Page 11 of The Midnight King
I lift the gown and stretch out my bare toes, but even as I do, a delicate silver slipper forms around my foot.
“Perfect.” He drops to one knee, catches my ankle, and lifts my foot to inspect the shoe. But when his fingers close over the anklet, he jerks away with a sharp cry, as if the contact hurt him.
I withdraw a step, letting my skirts fall back into place. The Faerie remains on one knee, stunned alarm in his gaze.
“What is this?” he asks.
I struggle to speak, but my lips won’t open. They only press themselves more tightly together, sealed by my stepmother’s command.
“I see,” he says slowly. “You can’t talk about it?”
I shake my head.
“You can’t tell me what it does, or who placed it on you?”
Again I shake my head. I can feel tears burning at the back of my eyes, and the last thing I want to do is cry when I’m supposed to be going to a royal ball.
“I need my carriage,” I whisper.
“Of course you do.” He rises, all his playful humor gone. His eyes have darkened and his features look harder, sharper, more dreadful and wicked.
Instinctively I wrap my hand around my pocket watch, whose silver chain still lies around my neck. I tuck the watch itself into the bodice of the gown, between my breasts.
“If you want to keep wearing that, I’ll glamour it to look like a fine necklace,” says my Faerie godfather. When I nod, the watch and chain transform instantly into a tiered collar of gemstones flowing from my throat to my breasts. I don’t miss the Faerie’s lingering glance at my newly adorned cleavage.
But he looks away the next instant and says briskly, “Come along, then! No time to waste.”
He leads me outside, and as we emerge into the freezing night, a fluffy white wrap manifests from thin air and folds itself around my shoulders, while a white fur muff appears between my hands. I catch it and tuck my fingers into its warmth. The cold makes me cough, and the Faerie casts a sidelong look at me, frowning slightly. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or concerned.
The carriage he conjures is more unearthly than anything he has yet produced. He seems to fabricate it from the air itself—it looks as if it’s made of ice, glass, or crystal—maybe all three. Even the four horses pulling it look as if they’re made of glass, but he lifts a hand toward them and they turn white. With every swish of their long manes and tails, glittering snowflakes shake loose.
“I have never seen anything so beautiful,” I whisper.
“Magic is not inherently good or evil,” he says quietly. “It can be used to help or to harm, and I wish you were not so familiar with the latter. But for tonight, think of nothing except enjoying yourself. Dance, drink, and flirt with handsome gentlemen.”
That’s a privilege I can’t afford, though I don’t tell him why. I simply turn away and climb into the crystal carriage. The seats inside are draped in white furs, a delight to my weary body.
Without any driver to signal them, the snowy horses begin to move, and the carriage starts to roll away.
But when I lean out the window to thank the Faerie, he has disappeared.
5
During the half-hour drive to the city, I have trouble focusing my thoughts. My mind keeps leaping between the tasks I must accomplish. I need to glean some useful information about the prince, something my stepsisters can use to get close to him and set themselves apart from all the other women in attendance. I have to find my way to the library and figure out how to get into the vault. Then I need to spend time with the books in the vault so I can free myself from this fucking anklet.
There’s no way I can do all of it tonight. It’s simply impossible. But maybe, if I can prove useful to my stepmother, she’ll let me return tomorrow night. So my focus must be on devising a scheme to promote my stepsisters in the eyes of the Crown Prince. Vashli and Amisa are both beautiful in different ways, and they both have unfortunate personalities, so I suppose I will have to decide which of them can feign likability the best for His Royal Highness.
When the crystal carriage halts, I realize with a start that I’ve arrived at the palace. I have a vague memory of the city streets passing by the carriage windows in a dazzle of lightedcolor, but I don’t remember much of it. I was deep in my head, strategizing.
The palace, though, emblazons itself instantly on my brain. It’s a huge rectangular structure, more serviceable than decorative, with a large central block flanked by an east and west wing. Rows of windows shine into the night, but the massive pillared entrance is brightest, shedding light over the sweeping steps and crisply trimmed hedges. The lawns are brown now, but I can imagine they must look lovely and lush in the summertime.
Several footmen and guards stand in a motionless row along each side of the wide steps leading to the entrance. When I open the carriage door myself, one of the footmen hurries forward to help me down.
The carriage rolls away along the drive, toward a distant lawn where I can see other carriages parked in rows, but thankfully the footman doesn’t seem to notice that I didn’t have a driver. He merely says, “Would you like me to escort you inside, my lady?”
I almost laugh at the title. I’m used to being called “Cinders” or “fool” or “wretch.”
“Yes, please,” I tell him, and he offers his arm, accompanying me up the steps and into the glowing heart of the palace.