So This is Love

by Elizabeth Lim

  His response surprised her. “Then why am I here?”

  The duke heaved a sigh, the corners of his mouth turning downward. If not for the gleam in his eye he might have actually looked like he pitied her. “My role as adviser to the king is not an easy one. I take no joy in uprooting your life and causing the prince distress.”

  “Then let me go,” Cinderella said. “There’s still time for you to do the right thing—”

  “You don’t seem to understand. Anyhow, things are more complicated now. . . .” The duke paused deliberately. “Especially since the king is dying.”

  Cinderella stilled. Duchess Genevieve had mentioned the king taking a turn for the worse, but hearing it from the Grand Duke’s lips confirmed her fear. “Dying?”

  “Yes, he collapsed last night, not long after the ball ended. The physicians blame it on the stress caused by the scandal revolving around the true identity of a certain mystery princess.”

  “He collapsed?” Cinderella staggered back, putting space between herself and the duke. “How is he now? How is Charles?”

  Ferdinand ignored her questions. “Imagine how aghast the king was when he learned that his son was planning to marry a maidservant! You, Cinderella—you’re to blame for this.”

  “Me?” More than ever, Cinderella was certain something wasn’t right here. The Grand Duke didn’t seem to be worried at all about the king. But too much was happening at once, and Cinderella couldn’t make sense of it all as her head swam with the duke’s accusations and the news that the king was ill.

  “In fact,” he went on, “Charles has already conceded to the king’s demand that he marry a princess of our neighboring kingdom.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is so. You see, he chose duty over love, just as I expected.”

  “How is Charles?” she asked, her voice but a pale whisper. After four years, he had only just returned home. She couldn’t imagine how distraught he must be to find his father gravely ill.

  “The prince will be fine. No need for tears, my dear.”

  “And the king?” she whispered.

  The duke leaned closer to her, and the smirk that had rested on his face in the ballroom returned. “His Majesty’s health is none of your concern.”

  “How can you be so—” Her hands flew to her mouth as realization hit her. The vial she had found in the nobleman’s pocket, the smirk the duke had been wearing as the king coughed. “The king isn’t ill, is he?” Cinderella’s distress over the king’s health curdled into horror. “You . . . you poisoned him!”

  A smile spread across Ferdinand’s face. “Poison is such an unpleasant word. Indeed, I have been tipping the scales for months now. Only a little at first, mostly as a precaution, but once I realized my influence on the crown was, well, waning, something had to be done. But worry not. I will administer the antidote . . . once I am presented with my new title as Grand Overseer of the kingdom.”

  “How could you?”

  Ferdinand sniffed, twirling the chain of his monocle flippantly around his finger. He seemed to revel in justifying his wicked deed. “His Majesty has become weak. Twenty years ago he would have never even thought about repealing the ban against magical beings. Yes, Cinderella, under King George’s last decree, your precious fairy godmother would be allowed back into Aurelais.” He sneered at her. “Don’t look so surprised. Yes, I know it was she who helped you seduce the prince. Imagine, a doe-eyed young woman like you being a sorceress.”

  He laughed. “Your fairy godmother will never be safe in Aurelais, so long as I am in power. And as of noon today, I will be.”

  “Why . . .” She seethed. “I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

  “Quite pleasantly, if you must know. Genevieve told you he means to pass on the throne to Charles, didn’t she? At first, I was appalled by George’s decision. Charles isn’t ready to rule, and he knows it. Then I thought to myself . . . this is an opportunity to restructure the monarchy. Should Charles rise to the throne prematurely, he would naturally need someone by his side, guiding him.”

  Ferdinand tugged on the ends of his mustache. “Once the council meets today, it is I who will be safeguarding the kingdom, as Grand Overseer and Councilor Regent. That is, until Prince Charles is sufficiently prepared to be king—a determination that lies, naturally, with me.”

  “You lied to the king from the very beginning!”

