Princess of the Midnight Ball (24 page)

And then Galen’s head exploded with pain as the bishop hit him squarely in the back of the skull with the butt of his pistol. Galen fell facedown on the lush red carpet. Through the cotton that seemed to be wrapped around his head, Galen heard Angier calling out for help, that the mad gardener had just attacked him.

Then darkness rolled up and Galen was lost.

Rose and her sisters had never been past the ballroom in the Palace Under Stone. Even the retiring room set aside for them with chamber pots and wash basins was immediately off the main hall, making it unnecessary for them to venture far from the ballroom. Now, however, they were deep within the palace, and Rose had decided that the bedchambers were hardly any more cozy and welcoming than the ballroom.

Everything was black. Or dark purple. Or midnight blue. There were occasional flashes of silver: the lamps, some silver gilt on a few of the chairs. But other than that, everything was dark, the colors of shadows and spiders and twilight. Their own clothes had been taken away, and they had been given wardrobes of ballgowns, morning gowns, and nightrobes in shades of black, purple, and indigo blue.

“I want my pink dress,” Pansy sobbed. She had been so exhausted the night before that she hadn’t protested when Lily, dismissing the strange, silent maids, had put Pansy in a filmy
black nightrobe and tucked her into the ebony-wood bed. But now it was morning, although there was no sun to shine here, and Pansy was refusing to put on any of the dresses provided.

“I don’t want to wear mine either,” Petunia said, struggling free of Jonquil, who was trying to dress her in a dark purple gown. “It’s ugly and it smells funny. Where’s my yellow dress?”

Rose could hardly blame them. The clothing did indeed smell funny—like stone and earth and something else unpleasant. And the fabrics were cold and slippery and strange. She had had to repress a shudder of revulsion at the sensation of her own indigo-colored gown sliding over her head and down around her shoulders.

Her one comfort was the shawl Galen had made for her. The silent servants had tried to take that as well, but Rose had hissed at them that if they took her shawl, she would have them all beheaded. Something in her face convinced them, or perhaps it was not an unheard-of punishment for the King Under Stone’s servants, for they left the shawl alone.

Her sisters had not been as fierce, or as fortunate.

“These shoes don’t fit,” Lilac complained, holding up a pair of black leather slippers.

“Then try some of Iris’s,” Rose snapped. She caught Petunia as the youngest girl tried to crawl under a bed, and held her out at arms’ length while Jonquil attempted to slip the purple dress over the girl’s head.

“Herr Schmidt’s slippers fit us much better,” Orchid announced.

“Of course they do; he made hundreds of them for us,” Lilac said.

“Hold still,” Rose shouted at Petunia. “Your yellow dress is gone; you have to wear this one!”

Her sisters all froze and stared at her. Rose never shouted.

“Listen to me,” she said, doing her best to moderate her tone but sounding angry all the same. “It doesn’t matter if the clothes smell funny or don’t fit right. We’ll get used to it soon enough. Don’t you all understand? We’ll never leave this place again! We’ll never see the sun, never see Mother’s garden, never see
Father
, ever again.”

She released Petunia, half-dressed in the purple gown, and walked away. She didn’t know where she was going until she had gone out the door and into the long corridor beyond. It was empty and horribly silent. Rose kept on walking.

Eventually she came to a door that was not closed. Beyond it she could see a room that mirrored the one she had left: long and narrow, with twelve tall beds. Illiken and his brothers were sitting on the various sofas, playing music on strange, shrill instruments, reading books, or simply sitting and staring.

Rose went in.

The princes all stared at her, then scrambled to their feet as one. Illiken came forward after some nudging from his brothers.

“Rose, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in your room?”

“Does it matter?”

“Father doesn’t like it if people wander around without permission.”

“None of you are very bright, are you?”

A spark of something lit in Illiken’s eyes at her harsh words. “Father doesn’t like us to be too clever,” he said carefully, as though testing to see if she understood. “He does not appreciate rivalry.”

“Nor will
you
,” the King Under Stone said as he swept into the room. “If you ever sit on my throne.”

Illiken’s pale skin turned a sickly green, and he and his brothers bowed.

Rose remained stiffly upright, however. She was through paying homage to this evil creature.

“Where is Galen?” She had many questions to ask the king, and it surprised her a little that this should be the first one to pop out of her mouth. Still, it was just as urgent as any of the others. “What have you done to him?”

“Nothing.” The king spread his weirdly elongated hands in an innocent gesture. “The gardener’s boy is in perfect health. For the present.”

“And then he’ll fall off a horse, or slip on wet pavement? So that you don’t need to get your hands dirty?” Rose sneered at him.

He smiled his cold smile. “Keeping one’s hands clean—maintaining one’s innocence. Is that not the human way?”

“What would you know about it?”

“A great deal. After all, I was once human.” The king
gestured to his sons, standing in silence around them. “And their mothers were all human, just as your mother was human and you are human. And your children and your sisters’ children will be three-parts human.” The king laughed. “What joy it will bring me, to know that my grandchildren will be free to walk in the daylight world!”

Rose had thought she was beyond fear, but she had been wrong. At these words a cold thrill of terror went through her and she staggered, near to fainting, imagining her children walking the streets of Westfalin to do the bidding of the King Under Stone. Illiken caught her, steadying her with his hard, cold hands. She shook him off, turning to a sofa for support instead.

