The fairy godmother stared at her. “You’ve been tramping across the continent for how long on your doomed quest, and youstillcan remember that the Trieux duchess has redhair?”
Past Sybilla, the Duchess stirred a little and appeared to self-consciouslyswallow.
“It’s a fact I recently learned while I was looking for these,” Angelique held out her newly acquired pair of sparkling glass slippers to hercompanion.
Sybilla studied them, her golden glasses sliding down her nose. “Seemsimpractical.”
Angelique refrained from sighing. “I was looking for a mirror. I was told of a ‘magic glass’ in Werra and thought to give it a try. The rumor never added the last word:slippers.”
Sybilla sighed deeply and rubbed Angelique’s back like a concerned grandmother. “I’m sorry,dearie.”
Angelique shrugged. “What can one do? But I am being rude. Duchess Lacreux, please forgive our discourtesy and allow us to introduceourselves.”
Sybilla turned back to Cinderella and smiled warmly. “I am a Sybilla, a First Appraised Isolator Rank Yellow, charged with childcare and development: a fairygodmother.”
“And I am Angelique, an Enchantress-in-Training.”
Cinderella curtsied beautifully enough to make Angelique envious. “Welcome, madams,” she said. “How can I helpyou?”
Sybilla adjusted her spectacles and pulled a length of parchment and a full-sized quill out of a small pouch. “I was told this afternoon you had an encounter with a black mage. Could you describe him forme—”
Abruptly, Cinderella sat down on the ground,hard.
“Oh, dear,” Sybillasaid.
“I-I’m sorry.” Cinderella struggled to stand. “Please forgive my—” She bewilderedly stared at the ground, and a few tears trickled from her eyes and down hercheeks.
The poor duchess—if the market rumors are only half true, she’s had a difficult go of it, and to be attacked by a black mage on top of it all?Angelique knelt in front of the obviously overwhelmed young lady. “Do not be alarmed; it is sometimes difficult for a person to be in the presence of magic as powerful as Sybilla’s, even if she is not usingit.”
Sybilla chortled, “Speak for yourself,dearie.”
Angelique ignored her in the interest of projecting her “elegant enchantress” image and spoke in the most soothing tone she could muster. “I can tell your heart is pained. What troubles you, DuchessLacreux?”
Cinderella burst into tears. Not the gentle, dainty, and falsified tears nobles shed in games of cunning and manipulation, but sobs of heartbreak andexhaustion.
Angelique draped an arm across the young lady’s shoulders and shot Sybilla a look of alarm. Sybilla plopped down on the ground with them, murmuring soothingly until the storm partiallysubsided.
When Cinderella’s tears decreased, Sybilla patted her much the same way she had Angelique. “There, there, dearie. A good cry is just what a girl needssometimes.”
Angelique offered the duchess a white lace handkerchief, listening as Sybillacontinued.
“Now, what has you so upset?” the fairy godmotherasked.
Cinderella clutched Angelique’s handkerchief and stared at it. “It is as you said. Today I was attacked by a blackmage.”
Sybilla nodded. “A run in with one of those brutes is enough to make any ladycry.”
Cinderella impatiently wiped tears from her face. “But that’s not it. I-I didn’t know—or maybe I didn’tsee—how Trieux’s hatred for Erlauf and Erlauf’s hatred for Trieux is ruiningus.”
Of all the things the duchess could have said, that was most certainly among the last Angelique would haveexpected.
As one of the last nobles of Trieux, Cinderella would have suffered under Queen Freja’s rule. The fact that she stood before Angelique with short hair and dressed in servants’ clothes was a testament to Cinderella’s trials. And yet, could she really be reaching past all ofthat?
“The black mage said we would destroy ourselves, and darkness would rule here,” Cinderella blithely continued. “I talked to someone, and he said if we want to survive, our attitudes must change, and our people must change. But I don’t knowhow.”
Angelique exchanged looks with Sybilla—who was equally surprised, if her wide eyes and the slight O shape to her mouth were anything to goby.
Feeling emboldened, Angelique asked, “Are you not the only Trieux duchess, the highest ranked of all remainingnobles?”
