I suddenly noticed my father’s own carriage going by, having come out of our stables. My stepmother was inside, wearing her black cloak.
She’s gone.
What a stroke of luck. I didn’t even need the sleeping potion.
I came downstairs. The cook was waiting for me, looking out of place in the parlor with flour dusting her clothes. “The mistress has gone out. She said to have a hot bowl of soup and a hot bath waiting when she gets back, in an hour or so. The tub needs a bit of scrubbing.”
“Where did she go at this hour?”
“None of my business, nor yours.”
The cook loved to tell me that things weren’t my business. “Well, I’d better go draw more water.”
I went out the back door. There was a little alley for delivery carriages and servants to go in and out unnoticed, and a garden surrounded by a high stone wall climbing with vines. It was a wealthy part of town where all the houses had gardens behind them. As soon as I walked out, sparrows hopped toward me hopefully. I often brought treats to feed the songbirds.
“Sorry,” I said. “Nothing today.” I swung open the gate, looking ahead to the well—but beside it was a woman I had never seen before.
A goblin woman, who looked so much like my dim memories of my mother that I started shaking all over.
“Ellara!” she cried, reaching for my hands. “Thank the gods, you are even more beautiful than Elka.”
My eyes widened and I glanced around in confusion. “Did—did Mr. Hassari send you?”
“I don’t know who that is,” she said dismissively. “I am your Aunt Kayska. Your godmother. Sworn to care for you like my own in the event of your mother’s death. It has taken me all this time to get to you, since you’ve been in this damned elf country. And you’ve been through hell, I see. Just look at you! Where are your claws?”
“My stepmother makes me trim them.”
“Well, for our purposes now, it’s for the best. But this ends now. It ends tonight.”
“I—Aunt Kayska? How did you get here?”
“I sailed in. King Nyar is back on his seat and all’s right in the goblin kingdom again. He funded my passage. I got here with no time to spare. You’re going to the prince’s ball, my love. Oh yes.”
“That isn’t—exactly—necessary,” I said. “I actually have my own plan to escape already. My father left me money. His old business partner is going to help me get away to my birthright in Cabria. Spice farms.”
“Cabria? Spice farms? I don’t know what you’re going on about, but you don’t belong in Cabria, no, no, no.” She took a slender stick out of her pocket. A stick? It was sparkling. A wand, maybe. “Don’t you want to show up the stepsisters who have tormented you?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Do you remember the letters you used to write me? You hated those girls from the moment they arrived. And it doesn’t take a master of logic to deduce that the situation hasn’t improved since your father died. You look like a scullery maid! They’re at the ball now, aren’t they? Dressed up beautifully, hoping to catch the prince’s eye, while you’re here hauling buckets…?”
“That is true,” I said. “But—Mr. Hassari is sending his man for me.”
“I’ll speak to Mr. Hassari’s man, then, and explain the situation to him. You will go to the ball and captivate the prince, and the looks on your sister’s faces will be worth everything you’ve ever suffered.”
Well, it didn’t really take that much to convince me. I wanted to see exactly those sorts of looks on their faces.
“All right,” I said. “But—the ball is starting any minute, and I’d have to steal one of their dresses, and my hair—“
“Shh shh. Don’t you remember? I’m a witch. I have it all planned out. Hold out your hand.”
I put down the bucket and lifted my palm.
She took out a bottle of potion and sprinkled it on my skin. Then she handed me a pair of elbow-length gloves made of fabric so fine that both gloves together hardly weighed more than a thimble. “Put those on.”
I drew them over my forearms, although I felt ridiculous drawing fine gloves on under the threadbare sleeves of my dress.
She waved the wand around me, chanting spell words, and my clothes began to shift around my body. The hem of my tattered, dirty wool skirt fell lower and fluffed out around me, transforming into layers of sheer, shimmering fabric the color of sky-shadows on ice, white and blue and slightly gray in certain lights. Bright, yet mysterious. The skirt was voluminous, and puffed sleeves hung on the precipice of my shoulders. The neckline was not as low as my stepsisters’ gowns, but the fragile fabric didn’t leave as much to the imagination as I would like. I had the fleeting thought of wondering where my underthings had gone.
