So This is Love

by Elizabeth Lim

  “I’ve already said more than I should have. He will tell you himself, when the time is right.” She frowned. “Best to keep this to yourself, Charles. I don’t trust the Grand Duke. Lord knows what he’d do with this information. The transference of the crown always brings about a period of uncertainty and unrest. It wouldn’t be above the duke to take advantage of that and rally the lords to take more power for himself. ”

  “I would dismiss him before that ever happened.”

  “It wouldn’t be that easy. Ferdinand has great influence. The nobility trust and revere him.”

  “He’s a manipulator. Every time I try to tell Father so, he won’t believe me.”

  “You must not blame your father. Ferdinand has been his friend longer than you’ve been alive. Forty years of ruling Aurelais will exhaust any man, and the Grand Duke has taken advantage of that.” Genevieve’s expression turned grim. “The point is, you must surround yourself with people you trust.”

  “I trust you, Aunt Genevieve.”

  “I’m even older than your father,” she said gravely. “Neither of us will be here forever.”

  Charles perched his arm on the carriage door and looked to the horizon, punishing himself with a glance at the sun. He blinked away the sting in his eyes. “You’re right. But I worry that I’m . . . I’m not ready. I worry I’ll never be ready.”

  “What does your heart tell you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know?” She paused, and when she next spoke, her tone was gentler: “I heard you promised to marry the girl who fit this so-called glass slipper. A rather rash declaration, was it not, Charles?”

  The prince sighed. “Father and Ferdinand wrote the proclamation. I didn’t have a choice. . . . Besides, what was I supposed to do, Aunt Genevieve? Let her go?”

  “I’m not trying to lecture you, but any girl could have fit that shoe. Any girl.”

  “I wouldn’t care whether she were a princess or a scullery maid,” Charles said fiercely. He already knew the Grand Duke’s opinion, and he didn’t need a second person haranguing him that the girl he’d fallen in love with could be “a mere commoner.”

  “That is not what I meant.” Genevieve clicked her tongue, deliberating over how to explain. “Fitting a glass slipper is not a sign of character or of compatibility. Surely you must know every eligible maiden in the kingdom dreams of marrying you. A girl might cut off her toes simply to fit the glass slipper. Making a promise like that could have doomed you to a union with someone you didn’t love, someone just pretending to be the girl you met.”

  “I see what you mean, Aunt Genevieve.” Charles bowed his head. “That was Father’s idea, but I agreed to it. It was foolish of me. I understand that now.”

  “Love has a way of addling our wits.” Genevieve tilted her head. “You take after George in that regard. He was very much in love with your mother, you know. She wasn’t a commoner, yet she was certainly on the diminutive end of minor nobility. My parents didn’t approve of the match, but George raised all hell to be with her.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “To this day, your father is a romantic.” Genevieve gave a tight smile. “Funny, until then, my parents always considered me the rebellious one.”

  Charles had heard stories about his aunt when she was young. How she once stole his father’s trousers and traipsed across the royal lawn in them, an act that had distressed his grandmother so much that she nearly had a stroke. How she’d once made a slingshot out of a gold necklace and shot pearls at her tutor for suggesting she wasn’t as bright as the future king.

  Since her last visit, his father rarely spoke of her, but when he did, it was always with a sort of bittersweet sadness. The prince didn’t know what had passed between the king and his sister, and he didn’t dare ask.

  “Were you unhappy, Aunt Genevieve?”

  “No, no. On the contrary, I liked my husband very much. But I married him for a chance to get away from the palace and all this.” She gestured at the tiara she’d tossed to her side. “I married him for freedom, for a chance not to have my life laid out for me. Few kings and queens have had the luxury of marrying for love. You’re lucky your father is giving you that chance.”

  “I know.”

  “Then?”

  The young prince’s brow knotted, and he clutched the side of the carriage door. “It’s like she vanished completely, as if she never existed. No one knows who she is, and no one’s ever seen her before.”

  “It is strange that she will not come forward,” Genevieve allowed. “You said she didn’t know you were the prince?”

