. “Just … just your feet,” he stammered. “I mean, I only saw your feet. I wasn’t trying to look, I swear!”

Pansy looked scandalized, and she actually bent her knees
a little so that the hem of her gown concealed her feet even more. He must have been born under an unlucky moon, he thought ruefully.

Petunia smacked his upper arm. “So what are you doing here, other than spying on us in our underthings?”

“I came to warn you,” he said, trying to stand up straight and appear trustworthy.

Both princesses immediately looked wary, exchanging glances. “Warn us of what?” Petunia asked. She studied him with those blue, blue eyes and Oliver wondered all over again what he was doing here.

“The Nine Daughters of Russaka,” he blurted out at last, before he lost his nerve.

Petunia blinked, but she didn’t say anything.

“The grand duchess is one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka,” he continued. “And they … their sons that they had in the tower … were the sons of the King Under Stone.”

“We know about the grand duchess,” Petunia said. “Though I still don’t believe it entirely. And who told
you
about the King Under Stone?” There was a crease between Petunia’s brows.

“Princess Poppy,” he replied. “It was in a book that she gave me, while I was in Bruch. So I guessed that … that you and your sisters, you were entrapped by the King Under Stone all those years ago, and that’s why your dancing shoes wore out every night. Now that you’re here as
her
guests, I thought you should know about the connection between them. Also, I found something in the hothouse where I saw the shadows
coming up out of the floor, and I wondered if Crown Prince Galen had had a chance to look at the floor there.”

The princesses seemed slightly stunned by all the words that had come out of Oliver’s mouth, and neither of them said anything for minute. Then Pansy took a tentative step toward the door, and Petunia stopped her with a hand on her older sister’s arm.

“Are you accusing the grand duchess of being in league with the King Under Stone?” Petunia didn’t look shocked, but her face had gone hard, and Oliver’s heart sank a little.

“Yes?” He wished that it didn’t sound like a question. “I mean, I don’t know. But I do know … or, er, I believe that she did have one of the King Under Stone’s sons. Did you know he had twelve? All with noblewomen?”