Witness

When Oliver arrived home the next morning, Lady Emily was standing in the doorway of the old hall, looking pale and drawn. Her eyes searched her son for any sign of injury.

“I’m fine, but I wanted to make certain that Petunia was all right,” he said in a low voice.

His mother saw several people sidling closer with curious faces, so she smiled and threw up her hands theatrically. “Never worry me like that again,” she scolded. She took Oliver’s arm. “Come have something to eat; you must be famished.”

Oliver let his mother lead him into the room on the upper gallery of the old hall, where they dined. He slumped in one of the chairs while she sent for food and waited until someone had brought him roasted chicken and potatoes. When they were alone once more, and after Oliver had bitten into the largest potato and burnt his tongue in the process, he began to speak. He told his mother everything that had happened from Petunia’s nearly being run down by Prince Grigori’s horse to the realization that it was the grand duchess’s grandson who was tracking him and his men to hiding in the old hothouse.

As he related each part of the story, his mother’s face grew whiter and whiter until he feared she might faint. He reached out a hand to her.

“It’s all right, Mother. But … what does this all mean?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Emily admitted. “But I’ve told you how those poor girls were accused of witchcraft. Their governess was nearly put to death for teaching it to them.”

“Do you think they were guilty?”

“I knew Anne,” his mother said, shaking her head. “She is no more a witch than I am. But something was causing all that horror at the palace: the worn-out dancing slippers and the dead princes, you’ve heard about that as well.”

“Of course.” Oliver drummed on the table and stopped himself with an effort, forcing down a bite of the cooled potatoes.

Of course. The situation with the worn-out dancing slippers was what had prevented his mother from getting him his rights as an earl after the death of his father in the war. Not that he blamed her. He blamed King Gregor. He supposed he could blame Petunia, too, but she would only have been five or six years old, so the very idea was ludicrous. And it was very hard to blame Petunia for anything after hearing her crying out in the night and seeing her menaced by creatures made of shadow.

“There’s something to all this,” his mother went on. “There’s some connection between the grand duchess and the earlier tragedies. I would stake my life on it.”

“But what?” Oliver shook his head, tearing off a hunk of bread to sop up the gravy. “Because the grand duchess is one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka? What would that have to do with worn-out dancing slippers?” He tried not to sound derisive. He really did want his mother’s opinions on the matter, but if she started talking about fairy stories again …

“The Nine Daughters of Russaka bore the sons of the King Under Stone,” his mother said primly. “But no one has ever said whether the Nine Daughters had any further contact with the King Under Stone, or the babies. Did they ever see their sons again?” His mother looked at him archly.

Oliver began to think. His mother believed that this had really happened. And heaven knew that he had seen some strange sights, even before last night. The forest was full of odd creatures, mysterious lights—and Karl’s wife claimed to have found a dragon’s lair while gathering mushrooms one day. What if the King Under Stone was real? What if he had fathered nine sons with the Russakan princesses, and one of those princesses was now the Grand Duchess Volenskaya? Was she allowed to visit her son? Did the King Under Stone have a hold over her?

“Let’s say that the grand duchess did have a child of the King Under Stone’s,” Oliver said. “Where is the child now? Is it human?”

“Exactly,” his mother said, looking uneasy. “No one knows. And what all this has to do with Petunia and her sisters, I don’t know, either. But I do know that something strange is happening around those girls again.”

“He fathered nine sons with nine sisters in Russaka,” Oliver said, convulsively swallowing the last bite of chicken with a dry throat. “But who’s to say he doesn’t have more? And if the king of Westfalin has twelve daughters … whose suitors kept being killed …” He shook his head, dismissing the idea. “It’s all too strange, and we just don’t know enough,” he said.

His mother put both hands to her mouth, face chalky white. “I just hope the King Under Stone doesn’t see you as a potential suitor,” she said in a strangled voice.

Oliver laughed bitterly. “Please, Mother, I’m not even a real earl.”