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Her hopes of a rich Prince Charming coming to rescue us were fading fast. Men like that married very beautiful, very young women, from families like their own.

It had already been an uphill battle coming from The Hollow.

The second a servant dropped a glass and Moll bent to pick it up, or someone made a ribald joke, and she let out her deep belly laugh, she marked herself as new money at best. Now, in addition to her own upbringing, she had to deal with Mother Nature.

Despite good bones that would serve her well until she was six feet under, her once-smooth skin was marred by just a few laugh lines around the eyes.

She had a premature hint of silver gilding the burnished copper of her hair.

Life in The Hollow was hard, and it took a toll on all who lived here.

Moll was getting older, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

In her view, every new, subtle sign that appeared was like a death knell.

The sound of her dreams dying. She wasn't ready to let that happen yet, and I wasn't ready to pick up those pieces once she finally broke.

Shoving aside the last of my reservations, I picked up the box, realizing there was a four-inch hole in one corner that looked like it had been chewed through. Moths? Mice?

No.

As I bent closer, I realized it didn’t even look like a regular hole. It was more like a tiny chasm of inky black…like if I stuck my finger into it, it would disappear into the ether of the Shadow Abyss…

“That imagination of yours is going to get you carted off to the asylum!”

My stepmother’s warning rang in my head, and I blew out a long breath. I didn’t often agree with the woman, but lately, stress had me thinking the strangest thoughts. I couldn’t shake the sense that something big was coming.

“What’s that?” Moll demanded, eyeing the box as the flow of tears halted.

With one last glance at the hole, I turned my attention to Moll. "Xavier convinced me to give him a nice, fat squirrel for these silly things two weeks ago, and I agreed because I was thinking I might be able to sell them at the next market."

I held out the box and Moll’s eyes went wide as she took it. "For me?"

“For you.”

She lifted the top off and instantly let out a squeal. "Are you kidding?" Her eyes shot to mine, tears replaced by astonishment. "Harm, these are fabulous !"

I was no shoe aficionado, but even I knew when I'd first laid eyes on them that the glass shoes were special. No surprise from Xavier, one of the artists in The Hollow. Even the poorest of people still managed to find a way to make music and art. Maybe because we needed it more. That didn’t make the shoes any less ridiculous, though.

They served no practical purpose at all, really.

I’d only bought them because of a story about a girl with a dress made by mice and wore glass slippers in my childhood fairytale book.

I winced at the bolt of fury that still shot through me every time I thought of it.

The one thing, besides Fetch, that I had from my real parents, and my piece of shit stepbrothers had destroyed it before I was old enough to even read the thing on my own.

That alone would’ve been reason enough to hate them, but they managed to give me plenty of those over the years.

"If I add the gems to the red dress, and maybe a silver ribbon as a sash pulled from that white dress, with these shoes…it would work. It will work!" She set the box down, eyes shiny with tears all over again, and threw her arms around me. "You're my hero!"

I hugged her back and then pulled away before she started blubbering and got snot all over my old wool sweater.

"I’m nobody’s hero, Moll. But I am your best friend which means when it comes to you, I’d face the Shadow Abyss itself to help you find your happy ending.”

Her smile wobbled. “Me too. For you, I’d do the same.”

Despite whatever vain streak she had, I knew she was being honest. We looked out for each other. That’s what friends who’d become chosen family did.

I cleared my throat. “Well, you’d better get started on hair and makeup if you’re going to be on time. Who are we tonight, anyway?”

She lifted her chin and wiped the last of her tears away. “Me.”

My heart stuttered as I stared at her in shock. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She flapped her hand and let out a chuckle.

“Not me , me. I’m going to use a fake name, of course.

But I have the strangest feeling. Like tonight might be my last shot.

” She looked away from me for a second and then met my gaze again.

“All this time I’ve been trying to find the man of my dreams and future father of my children using everything I’m not to attract him.

If I’ve only got one more go at it, I’m going to bet on myself.

Red hair, blue eyes, no corset. Who knows?

” She popped off a wink. “I might even skip the lipstick.”

If I wasn’t chilled to the bone by her previous words, I’d have laughed out loud at the thought.

“Moll…are you sure that’s a good idea? What if someone from The Hollow recognizes you?”

“If someone from The Hollow is at that party, they’re where they shouldn’t be, same as me. Who are they going to tell?”

“That’s fine for the guests, but what about the servants? It seems like a foolish gamble.”

She frowned. “More like a calculated risk. I’ve never seen anyone I recognized at any of the other events. You know as well as I do that the palace gets all their staff from The Smudge, and it’s nearly impossible to climb more than one rung up the ladder. You’re being a worry wart.”

She had a point. Unlike the two other kingdoms that lay between Alabaster and the Shadow Abyss far far away, we lived in a caste system that didn’t even pretend to be anything else.

And Alabaster was constructed in the confines of a series of three walls, each smaller than the last, like a target with the bullseye in the middle.

