Princess of Midnight: A Retelling of Cinderella (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 6)

by Lucy Tempest

  “Hey, stop that!” I pushed his fuzzy face away from mine, now noticing that he had a bunch of leaves in his mouth.

  If those leaves were my hair, then I might be fully turning into a tree.

  Before I could panic, I found him turning to the bush where he’d been grazing. And from the deepening sunset, I also realized my time to return to the ball was near.

  Shaking all over, I went back inside to dig my slippers out of the rice bag. After slipping them on, I gained a few inches, bringing my eyes level with the old, mounted mirror. Again, the blue flaming eyes didn’t show up.

  At this point I really had to wonder if all of yesterday and today had been the hallucinations of a fever. One I’d caught while chopping wood. Maybe I was passed out somewhere, and my desire to speak to the king about his life debt, and my hatred of heat and firewood had manifested in all these fantastical events and revelations.

  Regretfully, I didn’t think I’d be that lucky. As unbelievable as everything that happened since yesterday had been, it was all real.

  But it got worse. Yulian had unknowingly repaid his life debt to me, saving me as I had saved him. Now I couldn’t ask for his help in the event that Etheline reneged on her promise. Which was what she’d probably do. It made more sense that she was just stringing me along with the shattered remnants of hope, and would toss me aside once I served her purpose like everyone tended to do.

  The sound of wheels over uneven ground came to a rumbling stop outside. A wolf whistle pierced the quiet evening air and I ran out to find Keenan, dressed in a moss-green tailcoat with a matching top hat, grey pants, and a shimmery silver vest, trying to wrangle Oscar alongside Angus and two other reindeer. Behind them was an imitation of last night’s transportation, an enormous white pumpkin with gilded vine wheels and windows.

  He waved me over with a flourish and a bow. “Your carriage awaits, my lady.”

  As I reached the carriage, I ran my hand over the grooves between each curve, and could tell its whiteness was owed to an ethereal glow of enchantment. It was definitely a pumpkin, not a true carriage inspired by one. “Did Etheline make this, too?”

  “No, I stole it.” As I goggled at him, he laughed. “I’m kidding. If I had to steal a carriage, it would be one shaped like a snake.” He held out a small, ribbon-tied, green box. “Here.”

  Suspicious, I pulled the ribbon, untying the bow. The box popped open with a spray of glitter and swirling light that swarmed around me.

  I was again caught in awe as the enchantment enveloped me, the spinning pale green ribbons of magic creating another fantastical dress. This time a silvery, glittery, powder-blue that seemed to be spun out of stardust, with an off-shoulder bodice and a full, layered skirt that seemed to flow with a life of its own. The ribbons then adorned my arms and neck and ears in rose-shaped diamond jewelry, and ended by recreating my hairstyle and dryad form.

  Unlike last night, as I admired my reflection in the carriage window, I now knew that not all of it was an illusion.

  “Is this what I really look like?” I asked Keenan. “Or is this Etheline’s version of what a dryad looks like?”

  “I think Etheline only nullified your shape-shifting magic, so that your real form was revealed. I also think you’re doing it on your own now.”

  “Why now? If I was using this magic unconsciously to look like my mother, why did I never turn back into my real form after she died?”

  “Probably because you were living among humans. For instance, you turned back into the shape you’ve always had around your stepfamily, and back again once they were gone.”

  “M-my forearm turned into wood a while ago—and my finger sprouted a leaf!”

  He only grinned. “It must be coming more naturally to you, now that you’ve been uprooted from your pot and replanted in your grove.”

  I groaned. “How many more plant jokes are you going to make?”

  “As many as I can,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk as I scowled at him. “Don’t impale me yet, though. I was actually being serious. It seems your magic is surfacing, rather than being latent and exploitable only by those who recognize it. And I think it’s because you’ve been taken away from the human world, and brought here—not quite home, but close.”

