Page 5 of Cinder House
And then, one day—
“Girls!”
Patrice burst into the room when normally she would simply step.
Her daughters looked up from their teacups and biscuits, and Ella let herself appear in one of the chairs as well.
“What is it?”
said Greta.
The newspaper in Patrice’s hand was folded back to an announcement that began in large decorative letters: FESTIVAL BALLS—CROWN PRINCE TO CHOOSE A brIDE!
The heir to the throne, His Highness Prince Jule, had declared his intention to become betrothed.
A festival would take place at the end of the following month, with the centrepiece of celebration being the traditional three nights of dancing that accompanied any royal birth, engagement, or wedding, held in the enormous ballroom at the Royal Palace.
“As well as the summons already issued to ladies of noble birth and delegations of other nations,”
Patrice read aloud.
“Their Majesties are pleased to extend an invitation to these balls to every unattached young woman in their own royal city.”
Unattached—what a word that was.
Not quite untethered.
A frisson of excitement went through the upholstery of Ella’s chair.
“Well, now,”
said Danica.
“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of young men disappointed by that.”
Patrice swatted her arm with the newspaper. “Danica.”
“There have always been rumours.”
Danica hadn’t quite the ability to toss her head that Greta had perfected, but she did a good uncaring shrug.
“He’s waited this long without giving any girl any sign or hope—the society pages would have seized on it if he did.
They say he’s not bothered to take advantage of the fairy gift that made him charming, and so it’s all but worn off by now.
Wasn’t he once supposed to be the best dancer in the kingdom?”
“Is that so? I heard he was simply a talented amateur, but the court was expected to pretend otherwise,”
said Patrice dryly.
In the version passed between girls at Ella’s school, the fairy who’d bestowed the gift at the prince’s naming had said he would sing to charm fish from the river, and dance so well it would make dryads wilt with envy.
There had been a hopscotch rhyme about it.
“Either way,”
said Danica.
“They say he’s, you know.
A bit odd.”
“We will not call His Highness the Crown Prince odd,”
said Patrice.
“At most he is reserved.”
“Reserving himself for the muscular sons of farmers,”
said Greta with a laugh.
But she was sitting very straight, teacup abandoned and eyes alight.
“Nevertheless,”
said Patrice.
“Royalty has a duty.
He must produce an heir no matter his personal tastes, which means he must marry someone capable of it.
And for such an invitation to be sent, he must be open to a … wider choice.”
“Rubbish.
Five hundred crowns say it’s his duty to marry a highborn lady no matter what the invitation says,”
said Danica.
“But I’ve always wanted to see inside the palace.”
“If I can dance with him, I can win him,”
said Greta.
“Mama, I’ll need a new dress.”
Patrice gave her younger daughter an assessing look; perhaps taking in all the beauty on the surface, all the promise of her ambition and spark, and calculating their chances of remaining an intact illusion for long enough to ensnare a prince.
When Greta was motivated, a great deal was possible.
“Yes,”
said Patrice finally.
“New gowns for you both.
We’ll call at Gillespie’s tomorrow.”
A ball.
A dance, where the whole point was to do it with other people.
Ella bundled up her feelings about this and took them to the ballet that night.
It was one of her favourites: the story of the doll brought to life by a sorcerer.
The doll falls in love, of course.
Depending on the season the ballet company chose the tragic ending or the happy one, and Ella liked to try to guess which during the first act, by how the dancers were interpreting the steps.
The elderly man was there, sleeping; the chatty old women were not.
The boy in the grey hat had nearly the whole back row to himself.
Ella did something she’d never dared before, and took the seat next to him.
He was not a sprawler; his concentration was that of being folded breathlessly forward.
There was little chance he’d fling out an arm which would pass through her.
Sitting next to him, Ella could see how the skin of his cheeks tightened and flushed and his lips parted when he was caught up in the music.
Ella pretended, in a way she didn’t usually let herself pretend, that they were friends come to the ballet together; that at any moment he would turn his excitement to her and insist that this was going to be the tragic ending, just look at how they were staging the trio dance; that afterward they would go out and continue to dissect it over cups of spiced wine.
The tile in her pocket gave a chill throb.
On the stage, the doll dancer trailed her hand across her lover’s chest as if she wanted to carve the feeling of it into her animated wooden limbs.
The inevitability of the second act was clear in the curl of her wrist and the arch of her back.
And yet she raised her face to his, as he took her hands and they swayed into the steps of the dance, with a smile that made Ella long to believe otherwise.
* * *
“The ball begins at sundown,”
Ella said to Quaint, later that week.
“So they’ll all be out of the house from then until midnight at least.”
“I’ll be at the palace grounds like the rest of this crowd,”
said Quaint, indicating the other night market stallholders.
“Nothing’s on except for the festival.
Oh, I daresay the drinking houses will be open as usual.
But the market’s been moved to the eastern palace fields, and there’ll be barges on the river, too.
I think they’re expecting most of the city to turn up and party while their unmarried daughters are waltzing with the prince. And I intend to be there to sell them things.”
“Any cantrips against inconvenient rain under that table of yours?”
teased Ella.
“And I … I do want to go to the balls.
I mightn’t get another chance to see inside the palace, and see the courtiers in all their finery.
The invitation was to all young women of the city.”
And the wording of invitations, she’d learned, was important when it came to magic.
Ella should be able to pass within the palace walls without that itch of unbelonging.
The temptation of the idea had been unfolding in her mind for days.
“It’ll be so crowded that I can avoid my family easily.
And nobody else will be able to see me at all.”
Ella indicated the lavender dress and sighed.
“So it won’t matter that I’m dressed like a dowdy child.”
Quaint folded her hands in a way Ella recognised from when she was about to bring out the really powerful charms from under the stall to sell for an outrageous price, because she’d judged the customer able to afford it.
Light gleamed on her teeth.
She said.
“What if they could see you?”