Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [55]
“Keep them handy,” Walter said. “You never know what you’ll have need of, when you’re in the palace.”
Something about Walter’s words rang in Galen’s ears. The phrasing reminded him of something, and he paused a moment to remember what, but Uncle Reiner came crunching down the gravel path just then. His face darkened when he saw Galen standing with Walter.
“Shouldn’t you be inside?” he demanded. “They haven’t thrown you out, have they?”
“No, indeed, Uncle,” Galen said respectfully. “I have just come to speak with Walter about something.” He slid the twigs into his pouch and pulled his coat closed over them.
“Nothing here is of concern to you anymore,” Uncle Reiner said. “Be off with you.”
Galen nodded politely to his uncle and Walter, and then he took himself off.
Inside the palace, he discovered that the younger princesses were having their lessons with the priest who had accompanied Angier. The older girls were with their father, being questioned by the bishop himself. At loose ends, Galen sat down in his room to finish knitting his hat, but he couldn’t get the silver twigs out of his head. Studying them from every angle, he concluded that while they might be whittled down to make darts or something of the sort, they were otherwise useless. But whittling them down would change their shape in such a way that they might not be recognizable as twigs, and therefore unusable as evidence.
“They’ll make fine knitting needles, just as they are,” Galen said aloud.
He thought for a long time. He could not fight the twelve suitors alone. Besides being outnumbered, who knew what help their father might send. He couldn’t break the spell that bound the princesses…. He didn’t know what exactly it was, and he had no skill with magic besides. If he could just stop them from going to the ball… But then the King Under Stone would likely send someone to fetch them again. And this time, Galen doubted that Rionin and the other princes would let a rowan switch deter them.
There had to be a way to fight them, or to stop them from coming aboveground ever again.
As Galen’s mind turned the problem over and over, he remembered what Walter’s words had reminded him of: the crone.
When you are in the palace, you will have great need.
He broke the silver twigs in half so that there were four pieces, each about the length of his hand. He used his knife to pare away any jagged edges or splinters that might catch on the wool. Then he pulled out the black wool that the crone had given him.
Black like iron …
Galen began to knit.
Second Night
Rose’s day did not go well. She had a headache, and her cough had returned. As if to aggravate both problems, she was forced to spend the day in the council chamber, being alternately questioned and lectured by Bishop Angier. His voice made her head pound, and her throat was sore from trying to hold back the coughs.
Having their country placed under Interdiction was a serious thing, and there had already been repercussions. Reports had been arriving all day, and they were not comforting. There had been riots in other cities when the archbishop’s edict was read. In Bruch, many people were packing to leave, hoping to immigrate to any neighboring land that would take them. Several grocers and livery stables had been robbed for supplies by those fleeing, and rocks had been thrown at the palace gates and even at the Orms’ distinctive pink house.
Rose had hoped that her younger sisters would escape the bishop’s ranting since they had their lessons. And during that time they did, to some extent. But it seemed that the bishop had given his assistant quite stern advice about what the princesses ought to learn.
“I thought I would die,” Poppy said dramatically, flinging herself across Rose’s bed. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that we had to have some pinch-faced priest teaching us instead of Anne, you should hear what he’s teaching! Mathematics: gone. Science: gone.