  “I guided him, young lady, as is my job . . . my duty! So you see, Cinderella, I cannot have you staying in the palace and knowing all my secrets. Especially not as princess of Aurelais. You will be brought to a proper dungeon, the location of which only I shall know. And there you shall end your days—”

  “How could you do this to your prince?” Cinderella burst out, barely listening to the duke. “Your king? He trusted you.”

  Ferdinand scoffed. “I chose love for my country over love for my king.”

  “Why should they be different?”

  “You think me without a heart, my child. But in time, you will see that all I have done is for the good of Aurelais.”

  “It sounds like all you have done is for the good of yourself,” said Cinderella.

  “A reputation takes a lifetime to build. I won’t have mine fall to ruins because Prince Charles chooses an unsuitable girl to take as a wife, and the whole country falls to chaos as a result. Aurelais needs a traditional queen, one whose presence will not undermine the rigors of the monarchy.”

  “Maybe the people would welcome a queen like them,” Cinderella countered.

  “The people don’t know what is best for them.” The duke donned his hat, pushing the feather so it did not obscure his vision. “They complain that we nobles have all the power and all the gold, but if we were to allow peasants to make laws, then imagine the chaos that would unfold. If we were to give every commoner a hundred pieces of gold, then who would bother tilling the fields and working the land? Aurelais would fall into disarray. No, no, I shan’t allow that to happen. Order must be upheld, above all.”

  “You think you’re protecting this country,” she said quietly, “but you’re not. It’s people like you who are hurting it.”

  “We shall see, Cinderella. We shall see. It is no longer your concern. Now I must go, for the council awaits my announcement of Charles’s imminent marriage to the Princess of Lourdes. The guards will alert me when your fairy godmother arrives.”

  He bent, whispering conspiratorially, “You see, I’m quite confident she will come to your aid. And when she does . . . she’ll regret she ever set foot in Aurelais.”

  He gave a dark chuckle, and Cinderella’s insides clenched. “No!”

  But he whirled away, and the door closed behind him, his steps clicking against the cold, dank stone. A plea for him to come back nearly crawled out of Cinderella’s throat, but she closed her mouth, refusing to beg. She would find a way out of this herself.

  Taking in her bleak surroundings, she swallowed. Somehow.

  Doubt pricked at her insides. There was no Bruno to help her distract the guards, no Louisa to help her sneak out of the prison. And calling upon Lenore was out of the question. That was what the Grand Duke wanted.

  She’d have to do this alone. But how?

  Wringing her hands together, she leaned her head back against the wall, ignoring the mice skittering at her feet. Had it only been a few weeks ago that she’d been alone on the streets, promising herself she’d never feel this helpless again?

  Think, Cinderella. She gritted her teeth. Think.

  She only had until noon, when the guards would arrive to take her away from the palace. When the duke would meet with the council and become the Grand Overseer of the kingdom.

  She needed to beat Ferdinand to the council.

  For the hundredth time, Cinderella kicked at her skirt, searching its silken layers for something, anything that could help her get out of there. Odds were slim an absentminded seamstress might have left some pins or
a needle in such a fine garment, but Cinderella was desperate.

  She flipped the folds of her skirt back and forth and did the same with her sleeves, unrolling them. Nothing.

  What was she hoping for—a needle, a button? None of it would be any good against the guards outside her cell.

  It’d be better than nothing. And I have nothing.

  Frustrated, she staggered back, resting her head against the brick wall. Her beads clattered against her neck, and Cinderella’s hand went up to her mother’s necklace.

  More than once, it’d occurred to her that she could try to bribe the guards with it. But the beads were from her mother, and she would never give them away.

  An idea came to her.

  Her hands trembling, she reached for the loaf of bread a guard had tossed into her cell earlier.

  “Breakfast,” he’d barked at her. He’d shuddered at the sight of the mice nibbling at her ropes. “Better eat it before the rats get to it.”

  She’d ignored him, feeding the mice half her loaf while she brainstormed ways to escape. Word must have spread among the mice that there was food to be had—nearly a dozen now scurried about her cell, eagerly awaiting their meal.