Something had happened with my hair, too. My dark curls were drawn up into some semblance of being tamed, with a ribbon and a jeweled comb.
Aunt Kayska nodded at her handiwork. “When you meet the prince, say his name in greeting, and then take off your gloves and touch his hand. He will be enchanted by you and will dance with you, to the envy of your stepsisters and everyone else. Don’t take the glove off before then.”
“All right…” I looked at my hands, hoping I could get the gloves off gracefully. I was very nervous. “Not many goblins at the elven court,” I said.
“Your hair covers your horns, so your fangs are the only giveaway,” she said. “If you don’t speak much, no one will even notice. You’re a lovely girl, too lovely for a goblin, just like your mother. Not that I would encourage you to hide what you are, on any normal day. But—there is a time and a place. You deserve a moment to show those elves not to mess with a goblin clan.”
I grinned. It was going to be delicious to see the looks on Gwyn and Cerra’s faces, to be sure.
“How will I get there?” I asked, lifting my skirt. My shoes had changed too. My sturdy work shoes had been transformed into slippers made of glass. They matched my ice-blue dress beautifully and fit my feet very well. But they also had dainty heels, and I wasn’t so sure about walking to the palace in them, besides that it was too late to start walking.
Aunt Kayska glanced around and spotted a large pumpkin growing in the garden. “You shall have a carriage. But—bear in mind—this enchantment will only last until midnight. I can’t keep up magic like this for very long.” As she spoke, she hauled up the heavy pumpkin and lugged it toward the gate. She didn’t even cut the vines. The pumpkin patch was so sprawling that the vines almost reached.
A goblin man was waiting in the street. “Here—let me help you with that.” He yanked on the pumpkin. I think they might have uprooted the plant. The cook wasn’t going to be very happy.
“And who are you, sir?” I asked.
“Just her escort. I mean, guard escort, not—romantic escort. Your aunt, that is. Your aunt’s guard.” He flushed, fumbled with the pumpkin, almost dropped it, and then bowed to me. “Rovak, adviser to King Nyar, young miss. I knew your mother.”
“Oh. Pleased to meet you.” I had to take a step back as Kayska waved her wand at the pumpkin and it started to plump up, the vines twisting into a chassis and wheels.
At this point, we had caused enough commotion that the cook came running out. “What on earth is going on—“
Kayska blasted her with her wand. The cook fell backwards, unconscious.
I snorted a laugh.
“I swore,” Kayska said, “that if I ever made it here to the elven realm, I would take good care of you. Whoever that was, she’s not waking up for three days.”
“That’s good. Because she would certainly tell my stepmother what happened as soon as she gets home.” The carriage was taking a fine shape by now, with a door and a gold ornament instead of a stem. The interior of the pumpkin was not pulp and seeds, but two upholstered seats.
“Oh, your stepmother, I am giving her a piece of my mind.” She waved her wand again and I realized my mice and spiders were gathering around my f
eet.
Aunt Kayska smiled at me. “You take after your mother. Trusted by beasts of forest and field.”
“More like the creatures of city streets, but…” I smiled back. “Mother spoke to animals too?”
“Yes. She was not a studied witch to the degree that I was, but this was one of her natural talents. And the fact that you share it makes my job all the easier.” She waved her wand.
The mice and spiders started to transform. The mice became four beautiful white horses, and the spiders became two coachmen with spindly arms and legs.
My mouth might have dropped open and stayed there for a good minute or two while the spider-coachmen bowed to me and one of them opened the carriage door. My spider friends had the faces of lean, craggy men with dark hair, and they were looking at me like they had always been my servants. It was too strange.
“Sp—spiders—?”
“Raaaah,” one of them said, like he was testing his voice.