  Charles thought back to that night, remembering how—moments before she took off—she’d exclaimed that she hadn’t met the prince. “Yes, and she vanished soon after I tried to tell her.”

  “I’m sure she knows by now.” Genevieve reopened her fan and batted it at herself. “Perhaps we should have another ball.”

  “Please, Aunt Genevieve, be serious.”

  “I do not usually enjoy such spectacles myself. Heaven knows they’re a tremendous waste of money and time.” She paused. “But sometimes your father does have a spark of wisdom in him. The last ball was open to every eligible maiden in the kingdom. Do you understand the importance of that, Charles?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” he admitted. “Not until recently.”

  “Ferdinand must not have been pleased about that, I can assure you. The villagers have few opportunities to mingle with nobility. Men like Ferdinand do not allow it.” She let out a resigned sigh. “Another ball may well be the solution. Maybe your girl will make another appearance.”

  “I doubt it. I fear she’s vanished for good.”

  “People don’t just vanish,” said the duchess. “Mark my words, if she has any sense in her at all, she’ll be at the ball. And if you have any sense in you at all, you should make sure she’s the right one for you, not just because she fits a silly slipper. We’ll make it a masquerade.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not following. Why a masquerade?”

  Genevieve clasped her hands. “Because, my dear nephew, even if this girl is as wonderful and kind and beautiful as you say, I want you to be sure you’re in love with her and not a pretty face. What do you say?”

  “What choice do I have?” said the prince with a sigh. But he managed a smile at his aunt. “My father did always say you were wiser than he.”

  “Did he now?” Genevieve said with a twinkle in her eye. “That just may be the smartest thing he’s ever said. I’ll be sure to remind him of it.”

  She opened the window of the carriage to wave outside at the people. “Besides, your father hasn’t officially welcomed me back to court. He owes me a party.”

  “Won’t he be suspicious, given you hate parties, Aunt Genevieve?”

  “I wouldn’t count on your father remembering that. In any case, it would be nice to be presented before the court again, to remind my old enemies that I’m still well and alive.”

  Bemused, Charles shook his head at his aunt. “Then I’ll do it. But only to welcome you to the kingdom. It’s been so many years since I’ve seen you.”

  “Oh, good. It’s rather gauche to suggest a ball be held in one’s honor, but I’ll have a word with your father. I used to be quite good at making him think my ideas were his own. You’ll see. That girl of yours will be there, too—I’m sure of it.”

  Charles hoped she was right.

  The duchess had instructed her to be back before lunch, so Cinderella walked briskly, making for the Royal Library.

  She’d visited a few times now, but always to acquire books for the duchess; she’d never gone for herself.

  The library was in the southern wing of the palace, at the end of a long hall that displayed not only paintings but also an eclectic collection of royal art: porcelain vases, sculptures of birds and trees, finely woven tapestries, jeweled trinkets.

  She wandered down the corridor, skimming the paintings on th
e walls. There were plenty of the king and the late queen, and far too many of a man who looked like an older version of the Grand Duke—the current duke’s father, she presumed. Most of his portraits looked newer than the others, as if they’d been planted on the walls to replace what had been there before.

  She soon came across a portrait of a young, unsmiling Prince Charles, mounted on a magnificent stallion.

  “You look so serious,” Cinderella said to his portrait, her shoulders shaking with humor. But her laughter soon died. The artist had also somehow managed to capture the depth in Charles’s warm eyes. He couldn’t have been much older than seven, the age the duchess had said he’d been when he lost his mother.

  A bittersweet mix of emotions stirred inside Cinderella, but she pushed them aside as she entered the library.

  “What books should I seek?” she wondered aloud, unable to contain her excitement. “One of those pirate adventures Her Highness can’t seem to get enough of reading? Or a book on gardening—or art? I would love to paint a portrait of Mama and Papa one day . . . then again, it’s been so long since I’ve sat with a good history book. The palace library should have plenty of books on how the royal gardens came to be, or on the palace’s architecture, or—”

  Magic, it suddenly came to her. If there was a place for her to learn more about it, and the tumult her fairy godmother had alluded to, it would be here.