  The more sense this concept made the more shaky my world became, a rickety house built on a rotting foundation, ready to collapse with the next gust of wind.

  Swallowing what felt like a jagged rock to my dry, inflamed throat, I tentatively asked, “And where would ‘home’ be for something like me?”

  He shrugged. “Commonly, dryads are found in Spring. While the not-so-pretty ones are in Autumn. They’re less ‘nymphs that turn into trees’ and more like anthropomorphic wood.”

  That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I’d thought that my mother—Lydia Dufreyne, had found me at Man’s Reach, which lay between the human world and Faerie, making my nymph mother a part of the Hornswoods. But Keenan’s information contradicted that belief, filling in one mystery, then digging up more questions.

  From our journey through the Hornswoods, I knew that Summer lay on the other side. While Spring was the farthest from Man’s Reach, all across Faerie. Which meant that…

  “Something must have chased my birth mother from one end of Faerie to the other!”

  “Three guesses who.” He leaned his head in the house’s direction, and my blood boiled enough to forget all my aches and the flurry of frost swirling down over us.

  The sun had fully set and there was no sign of my stepfamily. They must have found their new dresses and went on to the ball, forgetting about me. It would have been one time I was grateful for being unimportant, if I wasn’t too incensed at the new realization.

  “Do you think she killed my real mother?”

  In answer, he only hurried me into the carriage. “We can talk about the list of crimes your stepmother has racked up later. We need to go.”

  Jaw clamping so hard it hurt, I knew he was right. Forcing myself to put righteous anger aside, since there was nothing I could do about it now, I hopped into my new pumpkin carriage.

  As we approached the Castle of Glass—as Keenan told me it was generally referred to—my mind strayed from all world-shaking realizations, and homed in on the one thing that mattered now.

  Finding and catching those who would harm Yulian. And having more time with him.

  Assuming he hadn’t changed his mind about seeing me again tonight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Once at the castle, we repeated last night’s routine. We breezed through parking, announced our arrival, and flew up to the main event, where hundreds had returned to socialize, gossip, and seek out prospects.

  Keenan wasted no time diving into chatting groups, charming the fairy women and riling up the men, which according to him was all part of his strategy to weed out information.

  When I passed by the broken mirror, the one Sorcha had punched, I saw my shattered image reflected in odd, cut-off fragments. For some reason I felt sadness seep into me, like spilled ink into a sponge.

  As my steps faltered, my own face was replaced with the same fiery-blue eyes I’d seen last night, their icy burn as chilling and gloomy as frozen caves. They flashed in an out of view among the shards with the barest hint of a pale face and hair.

  I went in closer, trying to see them clearly, only for my mouth to drop open in shock when a hand lightly touched my elbow.

  Before I could muster a reaction, another image joined my scattered reflection. Yulian’s!

  As the frost-white of his hair and the blue-tinge of his skin merged with my own green hues, a new thought struck me. Were the eyes I’d been seeing his?

  They’d initially been a grey so pale as to be almost off-white, but that had seemed to change last night after he’d saved me. Even in my condition and in the moonlight, I’d seen them turning bluer. Maybe I’d been subconsciously hoping they’d blaze fully blue again and that was why I’d been seeing those eyes i
n mirrors, with that hint of pale face and hair. I could have been hoping that maybe something was starting to break his curse, causing him to switch back to his previous state.

  Turning to face him with what I hoped was an apologetic smile, I sought out his eyes. My heart plummeted into my gut when I found them as frozen and colorless as before.

  “You’re back.” Yulian was almost as unexpressive as he’d been at first.

  But the relief, underlaid by hurt in his tone struck me like an arrow through the heart. Like the arrow I’d saved him from.

  And now he’d saved me from a watery, frozen death that would have dropped me right into the Horned God’s skeletal clutches.

  It was such a strange situation to be in, having risked my life to save a stranger and being saved by him in return, with him not even knowing he’d repaid my risk. I wanted to tell him it was me, but that wasn’t what I was here for.