Within the confines of the outermost Great Wall that protected all of Alabaster including The Hollow, there stood the second wall. Known as The Cradle, it loomed high in the sky, enveloping Little Alabaster and separating it from us losers in The Hollow.

Citizens there, most of the merchant class or better, feasted and politicked, free to turn a blind eye to the squalor we peasants had been left with.

As far as the crown was concerned, people like Moll and I were the lowest of the low.

It was a rare thing to even see someone from Little Alabaster in these parts, barring some random guards roaming the streets every so often in search of beggars to beat or shopkeeps to harass.

Wedged in a narrow band right between us and our betters, there was another group we called Smudgers.

Even though they were mostly craftsmen like many in The Hollow, they were a step above us in the hierarchy.

The royals, nobles, and wealthy merchants needed servants and people to do the jobs they didn’t want to do themselves.

So, while they were kept on a tight leash, Smudgers were permitted to live in a band between the Cradle and the Hollow, shoved into their own district in the northernmost part of Little Alabaster.

Even though life wasn’t exactly easy there either, Hollowers leapt at any opportunity for a “promotion” to the Smudge.

That privilege was only given to a handful of people each year, but it did wonders for keeping the masses in line in hopes of being one of the chosen few.

Then, last but not least, to the south, stood Alabaster Palace. Where rules were made to be broken, and laws didn’t apply. The royals enjoyed ultimate, unchecked power, and weren’t afraid to use it.

“See, you’re doing that thing again,” Molly muttered, interrupting my thoughts. “You’re imagining every possible bad thing that could happen, and that’s not the energy I need right now!”

“I’m not! I’m just…thinking.”

“Yeah. You always are. But this isn’t up for debate, Harm. I’m going, as me, and I need you to be okay with that.”

I was gearing up to continue the fight, but then I caught sight of Moll’s solemn face and snapped my mouth shut. Gone was my funny, silly, and sometimes vain friend. In her place was a desperate yet resigned woman, very aware of her circumstances.

“I want to have children so badly, but I refuse to bring them into this—” she broke off and let out a snort of disgust, “life, if that’s what you want to call it. I need to find a way out. I’m going to find a way out. For both of us. For our future.”

I worried at the hangnail on my thumb, wracking my brain for some way to change her mind.

“Stop doing that. You’re going to make it bleed again.

” She blew out a soft sigh and then shrugged.

“Fine. I don’t want you in a panic all night, so how about a compromise.

Red hair stays, but I’ll wear the stupid green lenses and do some contouring.

On the off chance I get recognized by the help, it’ll at least make them question themselves enough to keep mum for fear of being wrong and accusing a proper lady of fraud. ”

I mulled it over and finally nodded. “And this will be the last time?”

The thought was enough to make me giddy. If we’d had a proper rug in this shithole, I’d have worn it bare pacing those nights she’d been off husband-hunting in enemy territory.

She dipped her head. “Pinky swear. If it doesn’t happen tonight, I’ll find another way.”

Relief nearly swallowed me whole. I’d worry about those “other ways” another day. The very idea of her finally letting go of this fantasy that some man was going to save us from our fates was cause for celebration.

We locked little fingers and wiggled them before parting.

“Okay, then. You go get ready. I've got to head out.

Past two evenings I saw a family of rabbits in the clearing by the woods grazing the last of the green grasses.

Hoping to catch them while Fetch is with me so we can have some meat to go with the potatoes and cabbage we have left.

We'll have a midnight supper of stew and ale while you fill me in on the party. "

The hunting trip would also help keep me from worrying my head off about the possibility of Moll losing hers if she got caught crashing the Winter Jubilee.

"Perfect. And if I can sneak some daintique puffs into my bag when no one's looking, we can have dessert too! Maybe the ones with the berry filling, like last time."

Of course, we both knew, despite the mountains of food they'd be serving at the ball, Moll would eat none of it.

Even without a corset squeezing her guts out, the bullshit rules of high society dictating that women should eat like sparrows meant she'd be all look, no touch.

Then, when she got home, we'd sit in the dark, and she'd spend a solid hour describing the offerings across the tables in torturous detail.

Guinea fowl stuffed with lemon, rosemary, and thyme paired with duck fat fried potatoes.

Asparagus tips wrapped in bacon perched on top of a pearly white, flaky cod filet.

A pastel array of crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside macarons sandwiched around a dollop of tart, raspberry jam. Then there were the daintique desserts, bite sized morsels that tasted as if magic itself had been molded into the pastry.

My stomach grumbled as I made for the door, pausing to shoulder a worn bag and my bow and quiver.

"Wish me luck!" she called.

"Be safe, Moll. More than luck, be safe," I said, tossing a wave her way and then headed out into the brisk winter night.

How many times over the days that followed would I wish I’d never left…That I’d convinced her to skip the Jubilee and stay home?

A thousand.

Because life would never be that simple again.