“They don’t really speak,” Kayska said.
“But they know how to drive a coach?”
“Magic is about intent. I didn’t give them the magic to speak. It’s not really necessary.”
“That’s a little creepy.”
The spider coachmen’s faces fell.
“I mean—you’re fine,” I hastily assured them.
Kayska waved a hand. “Go on, my dear. You have a ball to attend and no time to waste. You’re in good hands. I will manage Mr. Hassari…and your stepmother.”
Chapter Six
Ellara
I climbed into the plush interior, trailing my hand across the seats, wishing I could take off my gloves. It smelled like something new, and it was astonishing that it was all magic, and that it would all vanish in just a few hours. I would never admit how thrilled I was to be a part of this night. I had never cared about the prince, but for once, I almost thought I belonged somewhere.
The horses trotted along confidently like they had always been horses, and the spider-coachman steered through the traffic like they had always been coachmen.
Before long, the Palace of Waterfalls was visible. Even though it was just a few miles from my house, I hadn’t seen more than the highest tips of its tower over our neighbor’s rooftop since my stepmother forbade me from leaving the house.
The palace was as stunning as I remembered, and I think I remembered it perfectly. It was built into the side of a cliff, where streams emerged from the rocks, and long ago, the elves had engineered a series of channels that went all through the castle, bringing fresh running water through the entire palace. On each of the palace’s four levels, waterfalls cascaded down into pools on the next level, until finally they reached a moat where strange flowers grew in the clear waters. The palace itself was made of pale gray stone, and had tall windows. One central tower was flanked by two smaller ones, and each level had balconies jutting out to circle the pools. On such a night, all the balconies were lit with colored lights, which sparkled on the waters.
The palace was also swamped with girls. I was definitely late, but it didn’t matter. There was still a press of girls waiting to get in, crowding the drawbridge. My carriage drew to a stop in the front. Girls were still straggling in on foot, but perhaps I was the last one to arrive in a carriage, because everyone was pointing at my conveyance and then to me. My spider coachman helped me out, and then pointed at the clock tower of the High Court, which was visible from the palace.
“You will be back before midnight?” I asked him.
He nodded.
I gathered up handfuls of voluminous skirt and went, rather self-consciously, to join the crowds on the drawbridge.
My stepsisters were nowhere to be seen. They must be inside already. That was a relief, at least. I didn’t want them to find me before I had a chance to enchant the prince.
But everyone was looking at me, although they were being more subtle and polite now. I hadn’t been around other young women (and, indeed, a few very optimistic not-so-young women were here too) in a long time. The first thing I noticed was that most of these women seemed like proper elves: exquisitely graceful, speaking in soft voices, projecting a dignity that my stepsisters could only grasp at.
This was how I remembered my father. I quickly found myself trying to emulate them, but I’m not sure I could do more than grasp at it either. It’s harder to reach the pinnacle of elegant grace when you’re short and you have a thick rat’s nest of hair, no matter how many jeweled combs you jam into it.
I tried to stand on my tip-toes, my heels lifting out of the rigid glass shoes, and up ahead I saw palace guards letting girls through the doors in pairs.
A willowy girl standing beside me glanced at me. “I have never seen you before,” she said.
“Mm.” I shrugged. I was trying not to show off my fangs.
“Where are you from?”
“The—border of—Lainsland.”
“A lot of the girls here are very low born,” she said. I sensed she was trying to sniff out whether I was one of them, and I’m not sure she noticed my fangs; maybe it was too dark. “Well,” she said, “good luck tonight. I heard there are over three hundred girls here.”
“I’m happy just to…bask in the atmosphere,” I said.
She smiled. “Yes. Some of the girls are so obsessed with actually marrying the prince. I think they’re quite ridiculous. Marry that man? I’m just curious to see him up close.”
“Yes, I feel the same,” I said, which was true. I certainly didn’t need the prince now, with a goblin witch godmother and a mysterious benefactor, not that I had ever been the marry-a-strange-prince type even if it had been an option.