  I was here to keep him away from those who might harm him. All kinds of terrible scenarios played in my mind as I imagined one of those eager, potential brides dancing with him only to stealth-stab him, or another guest whisking him off somewhere to tip out of a window or toss into a fireplace.

  “Can you melt?” I didn’t know where that question came from. But it had surprise cracking his neutral expression, letting a sliver of emotion slip through his frozen mask.

  He countered, “Physically or metaphorically?”

  “How does one melt metaphorically?”

  “I suppose emotionally.” He gave a slight shrug. “I’ve been told the way to break my curse is to ‘melt my heart.’ Though I’m not clear which way this was meant.”

  I grinned at him. “You can find out if it’s physically easily enough. Pop down into town and do some manual labor, chop some firewood, harvest blocks of ice, get that blood pumping.”

  He puffed out air from his nose in what resembled a chuckle. “If only curse solutions were that simple.”

  I suddenly felt the anklet’s weight had multiplied. If curses and spells were that simple, I could have run to the nearest smith to break it, and all Yulian would have needed was a hot soak.

  “If only,” I agreed, disheartened all over again. Then forcing a smile on my lips, I offered him my hand with a bow of my head. “Care for another dance, Your Majesty?”

  “Thought you’d never ask, truly. Or that I’d ever see you again.”

  “I said I’d come back today, didn’t I?”

  “Not quite,” he said as he took my hand in his gloved one and led me to the dance floor. The orchestra was playing a low-tempo piece, only strings this time, the main tune played by a crystal harp. “Prince Keenan did, and I’ve learned not to trust him.”

  “Not that I blame you, but what has he done to you?”

  He cast a look behind me, strangely filled with what I felt was fondness, no doubt at said prince. “Since childhood, I’ve always known he is devious, and isn’t above being deceitful for the sake of a laugh. It’s probably one of the reasons I liked him so much, but I know there are things I can’t rely on him for. His flouting consequences are also a problem. He once gifted my grandfather a walking stick that turned into a snake and bit him, causing his leg to swell for a fortnight. My aunt used that incident as one of the excuses when she banned the whole Autumnal Royal Family from Midnight.”

  “How diplomatic,” I said sarcastically. “That must have ruffled some feathers.”

  “She calculated they were those of a robin.” He gripped my hand tighter to rotate me onto the dance floor as he carefully set a gentle hand on my back. A chill seeped through his glove and the material of my gown, sending a shiver coursing through me. “But she managed to ruffle those of a pegasus.”

  Lulled again by his soothing cold, I murmured, “My mother used to tell me stories about a hero who rode a pegasus.”

  A smile tried its luck at the firm corners of his blue-tinged mouth. “That reminds me, you never told me about the king who turned everything into gold. Did your mother tell you that story, too?”

  As if on cue, the music grew slower, progressing into a dreamy tune with the emergence of a harp solo, bringing nostalgia rippling across the surface of my memories. A specific one blossomed, when I’d been cuddled by my mother’s side beneath a tree.

  She’d been worn out from whatever stage of pregnancy she’d been braving at the time, but nothing had ever deterred her from storytelling. That day, as she stroked my hair, she’d recounted those tales about the nymphs that turned into bushes and trees.

  I used to hang on her every word, dreaming of those fantastical myths. Now that I knew they were true—and that she knew I was such a nymph—I realized she had actually been telling me about my own people. She had likely favored those tales because they were relevant to our situation.

  Had she lived longer, would she have told me the truth? Had she truly considered me her daughter, or had I been a placeholder until she finally birthed her own child? Had I just been the sentient version of wooden dolls given to little girls to practice handling offspring?

  From what I remembered, she’d treated me no different than other women in town did their children, had even been more doting than any of them. I didn’t know parents could be cruel until my mother passed and Dolora had crashed into my life, destroying it like a rock through a stained-glass window.

  Missing her suddenly went from a dull ache to a throbbing bruise on my heart.