  “More tomes for Ginny, eh?” The librarian, Mr. Ravel, pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose and continued reading whatever was on his desk. “If she keeps this up, we’ll need a cart to haul back all her books once she leaves. Well, what is it today?”

  “I’d like whatever you have on the history of magic,” said Cinderella.

  Mr. Ravel’s eyes flew up from his page. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, I’d like—”

  “Yes, yes, I heard the first time.” Mr. Ravel threw a quick glance over his shoulder; he looked worried someone might hear. Then, glowering at her, he whispered harshly, “Does Ginny think I’m hiding something from her? I told her I gave the duke all I could before he was exiled. Everything else was destroyed: the paintings, the books, everything.”

  This wasn’t at all what Cinderella had expected to hear. “Destroyed? But why?” She swallowed. “Because it’s forbidden?”

  “Obviously, you dimwit child!”

  “But why . . . why is it?”

  He scoffed. “I suppose you’re too young to remember its perils—always praying that our prince or princess wouldn’t be cursed at birth by a dark fairy. The council spent years working to ban magic, and we are all better for it.”

  The speech sounded rehearsed, like something Mr. Ravel was supposed to say. “What would happen if a fairy were to sneak back into Aurelais and use her magic?”

  “She would be executed, most certainly!”

  “Executed!” Cinderella cried. “But magic can do so much good. Why would the king—”

  “Shhh!” the librarian cried. “Enough with the questions. We shouldn’t even be discussing this. Are you trying to get me dismissed? Tell your mistress I value my position here, and I don’t want to hear about this ever again.”

  “Yes . . .” Cinderella said, stricken by the librarian’s outburst. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now if there is nothing else—oh, hello there.”

  A group of young girls entered, distracting Mr. Ravel as Cinderella slipped into the library. Once she lost herself among the stacks, she let out a sigh of relief.

  So it was true: magic was forbidden.

  Did that mean Lenore had put her life in danger by helping Cinderella go to the ball?

  Cinderella’s thoughts spun wildly, trying to make sense of it all. She had so many questions.

  She spent the next hour searching the library for vestiges of the mysterious magic archive. But as Mr. Ravel had warned her, everything was gone. Which only made her wonder—why was magic so dangerous that there weren’t even books about it?

  Tired and about to give up, Cinderella suddenly remembered the mysterious note she’d seen in the book she’d borrowed for Genevieve.

  We must bring magic back. Maybe 36 ships and 47 pirates can help. —Art

  The numbers had to mean something. Thirty-six ships and forty-seven pirates . . . Could they be shelves and books in the library? And art . . . Could she find a clue in the art history collection? It was worth a try.

  “Besides,” she murmured to herself, “if there used to be fairies in Aurelais, then they couldn’t have gotten rid of everything. There has to be something—maybe a book on painting or sculpture that refers to magic.”

  Unfortunately, even as she pored over the books in the art section, she couldn’t find anything. Shelf thirty-six, book forty-seven was a volume on medieval needlepoint. Shelf forty-seven, book thirty-six was a tome on painting without color. She was about to give up when she returned to the fiction section where she usually borrowed novels for the duchess. If she couldn’t find something for herself, she could at least bring Genevieve a new book.

  As she scanned the shelves, she wondered whether the thirty-six might have been eighty-six. After all, the note had been old and smudged . . . there! Book forty-seven on shelf eighty-six caught her eye. It was nearly the last book in the collection, a slim volume wedged between two thicker ones.

  The Historical Tapestries of Pirates.

  Her heart jumped. “That doesn’t seem to belong here.”

  The edges of the spine were singed, many of the pages ripped out. But as Cinderella closed the book, about to give up, she heard something flutter inside the book’s spine. Carefully, she looked inside, and pried out a tightly wrapped scroll.

  Art read a label on the parchment. It was fragile with age, and it crinkled under her fingertips.