Another girl poked her head in. She was black-haired, with red feathers in her braids. “You know the rumors about him, then?”
“I heard…something,” I said. “But gossip is slow to reach the border.”
The willowy girl said, “I heard that ever since the black fever wiped out half the royal family, he’s been strange. Touched by death. And now he dabbles in the dark arts.”
Red Feathers didn’t look deterred. The opposite, actually. Absurdly, it made me feel competitive. “And have you seen him?” she asked. “Delicious as sin.”
“Sin isn’t delicious,” Willowy said. “Sin is sin. And the dark arts are a sin too. You don’t want to mess with such things!”
“Hmm.” Red Feathers shrugged.
“I still do want to see him, though,” Willowy admitted. “But that’s all.”
Well, I had to admit, now I did too. I’d never met anyone who dabbled in dark arts before.
We edged closer to the entrance. Some of the girls were getting stopped and questioned by the guards. I could hear the music, magnificent airs of strings and harp to match the refined dances of the elven court…
Gods, I didn’t know any dances.
I hadn’t even thought about that.
I heard the clock outside strike nine, stirring impatience inside me. I had three hours. It would be gone in a flash.
But before long, I reached the doors. The guards waved me through. I paused in front of them, waiting to be evaluated.
“Go,” Red Feathers whispered, and I realized that the wave meant I had been approved. Should I have known? I felt like I didn’t know how anything worked. I almost tripped on my slippers crossing the threshold.
We came in through a grand hall, with its square pools of water and fountains and soaring marble columns. What had seemed a crowd on the drawbridge was now dwarfed by the room. Girls wandered forward slowly, marveling at the fountains that were shaped fancifully like fish spraying water from their mouths and mermaids splashing, and I don’t think I was the only one slightly dazed. We followed the music to the ballroom. A large dance floor was packed with dancers, including plenty of court men to occupy the ladies when they weren’t meeting the prince. A staircase led up to an observation balcony and then back down around to the dance floor again. Here, a new line trailed up those stairs, where I beli
eve the prince was meeting each girl. I watched for a moment.
The girl at the front of the line stepped forward, beckoned by a guard. She curtseyed to a tall, fair man. He took her hand a moment, exchanging pleasantries, and then she went down the other set of stairs. The next girl followed behind her. I wandered to the end of the line.
The girl ahead of me already looked bored, although she couldn’t have been there for long. Red Feathers came in behind me, followed by Willowy.
“This isn’t as romantic as I hoped,” Willowy said, looking at the line in dismay. “Is he meeting everyone? Will he tell us if we’ve been chosen for a dance?”
“You got here just in time,” Bored Girl said. She had a Docktown accent, so I don’t think she was rich and now I wondered if she was only pretending to be bored. “King Borel said they’re about to start the dances. This reception is just to be sure he gets a good look at everyone. I’m sure he’s making his choices, but he isn’t telling anyone.”
Willowy looked fretful, twisting her hands. “My nerves,” she said. “I’m sure he won’t choose me to dance, anyway. But my nerves.” So much for her just wanting to get a look at him.
“But once we’ve been through the line we can dance with anyone we like. And there are a lot of handsome men here,” Red Feathers said.
I kept quiet, searching the crowd for my dreaded stepsisters. It didn’t take me long to spot them. Cerra’s strawberry blonde locks were unusual, and I was certainly familiar with her hairstyle. They stood on the sidelines, talking to each other, not dancing with anyone. Gwyn’s arms were crossed. I could tell they weren’t having a good time from a mile away.
I chuckled.
The line snaked up the stairs, step by step. It was moving pretty fast, actually. Only two more girls joined the end and someone announced that it was cut off. I was one of the last girls here. The prince must be getting tired of looking at strange faces; I would. I felt a little sorry for him.
We edged up and I made it to the top. From here, I could finally see this prince everyone was talking about.
The Goblin Cinderella Page 4