Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [22]
“The throne!” King Gregor’s face reddened. “Now I’m to give my throne to some foreign prince?”
“Gregor,” Bishop Schelker said patiently. “You have no sons, no nephews. You’ve always said that one of the girls’ husbands would inherit. Make this a condition of that inheritance. It will be a worthy king indeed who can solve this puzzle.”
King Gregor nodded slowly. “It would be a good way to find a successor. And put an end to the girls’ troubles.”
“You will let the Spanian prince come?” Kelling sat forward in his seat.
“I will.”
Spania
Galen learned about the Spanian prince’s assignment from Princess Poppy. Strong-willed Poppy had been the first of the princesses to recover her full strength, and she began to take walks in the gardens again a few days after Rionin and his shadowy companions had invaded the grounds.
She immediately sought out Galen.
“So, you’re the new under-gardener,” she said when she found him wrapping strips of burlap around the trunk of a weeping cherry tree. “Galen.”
He straightened and bowed. “Indeed I am, Your Highness. Is there anything I can do for you?”
She peered up at him from beneath her fur-lined hood. Winter was settling in, and she had been bundled up until she could hardly move. As she studied Galen, she unwound no less than two scarves and tossed them onto a nearby bench.
“They itch,” she explained. “Were you really a soldier?”
“Yes. Your Highness.” Galen did not want to talk about the war with this young girl, and he glanced down at the “tree bandages,” trying to hint that he needed to keep working, without being rude.
“And did you really face off against Ri—the … people … who came into the garden the other night, with just a switch?”
“Yes, although the switches were Walter Vogel’s idea. He was there with me.” He thought it interesting that Poppy was more curious than afraid of what had happened that night. Both Rose and the other princess—Walter had told him it was the second eldest, Lily, who had fired the pistol—had been quite terrified.
“Walter is a dear, but quite strange,” Poppy said. “I’m hardly surprised. What did you think of the creatures?”
“I—I don’t really know, Your Highness. They were quite … I’ve never seen anything like them. I thought they were human, but then they seemed to just fade away.”
She pounced on his description. “As if they weren’t really here? As if they were an illusion?” Her expression was eager, and almost … hopeful.
“They weren’t an illusion,” Galen said. “The switches made contact; I drew blood from one I struck in the face. And the one who tried to climb the ivy, to get to your windows, certainly felt the switch on his back. It tore his coat, and I thought…” He stopped. For all her avid expression, she was still very young, and he didn’t want to scare her.
“What did you think?”
“I thought the wounds were smoking, Your Highness.” He watched her carefully.
If anything, Poppy looked disappointed. “So they really can come here,” she said in a low voice.
Galen looked down at her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were pale despite the cold that he knew was making his nose red under his tan. His uncle discouraged any contact between the under-gardeners and the royal family, but Reiner was on the far side of the gardens, working in the hothouses.
“Princess Poppy,” Galen said, casting aside the burlap strips and taking a step toward her. “What were they? Why did they come here?”
She looked up at him with her deep blue eyes. They were violet, really, and dark with an emotion he would not have suspected her capable of, from the teasing way she had spoken before.
“They came to give us a warning,” she said.
“What warning?”
“That we are not free.” She gave a bitter laugh, sounding much older than her years. “And what are they? They are the things that you find crawling