  No, it wasn’t parchment at all, but a page from an adventure novel, much like the ones the duchess read. A note was written in the corner:

  I’ll meet you at the fork in the tunnels tomorrow at noon. Ferdinand intends to destroy it. —Ginny

  Could this note be from Duchess Genevieve? And the note in the other book she’d found—Art . . . That was the name of her husband, Arthur!

  Cinderella reread the note over and over again, unable to believe what she’d found. Was it the Grand Duke who’d had the magical archives destroyed? Had he aided his father in the ban?

  Slowly, the pieces came together. Magic must have caused the animosity between Genevieve and the Grand Duke—was it the reason the duke had asked Cinderella to spy on her?

  Before she could seek more answers, footsteps approached, and Cinderella sprang up in alarm. As quickly as she could, she rolled up the note and returned it to the book.

  “Cinderella! What are you doing here?”

  It was Louisa and two other seamstresses—Cinderella recognized Gisele and Victoria from Blooms and Looms—followed closely by the royal librarian.

  “I . . . I was just getting some books for the duchess.”

  “You!” cried Mr. Ravel. “You aren’t allowed to be moseying about the royal archives. I thought you’d left—”

  “I’m finished,” Cinderella said quickly.

  “So are we,” said Louisa, grabbing Cinderella and her friends by the arms. “Thank you for your help!”

  Once the girls raced out of the library, Louisa gave in to a fit of giggles. “Did you see how upset he was? ‘You aren’t allowed to be moseying about the royal archives.’ ”

  “And the way he latched on to us the whole time!” Victoria added.

  “As if we were going to steal his precious books.”

  Cinderella laughed, too. “Why were you three in the library?”

  “The head seamstress asked us to compile some designs for a dress for Duchess Genevieve. She’s going to have a welcome banquet at some point, so we need to be prepared in case she wants a gown made for the occasion.”

  “Cinderella, you work for her. Maybe you can help us.”

  “I
could,” she mumbled as they passed the hall of portraits once more. Except this time Cinderella’s eyes picked out the faded sun lines on the brocade wallpaper, a telltale sign that some paintings had come and gone. The frames for the former Grand Duke’s portraits were more ill-fitting than most—and she thought of what Mr. Ravel had said about the destruction of all paintings about magic. What must have been in this hall before? Portraits of fairy godparents to the royal family, perhaps?

  “Cinderella?” Louisa said, tapping her shoulder.

  “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”

  “I’ve noticed,” said her friend dryly. “You have a habit of disappearing into your daydreams.”

  “She’ll want to wear something black,” Cinderella said. “She doesn’t talk about him often, but she’s still in mourning for her husband.”

  “You think so?” said Gisele. “I would have thought she’d be glad he died. He was the reason she left the palace in the first place.”

  “Do you know why he was banished?” Cinderella asked.

  Victoria shrugged. “Something about a disagreement with the king.”

  “There’s an unwritten rule not to speak of it,” said Louisa, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the guards couldn’t hear. “My father used to attend the Duke of Orlanne . . . back when I was a little girl, but he’s never said anything about what happened. Not even Aunt Irmina will talk about it.”

  “Why not?” asked Cinderella.

  “Let’s just say there are spies all around the palace . . . and people have been dismissed for less.”

  While the seamstresses changed topics back to what Duchess Genevieve should wear to her welcoming banquet, Cinderella listened only half-heartedly.

  She had a hunch the so-called “spies” were the Grand Duke’s. Now that she’d begun to piece together the past: his role in banning magic in Aurelais and his fraught relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Orlanne, she would have to be especially careful about what she said the next time he called for her.

  And ensure he never found out about her fairy godmother.

  Ferdinand did not appreciate Genevieve’s unexpected appearance in the Center Court Stateroom. At least she had had the decency to wait until the council had dissolved, but the precious time after the meeting was when he best had the king’s undivided attention and could swat away any untoward ideas his rivals in court might have tried to put in the king’s head.