A woman with a regal bearing descended from the carriage and went into the house. She was beautifully dressed, right down to her bold yellow shoes. Behind her followed a girl with a head of wild bronze curls. She wore a Coterie Preparatory School pin on her homespun tunic, old fishing boots that half swallowed her legs, and an expression of utter defeat.
“Ella,” whispered Jasper beside him, and Serge felt, in his wings, a throb of empathy not his own as Jasper’s heart leapt out of him. It was like that with first clients.
Jasper fluttered from the bench, crossed the road, and flew over the gate. He landed in the garden, where he folded his wings until they were two livid crimson stripes against the back of his jacket, making him appear almost human. He crouched low as he walked along the perimeter of the house, stopping beneath each window to listen.
Too nervous to watch any longer, Serge flew into the garden of number 76 and hovered behind him. He peered through the window his apprentice now crouched beneath. It looked into a tastefully arranged parlor graced with beautiful, understated furniture and one of the best-looking chandeliers Serge had seen in the last few decades. Three people stood in the room: the regal woman; a gaunt, awkwardly dressed man; and Ella.
Jasper straightened up just enough to peer over the windowsill.
“Where’ve you been?” asked the awkward man. The parlor windows were slightly open, and Serge was certain that Jasper could hear the man’s voice even without fairy dust. “Your assistant told me you hurried off around lunchtime — what’s going on?”
“Everything’s fine, Earnest,” said Sharlyn. “Ella and I were —”
“In Eel Grass,” said Ella quietly.
The regal woman pursed her lips and crossed her arms. The man’s face sagged. “Eel Grass,” he repeated, and then he stood dumb for a full minute.
“I saw it, Dad,” said Ella. “The workshop.”
Ella’s father nervously pushed back his rumpled dark curls. His hair was fashionably long in front, and when it fell down again, it obscured part of one of his eyes. “Why’d you take her there?” he asked the regal woman.
“I didn’t,” she replied. “I only went to fetch her when I found out where she’d gone.”
Serge realized that he had heard of this family. The Town Criers had published a few pieces about Earnest Coach over the past couple of years. He had invented luminous blue shoe soles called Cinder Stoppers to protect work boots from getting holes burned through them in the forges — but it didn’t matter what they were intended for. What mattered was that Queen Maud liked them so much that she put them on her slippers and wore them to a ball. Suddenly, everyone in Quintessential had wanted glowing blue soles on their dancing slippers, and Earnest Coach’s rapid transformation from poor peddler to wealthy merchant had made for some very good gossip. He’d married his business partner, Lady Sharlyn Gourd of Yellow Country, who had brought her experience, her title, and her fortune into the marriage. As the owner of Sourwood Honey and Wax, that fortune was sizable.
Serge understood why Ella’s father didn’t look like he knew how to wear his own clothing. He probably had no idea what he was doing at this level of society — he or his daughter. And the poor girl was at C-Prep. They were likely eating her alive.
Ella’s father still had not answered her when into the parlor loped a young woman who was perhaps a handful of years older than Ella, shockingly tall and angular, with close-cropped white curls on one side of her head and a blast of black frizz standing straight out on the other. She waggled her eyebrows at Ella.
“Linden, she’s here!” the young woman shouted over her shoulder. “And she hasn’t been skinned raw.” She clucked her tongue. “Losing your touch, Ma? Taking pity on the poor little stepdaughter?”
“Clover,” said Lady Gourd-Coach. “Please.”
A young man entered the parlor. He was a head shorter than the young woman, and he sported spectacles and a floor-length leather coat with one sleeve sliced off to expose his right arm. This arm was dark purple from shoulder to fingertips with the Kiss of magic, and he raised his purple hand until his fingers were right in Ella’s face. He snapped his fingers, and a shower of bright orange sparks burst from his fingertips and rained down over Ella’s head like embers. She shrieked and recoiled.
“Hey,” he said nastily. “Grats very much for making us feel so welcome. Or is running away from family an old village custom of yours?”
