Ash & Bramble (21 page)

A
T THE STROKE OF ELEVEN,
I
ENTER THE BALLROOM.
I
T IS
an immense, high-ceilinged room lit brilliantly with hundreds of candles that are reflected a thousand times in mirrors with gilded frames. At one end of the room is a row of glass doors leading out to a stone terrace; at the other is a small orchestra on a dais. As the clock strikes, the loud tones filling every crack and corner of the room, the music pauses and the dancers whirl to a stop. The men are dressed in black or gray or very dark blue; the women are in every shade of fashionable blue, with here and there a daring green or a vibrant purple.

In the carriage, Lady Faye gave me a wrap to wear into the ballroom. It is made of the lightest silver-gray material and surrounds me from head to toe like a swirl of smoke. I
pause in the wide doorway, the Mysterious Stranger, while everyone in the ballroom stares at me. The bells toll nine, ten, eleven, and Lady Faye plucks away the wrap. I hear gasps as the other guests see me and the last echoes of the bells fade.

I have to admit that it's a wonderful moment.

“You have a keen sense of the dramatic entrance,” I whisper over my shoulder to Lady Faye.

“You will enjoy yourself tonight, Penelope,” she says, and it sounds a little like an order. “Especially after I introduce you to the prince.”

The one I really want to look for is my tea shop man, but I suppose the prince will do for now.

The music has started up again, but the dancing couples watch us as we parade along the edge of the ballroom to a knot of people clustered around one tall young man.

It's him. Tall, black-haired, with brilliantly blue eyes. He is all in black with a red sash and some sort of gold circlet on his head. My breath comes quick. He sees me at the same moment and frowns, maybe feeling the same pull toward me that I feel toward him.

As Lady Faye and I reach him, the crowd melts away. To my astonishment, Lady Faye bends into a graceful curtsy. “Your Highness,” she says, and straightens.

“
Highness?
” I whisper. The circlet he's wearing is a
crown
. “He's the prince?” Lady Faye nudges me, and I add my own much less graceful curtsy.

“Your Highness, may I present my goddaughter?” Lady Faye takes my hand and leads me closer. “Tonight she is incognito; you may call her Lady Ash.”

Behind my mask, I roll my eyes.

Catching me at it, the prince—my tea shop man—raises his eyebrows.

“Goddaughter,” Lady Faye goes on, putting my hand into his, “this is Prince Cornelius.”

I press my lips together to keep from laughing.
Cornelius
. What an unfortunate name.

The prince does the expected, polite thing. “Lady Ash, would you honor me with a dance?” he asks, and gives my hand the faintest squeeze.

I nod in a way that I hope looks mysteriously enigmatic. Or maybe enigmatically mysterious.

He leads me out onto the dance floor, and the other dancers make space for us. He whirls me around. I don't remember learning to dance, but my feet and body know exactly what to do.

“I suppose it was inevitable,” I say to him.

At the sound of my voice, he stumbles ever so slightly, and then his hand is steady at the small of my back again. His blue eyes go serious as he examines my face, what he can see of it behind the mask. “Is it really you?” he asks.

“I am most definitely me,” I answer, and I flash him a quick grin. Suddenly I'm filled with fizzing excitement just to be here in this glorious ballroom instead of getting the
kitchen hearth all wet with tears. Lady Faye was right—I am going to have a wonderful time tonight.

The corner of his mouth quirks up with his easy smile. “I think I may have met you before, Lady Ash,” he says in his velvet voice.

“I've met you too,” I answer. “What did you do with my potatoes?”

“Your—?” And then he laughs. “Oh, those. I hope you didn't get into trouble for that.”

“I was sent to bed without my supper,” I say.

He laughs as if I have told a joke and whirls us into a spin.

“I really was,” I tell him as my skirt wraps around my legs and flares out again.

His beautiful mouth stops smiling. “I'm sorry.” He slows us. The music has slowed, too, and we are closer now, my hip against his, my gloved hand resting on his broad shoulder.

“It's not your fault,” I say. “And I'd had lovely pastries to eat, so I didn't miss my dinner too much.”

The other dancers stare; I have a feeling he's paying too much attention to me, that one dance is polite and two dances is interest, and why is Prince Cornelius smiling so warmly at this mysteriously masked woman?

“You're even prettier,” he says, “when you're not covered with cinders.”

“I sleep in the hearth,” I admit. “Also, I am not pretty.” Both things are perfectly true.

“No, you're not pretty,” he agrees. “You're beautiful.”

I roll my eyes. “Surely you can do better than that.”

He whirls me around again, then bends to whisper into my ear. “You're not making this easy.”

“It's not supposed to be easy,” I whisper back.

He smiles down at me. “With most girls it is. Instantaneous, even.”

I shrug. “I suppose it is easy for someone like you. But you'll find it difficult to charm me with just that smile of yours. I want more.”