  It seemed the spell suppressing my emotions had been sparing me most of the anguish of her loss. Now it had been lifted, I felt like I was losing her all over again, the wound fresh and agonizing.

  “Ella? Did I say something to upset you again?”

  The emerging worry, not only in his voice, but his face caught my full attention as I shook my head. “No, no—I was just trying to remember the story and my mind wandered.”

  “Wandered to where?”

  I was about to make a quip about the scarier parts of the Pumpkin Path, when I spotted my stepfamily trying to force themselves into a nearby group. Dolora, unmistakable behind tonight’s getup of a widow’s sheer veil, was trying to shove Darla on one of the fancier fairy men, while Aneira lurked in the back, eyes scanning the room, likely for the minister she wanted to run off with.

  Dragging my focus back to Yulian, I responded in a rush, “Wandered to the most interesting part of this castle. Care to take me there?”

  Intrigue raised his pale brows, followed by a spark of interest that added depth and color to his opal-like eyes. It was an arresting shift, a small change that made a world of difference.

  The center of his pale eyes became a dark, deep blue, but the edges of his irises remained a pale shade of a more vivid hue, an inversion of most eyes.

  Like the silver lining of a storm cloud.

  His lips finally twitched. “There are a few spots that could win the title of ‘most interesting’ in this castle. I’m having trouble picking the best candidate.”

  “Guess you’ll have to show me all of them,” I suggested, part playful, part anxious.

  I hated to be manipulative, when we’d both suffered enough suppression of our wills. But I needed to keep him away from others, keep me away from Dolora, and to be alone like last night, to talk as freely, and perhaps more so.

  “Guess I will …” He paused, all color seeping from his gaze again. I followed his line of sight and caught Princess Sorcha and Lord Simeon prowling the edges of the ballroom. “I’m supposed to be entertaining my guests, though.”

  “Didn’t you say that was all you did, entertaining everyone by doing what’s expected of you?”

  He cocked his head at me. “So, you’re suggesting I should entertain you instead?”

  I began to withdraw, the playful side winning out. “I was suggesting that sneaking off was indulging your own inclinations for a change. I can go tour the castle by myself …”

  His hand caught my wrist and he twirled me back to face him, my skirt fanning around me, earning a few oohs
and aahs at the emergence of my glass slippers. “I can’t have you disappearing on me again.”

  “Why not?” I asked, unable to believe I was actually fluttering my lashes at him.

  “I don’t know.” His lips twitched into a definite smile this time. “You could end up drowning in a duck pond or a drinking fountain this time.”

  “Hey, that was Keenan’s fault.”

  An icy eyebrow rose. “Was it? You got out of here pretty fast by yourself.”

  “How long are you going to be upset about that?”

  “I’m upset?” He felt up his face. “I can’t even tell if I am through this curse.”

  I started to laugh at his dark humor before I stopped as I realized his curse was no laughing matter and burst out, “I have to know who cursed you and why!”

  I almost groaned at my tactlessness. He’d already refused to discuss such a deeply personal matter. But after being caught between two states for the past decade—the slave who knew only submission, and the prey who had no use for speech at all, it might be too late to learn discretion and sensitivity.

  A dark look came over his face. I’d really offended him!

  I started to cringe as his hand tightened on my wrist, but he only said, “Perhaps breaking away is a good idea.”

  Before I could say anything else, he was towing me behind him as he pushed past all the guests. The music stuttered as he swept me out of the ballroom, and I could hear his potential brides’ outraged complaints rising at losing their turn in his attention for a second night. The loudest was Darla’s petulant screech, which I could recognize from a mile away.

  In Yulian’s absence, I hoped Dolora would try forcing her on Keenan. I only regretted not being around to see the outcome.

  Yulian took us to an expansive chamber on the other side of the floor, and I kicked the door shut behind us. The click of a handle or the creak of door hinges would alert us if any would-be assassin tried to sneak in after us.