Ella looked to her father as though for support, but he said nothing. His eyes shifted away.
“Come on.” Clover grabbed Linden’s arm. “Let’s rehearse.”
“Gladly,” said Linden, and he strode with Clover out of the parlor once more.
In the quiet parlor, the clock ticked. “Our cott’s gone,” Ella said when another minute had passed with no conversation. “How could you do it?”
“We needed a fourth workshop,” her father replied. “The fastest course was to build on land that we already own.”
“Our farm was there.”
“It was bad ground, you know that. Just an empty field being wasted.”
“Not empty to me or Mum. Just you, because you were never there.”
“Ella,” said Lady Gourd-Coach sharply.
“What?” Ella glanced at her. “It’s true. He wasn’t there. He was always traveling, always peddling, always somewhere else.”
“For you,” her father said. “I traveled for you and your mum. To make a living.”
Ella gave a low laugh but said nothing.
Her father shifted his weight. “I meant to tell you,” he said. “The timing was always off. And I didn’t think you’d care about the business plans.”
“Didn’t you.”
“No, I didn’t,” he answered, his voice sharpening. “Why should you? Sharlyn’s kids never cared about the honey business back in Cornucopia. They were busy with their music. I assume you’ve got interests of your own and don’t need to know when we build another workshop.”
“We don’t need another workshop.”
“How do you think businesses get larger, Ella? They grow.”
“How come Practical Elegance has to grow? Three workshops aren’t enough?”
“We’re expanding our product line.”
“Why? Who cares about shoe soles that never wear down, or shirts that can be worn inside out, or trousers that don’t get wet in the rain?”
“My work,” said Earnest Coach stiffly, “is extremely useful —”
“It would be to people who do hard labor, but that sort can’t afford to shop at Practical Elegance, can they?”
“Ella, stop,” said Lady Gourd-Coach, but her husband shook his head.
“No, Sharlyn, let her go. If this is how she feels, let’s hear it.” He glared at his daughter. “You have a problem with profits? Where do you think this house comes from, and your school tuition, hey? You think it’s magic? Fairies? Well, I can tell you it’s not. It’s hard work —”
“I don’t want C-Prep or this house,” Ella cried. “Especially not if people have to slave and die for you like Mum slaved and died for Jacquard —”
Her father moved forward with such quick, angry energy that Ella took a step back. “Your mother died of roop,” he said. “Not of spinning silk. And until she died, as hard as it was on her, she was grateful she had that job —”
“Grateful!”
“Yes. Grateful. She was grateful, Ell. Just like the families who work for Practical Elegance are grateful to have a living.”
“Quint,” said Ella, and her father flinched. “That’s what you are now. One of them.”
He threw up his hands. “What do you want?” he shouted. “Do you want me to shut down the business? Move back to Eel Grass?”
“Yes!”
“You’re being childish, Ell. You have no idea how the real world works.” He paused and tried to straighten his cravat. “Now, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the workshop before, but I care about you, and I didn’t know how to tell you witho
ut hurting you.”
“Right,” said Ella. A tear slipped from her eye and raced down her cheek. “You care. You put a workshop on my mum’s grave, that’s how much you care.”
“You’re not the only person who has ever grieved, Ella,” Lady Gourd-Coach interjected. “Other people have been through tough times —”
“And you’d know all about tough times, hey?” Ella turned on her stepmother. “With your chandeliers, and servants to cook your meals and dress you every morning —”
“I dress myself,” said Lady Gourd-Coach, straightening her shoulders. “I’m a great deal more modern than the nobles around here. If you’d give me a chance —”
But Ella was laughing. “You dress yourself,” she mocked. “I haven’t been proud of that since I was three years old.”
“Ella!” cried her father.
“You always side with her,” said Ella. “You do whatever she says — you’ve forgotten Mum ever existed —”
“Shut your trap! Get to your room!”