  Cinderella sprinkled a few crumbs on the ground, a plan slowly forming in her mind.

  Outside her tiny window, the sun glimmered, nearly at the peak of its daily ascent. On the other side of the cell door, the guards started talking, and Cinderella stilled. Had the carriage arrived?

  “His Grace wants to be sure no one notices the prisoner leaving.”

  “Go on ahead and fetch her. She was up all night scratching at the door, and I think she’s at it again, the meek little mouse. I’ll ready the carriage.”

  Cinderella clenched her fists. She’d show them just how “meek” she was.

  I have to hurry, she thought. Carefully, she broke the remains of her loaf into the smallest chunks that she could and stuffed them into her pocket. Then she knelt, picking up five of the mice scurrying about her feet and tucking them into the folds of her skirt.

  It felt like forever before she finally heard footsteps.

  “Good morning, little mouse,” the guard jeered. “You finish your breakfast?”

  Open the door, Cinderella thought. Hurry and open the door.

  “Is it time?” she asked, clutching her dress tightly. The mice inside wriggled, and she worried they’d scamper out before she could go through with her plan. “Have you come to take me away?”

  With a laugh, the guard finally unlocked the door. He whipped out a long scarf, holding it toward her threateningly. “First I’ve got to make sure you don’t make too much noise. Can’t have you screaming the entire trip out of Valors.”

  He tried to seize her by the arm, and Cinderella sidestepped. Working as fast as she could, she reached into her pocket and threw the breadcrumbs into the guard’s hair. Then she unclenched the folds of her skirt and let the mice go free.

  They scurried after the guard, nibbling at his leather boots and climbing up his legs to his head. As he cried out in alarm, Cinderella stole out of the prison toward freedom.

  A daunting hill separated the prison from the palace, the hundreds of steps no doubt designed to exhaust any captives who dared escape the Grand Duke’s clutches. Hungry and tired, Cinderella could feel her muscles stiffening from the endless climb, but she pressed on.

  Up and up the narrow steps she scrambled, keeping one hand against the hill’s rough stone face to help her balance. There had to be a faster way to the palace.

  Behind her, the two guards were catching up. She couldn’t rest now.

  Once she was halfway up the path, the stone behind her fingertips rumbled. A trapdoor behind the moss swung open, revealing quite possibly the last person Cinderella expected to run into.

  The Duchess of Orlanne yanked her through the hidden door, shutting it behind them, and covered Cinderella’s mouth with her hand.

  “Quiet, Cindergirl. Louisa, blow out the candle.”

  A second surprise: Louisa, standing beside the duchess, her shaking hands clutching a candle that she immediately snuffed. And Bruno!

  Her bloodhound looked fiercely proud of himself, and Cinderella knelt to hug him. “Were you the one who found me?” she whispered. “Dear, brave Bruno. Thank you.”

  In the darkness the four waited, Cinderella’s heart hammering through the silence.

  “Where did she go?” the guards asked each other.

  “I saw her disappear around here.”

  Outside, leaves rustled.

  “Nothing but moss and ivy. She couldn’t have gone missing like that.”

  “Why not? The Grand Duke said she was a sorceress, didn’t he? Maybe she’s evaporated into the air, or turned into one of these birds squawking everywhere.”

  When the voices faded, Louisa relit the candle and the duchess ushered Cinderella into a dimly lit tunnel.

  “What is this place?” Cinderella asked.

  “You didn’t think the servants’ tunnels were the only secret passageways in the palace, did you?” Genevieve harrumphed. “I know all the service entrances and exits, most of them so well hidden you wouldn’t think to notice them. These were built during darker times, in case the royal family ever needed to escape. These are the ones Arthur used to help the fairies all those years ago. There are two paths: one back to the palace, and one into Valors.”

  Right as she said it, they approached the fork. “The choice is yours, Cindergirl. You’ve seen what dangers come with being a princess, and this is only the beginning. Take the left and it will bring you to Valors. Or the right—”

  “I’m going back to Charles,” Cinderella said immediately. There was no hesitation in her tone; she knew her choice.