“I will not stay here,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. “I will not marry Illiken. I will not have his child…. You cannot make me!”

“Oh, but I can,” the King Under Stone said in reasonable tones. “In one week’s time you will marry Illiken, and never see the sunlight again, dear Rose. Don’t you understand that?”

Hope flickered in Rose. “But you have to let us go, that’s the contract. We dance, and then we go home, and when the years are up we’re free. You’re bound by the contract, even as we are.”

“Contracts can be broken, if one is willing to pay the price,” the king purred. “And what is one life, after all?” He reached out and stroked the cheek of one of his sons, whose eyes widened in terror.

“So.” Rose felt nauseated now, as well as faint. “One of your sons will die so that you can keep us here?”

“The penalty for breaking the contract is a life.” The king
shrugged. “And I do not intend it to be my own.” He pushed the prince away. “Now go to your room and stay there,” he ordered Rose, all silk gone from his voice and only the stone beneath remaining.

Rose went.

“Are you all right?” Lily took one look at Rose’s face and helped her older sister onto a sofa. “What happened?”

She told them everything, not even sparing the younger set. They had to know. It was their right and their burden, to share among themselves. When she was done, they were all weeping.

“What will we do now?” Violet collapsed rather than sat next to Rose. “We’re trapped here forever!”

“Galen’s going to die,” Rose said softly. “And we’re going to marry the princes.”

“Except for the one who has to die as punishment,” Poppy pointed out. “I hope it’s Blathen.” Blathen was her partner at the Midnight Ball.

“He’ll just have another son,” Rose said softly, having truly seen into the king’s mind. “With another unfortunate woman. And then you’ll be married to a baby.”

“Why are there always twelve?” Orchid wanted to know.

“Twelve what?” Lily retied Orchid’s sash.

“Twelve of us. And twelve princes. That’s so many….”

Rose was piecing it all together in her mind. “There were twelve magicians who imprisoned the king here,” she said. “And if we each have one child, there will be twelve part-human, part-witch children for the king to use. He’s going to get them to break open his prison, I know it.”

They all shivered.

They would never see their father again.

Poor Anne would be hung as a witch and Galen would be killed. And they would be trapped here, year after year, with
him
and his silent, sullen sons.

Tears leaked out of Rose’s eyes despite her resolve to stop crying. For the first time she understood what Lily had gone through when her Heinrich died, and felt a stab of sympathy.

“We have to get out of here,” Rose announced.

“How?” Jonquil countered, shaking her head. “We can’t just walk out the door. Someone will see us.”

“We’ll wait until the ball,” Rose began.

Poppy interrupted her. “There’s no way to get across the lake.” She shook her head, pleating her dark skirts with nervous fingers. “We’re going to have to marry them, sooner rather than later.” There was a catch in her voice.

“We have to get the king to let us go back home, even if it’s just for a few minutes,” Rose said, thinking furiously. “If we could just get back there, we could find a way to stay.”

“And how do we convince him to let us go back?” Violet’s voice was devoid of hope. “He’s got us right where he’s always wanted us.”

“But not where
he
wants to be,” Rose said.

“What?” Lily frowned, and Violet shook her head.

“What are you talking about, Rose? You know that the king cannot go into the daylight world,” Violet said.

“Saints be praised,” said Hyacinth, and muttered a prayer under her breath.

“But his sons can,” Rose reminded them.

The prayer on Hyacinth’s lips was choked off. The younger set didn’t understand, but the older girls did, and they all stared in silent horror at Rose.

Finally Lily spoke. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Rose said flatly, “The princes can leave at night, so I’ll invite them to meet Father. We’ll just have to find a way to stay behind when they leave at dawn.”

“And what if they find a way to stay above?” Jonquil pointed a shaking finger at Rose. “Have you thought of that?”

“Well, I suppose that would be a risk,” Rose admitted. “But it’s a risk that we must take, if we want to see Father again. If we want to see the sun again!”

Lily got up and walked over to Rose. She took Rose’s hand, gazing intently into her older sister’s face. “Are you well, Rose? Do you feel a fever coming on?”

“No,” Rose said, pulling away. She looked desperately from Lily to her other sisters. “Don’t you see: we have to get out of this! I don’t care if I do have to invite them into our home. I’ll die before I marry Illiken!”

“I’m with Rose,” Violet said staunchly, getting to her feet to stand beside her eldest sister.

“And me,” Poppy agreed. “And so is Daisy.” She hauled up her twin with her.

“Poppy, it’s hardly right to—”

“Oh! I’m sorry: did you
want
to marry Tirolian?” Poppy asked.

Daisy’s mouth shut with an audible click.

The younger set stood up as well. “We don’t want to marry anyone, ever,” Orchid announced for them all.

“But, Rose,” Lily protested. “Surely there’s a better way than
this”.

“Then I’ll give us two days to figure that out,” said Rose. “But then, unless anyone has a better idea, I’m inviting Under Stone’s sons to take tea with Father.”

Galen woke with his face stuck to a wooden floor and a terrible throbbing in his head. He thought that a noise had awakened him, but now he couldn’t remember what that noise was.

Blearily he blinked and tried to look around, but everything was dark. He panicked for a moment, wondering if the blow had rendered him blind, then realized that it was just… dark. Groaning, he tried to sit up, but his hands and feet had been bound.