Ella ran from the parlor. At the windowsill, Jasper made a quiet noise of pain.
Serge, who had spied on many hundreds of family fights before, only drummed his invisible fingertips against his mouth. Perhaps fairy godparents would be useful to the girl; she presented herself dreadfully. A little styling would make an immense difference in her appearance, and he was rather a good coach when it came to elocution. They could be of real assistance here.
With some alarm, he realized what he was thinking. They weren’t going to do anything. If Jasper wanted to pursue this lunacy, then he alone would bear the consequences.
“This could have been avoided,” said Lady Gourd-Coach presently. “Why didn’t you tell her earlier about the workshop?”
“Oh, not you too.”
“Let’s go up and speak in private. We need to decide on a punishment for Ella.”
Earnest Coach sighed. “I know her attitude’s not what it should be, but I don’t feel right punishing her for it. It’s one thing to send her to her room, but she’s having a hard time. I don’t want to make it worse for her.”
“She ran away from school,” said Lady Gourd-Coach. “She wasn’t in Eel Grass for a visit, Earnest, she went down with the intention of staying there.”
“She what?” Ella’s father looked dumbfounded. “No, she didn’t mean it. She’s just upset —”
“She meant it. She sent a trunk of her belongings ahead of her, and by the time I got there, she’d nearly secured an apprenticeship at the Corkscrew in Salting.”
“Skies,” said Earnest Coach. He rubbed his eyes. “I’ve made her that miserable.”
“She needs to move forward,” said Lady Gourd-Coach. “This is her home now. She needs to accept that and start making friends here.”
“I’ve pushed her to go to the parties. She won’t.”
“Then let’s rectify that.”
Still speaking quietly together, Ella’s father and stepmother left the parlor.
Jasper unfurled his wings so suddenly that Serge jumped in alarm, and then, while he watched in horror, Jasper flew up to the second floor. People in the streets would be able to see him, with his ostentatious wings aflutter, zooming crazily around the Coach house. He hovered just beneath the upper windowsills, peering into each one, until he vanished around the side. Serge realized with a jolt what Jasper intended to do.
He was going to make contact with Ella.
Serge shot from the ground and flew after his apprentice, cursing himself for not having intervened sooner. Of course Jasper wouldn’t wait and approach the client with subtlety; Jasper and subtlety were not on speaking terms. Serge hovered outside one window and then the next, looking for some sign of Jasper. He saw Ella’s stepsiblings in one of the rooms, loudly playing on the drums and fiddle — and then he heard Jasper.
“I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’m a friend.” His voice seemed to be right in Serge’s ear, and so did someone else’s labored breathing — Ella’s, he was sure. She must be terrified.
Serge flew rapidly along the outside of the house until he found the room where Ella sat upon her bed, pressed flat against the wall, staring wildly in front of her with her mouth open to scream. The window was wide open.
“Don’t be scared,” Jasper was saying now. “I want to help.”
Serge flew into Ella’s room and landed just in front of Jasper. With a quick shake of his fingertips, he made himself visible once more.
Now Ella did scream — and so did Jasper. But the drums and fiddle kept playing in the other room, and Serge was reasonably certain that no one had heard them. Even if they had, he needed to step in. The situation had to be controlled.
“Elegant Herringbone Coach,” he said. “My name is Serge. I represent the Glass Slipper fairy godparenting boutique, making wishes come true for over three hundred years. You came up on our List, and we are here to offer you a contract. You have the right to retain our services for a period of one year. Be aware that we do not deal in love spells or romantic magic of any kind. No one, including you, can be forced to do anything. You agree to be bound by the laws and legal judgments of the Blue Kingdom …”
He realized what he was saying, and he stopped. He couldn’t give his usual contract speech. He couldn’t even be here.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Perhaps you’d rather we left.”
Ella remained flat against her wall, now looking more confused than afraid.
“Services?” she repeated. “Fairy —”
“Fairy godparenting,” said Jasper. “Are you familiar with the idea?”