  The duchess smiled, taking the candle to lead the way. “Then right we go.”

  Cinderella fell in step with Louisa. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t . . . I didn’t know how.”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” Louisa said, threading her arm through Cinderella’s. “I understand.”

  “Friends?”

  “Always,” replied Louisa. She winked. “I got to meet the prince this morning, thanks to you.”

  Cinderella’s pulse quickened. “He was looking for me?”

  “Yes, and I had no idea where you were. That didn’t sit well with me, so I sent him to find Bruno. But—”

  “But he never got a chance to look for you,” Genevieve interrupted. “The king sent for him, and now he’s stuck in a council meeting. Fortunately, Bruno here knew something was amiss. All day the mutt was whimpering, and when I took him on a walk he raced out of the palace—nearly gave me a stroke, I tell you! But he kept running and barking, and I put two and two together and figured that it was because of you. Didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ferdinand, the snake, had you taken away.” Genevieve picked a piece of straw from Cinderella’s hair. “And I was entirely right.”

  Louisa pushed open another trapdoor, this one leading into the palace. Once Cinderella was inside, Genevieve started leading them toward the royal audience chamber—to find the prince and stop his betrothal ceremony to the Princess of Lourdes. But halfway down the hall, Cinderella stopped. There was something else she had to do.

  “Your Highness, Louisa,” she said, “you must find Charles, and hurry. Interrupt the ceremony if you have to.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The Grand Duke . . . I have to stop him. He’s been poisoning the king.”

  “What?”

  “And lying to him—to engineer his own rise to power. I have to prove that he’s a traitor to Aurelais.”

  “You can’t go snooping around the duke’s offices looking like that,” Louisa said, eyeing her torn gown and bruised arms. “Not when the guards are looking for you. Here, take this.”

  The seamstress reached into her basket and passed Cinderella a pile of garments. “These are yours. After we found out you were the runaway princess, Aunt Irmina ask
ed me to take them back to the sewing hall. I’m glad I kept them.”

  Hurriedly, Cinderella changed into her old work uniform. Then the four parted ways, with Cinderella and Bruno heading for the Grand Duke’s office.

  She didn’t know what she was looking for. Her pulse thundering in her ears, she rifled through his drawers. There were maps, charts of the lineages of the noble families of Aurelais, tax reports, and letters from various members of the council, but nothing that suggested he’d been lying to the king. Nothing about burying King George’s wish to permit magical persons back into Aurelais, or about poisoning his own sovereign.

  But as Cinderella looked through the papers, she stopped. She had never seen the duke’s handwriting before, yet it looked familiar. Neat with a careful flourish—and the seal he used on his documents looked like something she had seen before.

  She frowned, searching her memory. Where, oh, where had she seen it before? She’d been with Louisa, sewing—ah!

  Digging into her apron, she fumbled for the scraps of paper she had found while helping Louisa mend clothing in the seamstress room. She’d forgotten to toss them away.

  The seal was the same. The handwriting the same.

  But where was the rest?

  “Can you help me find this?” she asked Bruno, letting him sniff the scrap she’d found. After a moment, his nose twitched. Then, nose to the ground, he quickly edged out of the duke’s office toward the bedchambers, where he stopped in front of a wide wooden closet.

  “In here?”

  The dog’s grunt confirmed the answer to her question.

  She swung open the duke’s armoire, scouring his clothes until she found a row of hanging trousers, each with identical satin stripes. She started searching through their pockets, but Bruno was faster. He bobbed his nose at a pair at the end of the row, and Cinderella unhooked it from the rack.

  There.

  Something crinkled against her fingers. Daring to hope, she pulled it out, and there it was! The rest of the missing page. Piecing the scraps together, she held the papers against the window. “ ‘I have a need for a concoction that will cause grievous pain—enough to make one consider stepping down from his responsibilities,’ ” she read aloud. She gasped. This was it—proof that Ferdinand had been poisoning the king!