Ella nodded, barely. “But … doesn’t it cost a fortune?”
Serge nodded. “Our services are usually expensive, Ella — or do you prefer Elegant?”
“Ella.” She glanced warily from Serge to Jasper and back again as though waiting for one of them to attack her. “Sharlyn signed me up for this,” she said. “Didn’t she? My dad’s wife.” She said the word as if it tasted foul.
“Your stepmother did not contact us,” said Serge.
Ella leaned forward, away from the wall. She looked puzzled — and suspicious. “Dad would never think of this,” she said, almost to herself. “It had to be Sharlyn.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Jasper stepped up beside him. “Neither of them Listed you. Your mother did.”
The room was very quiet.
“My mum’s dead.”
“It was two years ago,” said Jasper. “Right before she died.”
“Mum didn’t have two nauts to rub together.” Ella pushed herself up from her bed and stood before them, distraught. “And she’d never sign me up for this — she was no quint —”
“Read her letter,” Jasper said.
Ella jerked. “Letter? From my mum?”
Jasper withdrew the stolen scroll from within his jacket, and Ella seized it. She unrolled it and stared at the handwriting. “I want to read it by myself,” she whispered.
“Of course,” said Jasper. “When should we come back?”
Ella did not answer.
“Tomorrow,” said Serge, deciding. “When we arrive, you’ll hear a chime. It means you have three minutes before we appear in this room. Do you understand?”
Ella nodded, never taking her eyes from the letter.
Serge glanced down at his palms and paused, surprised. He had somehow already generated plenty of fairy dust to transport himself and Jasper out of the house. Perhaps it was the look on Ella’s face when she’d seen her mother’s writing.
He grabbed Jasper’s sleeve with one hand and snapped his fingers with the other, and the two of them vanished from Ella’s bedroom. They materialized again beside the park bench across the street from number 76. Jasper put his hands out instantly to ward off Serge.
“Don’t tell on me,” he begged. “Please. I can explain.”
“You stole Ella’s contract. What were you thinking, Jasper?”
“The same thing you wer
e thinking!”
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“You thought it was wrong to ignore a child just because she couldn’t pay,” said Jasper. “You proved it by letting me come here, didn’t you?” His breath came fast. “We should do this together. We should help Ella.”
“Presumptuous.”
“What am I presuming that’s not true?” said Jasper. “You haven’t reported me to Jules. And you offered Ella our assistance, didn’t you?”
“You invaded her privacy! If I hadn’t intervened, it would have been disastrous.”
“You could have just told her we had the wrong house! Instead, you told her we’d be back tomorrow.”
“I know what I said,” said Serge. “But we can’t come back.”
“We have to!” Jasper cried. “Can’t you feel how unhappy she is? She’s alone here. No one understands her —”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Ella is unique. Everything you’ve seen so far is classic client behavior. Running away from home, shouting at her parents — it’s nothing new. And she’s no charity case. She doesn’t really need us.”
“What about her mother?”
“Lower your voice,” Serge hissed. Walkers on the park-side path were starting to stare. “It’s very sad about her mother, but Ella is not the first girl whose mother died young and whose father remarried a woman she didn’t like. Plenty of children would gladly trade places with her. We have our systems at the Slipper for a reason.”
“Is that you talking,” said Jasper, “or Jules?”
Serge drew a sharp breath.
“I thought so,” said Jasper. “Are you coming back here with me tomorrow or not?”
Serge worked to recover his mental balance. “If I say no?”
“Then I’ll come by myself.”
“And if I turn you in?”
Jasper searched Serge’s eyes with his crimson ones. “I don’t live by other people’s rules when I know they’re the wrong ones,” he said. “I did that for a century, just to stay in my grandmother’s good graces, and it felt — oh. Horrible.” He shuddered. “I had no idea who I was. I was whatever she wanted, that was all. I didn’t come here to live that way. I came to be true to myself.”
Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella Page 7