He is silent for a few moments. The music of the waltz wafts around us. When he speaks again, his voice has changed, as if he's speaking half to himself and half to me. “You're right, I think.” He gazes down at me. “It shouldn't be easy, or instant. It should be more than that.” For just a moment, as I look up into his eyes, there in the midst of the ballroom, it is as if I can see past the smiling, handsome surface of him, and I'm almost surprised to glimpse a real person there, a young man not so much older than I am, who is, perhaps, not as sure of himself and his charm as he seems to be.

He blinks. “You're a very strange girl.”

Oh, if he only knew. I nod.

And then he smiles, and he has put the princely mask on again. I suppose he's more comfortable wearing it. “I would like to see you again after tonight.”

Instead of answering, I give him the smile of enigmatic mystery.

“Will you tell me your name?” he asks.

“I'd rather hear about your name,” I say. “Cornelius.” I say it again, drawing out the syllables. “
Cor-neeeeel-yus
.”

“I know, it's terrible, isn't it? I'm named after my great-uncle.” He bends closer, and lowers his voice, and it is like chocolate again, warm and smooth. “My friends call me Cor.”

I look up at him. “What should I call you?”

“I think you should never call me Cornelius,” he answers. He smiles. “Tell me your name.”

Suddenly the ballroom is too hot and crowded, and I can feel the wheels turning again, pulling me along somewhere faster than I want to go. “I—I'll tell you later,” I say breathlessly, trying to resist. As we spin, I catch a glimpse of the glass doors leading out to the terrace. “At midnight. Meet me outside at midnight, all right?”

He agrees. The terrace. Midnight.

S
HOE IS GLAD OF HIS DARK CLOTHING AS HE PADS UP THE
streets to the castle and finds an unguarded delivery entrance that leads to a storeroom. Through that he discovers some narrow stairs that take him to a passageway which connects the servants' quarters to the public rooms of the castle. Most of those rooms are empty and dark; the servants are all either in the kitchens or helping with the ball. He feels as if he's backstage at a theater, skulking around in the dark margins while real life is happening under the lights in front of a rapt audience.

Maybe that's what the castle is: a stage, where the most important parts of Story are meant to play out.

He is a shadow as he slips closer to the ballroom, following the sounds of distant music and tinkling laughter. As he
is crossing what looks like a drawing room, lit only by a lamp turned low, a servant wearing the prince's red livery and a white wig comes in another door. Shoe freezes; his heart pounds; he is caught. He knows he looks like a thief, dressed in dark colors with a pack on his back. But the servant's gaze passes over him as if he doesn't exist; the man picks up the lamp, then turns and carries it out the door.

Shoe stands frozen in the middle of the dark room. The servant had looked right at him. “That was a strange piece of luck,” Shoe whispers to himself, and goes on.

Quietly he sneaks from room to room until he goes into a library and finds a door half hidden behind a heavy velvet curtain. He puts his ear to the door. On the other side is the sound of music and talking. Crouching, he reaches up to slowly turn the knob and crack the door open. The sounds grow louder; he smells flowers and perfume and the faintest tinge of sweat. He peers out. At first a woman's wide skirt is blocking his view, but after a minute or two she shifts to the side, and he can see the entire ballroom. He blinks at the brightness.

He sees Pin immediately. All the others are burned-out cinders, but she is a flame. She is wearing a mask and dancing with a tall young man with curly black hair. Shoe ignores him; he can see only Pin. The air practically shimmers around her; she is all quick energy and joy, and he sees the flash of her wicked grin.

Seeing her again makes his heart lift the same way it
always does when he sees her. He feels a stab of despair, too. She is entangled so tightly in Story, and it is late, very late. How can he possibly get her out of it? She looks happy, twirling around on the dance floor with her young man. What if she doesn't want to escape?

No, he knows Pin. She is so uniquely herself—she can't live according to the mechanical will of Story.

“Well, this is an unexpected twist,” comes a cold, clear voice from behind him. A light flares, a lamp being lit.

He whirls, still crouching, his heart pounding, ready to flee.

It's her. A spasm of fright seizes his whole body; he knows what a rabbit must feel like when staring into the jaws of a wolf.

The Godmother is dressed all in icy blue. The last time he saw her was when he went to the post. She was wearing blue that day, too.

She glides closer, reaches past him, and closes the door that was opened onto the ballroom. The room falls silent.

“It's the young Shoemaker, isn't it?” the Godmother asks. She reaches down with a pale, long-fingered hand, pulls the knitted cap off his head, and tosses it aside. “Yes, it is. How very interesting to find you here. I think one of my Huntsmen has some explaining to do.”

He's trapped. He could try escaping through the door behind him and into the ballroom, but he knows he won't get far going that way dressed as a thief. But he's not going to
cower on his knees, either. He grits his teeth, gets a grip on his fear, and climbs to his feet.

The Godmother is regarding him with a sharp smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. She taps her teeth with her fingernail. No, with a thimble. He remembers Pin's thimble and stops himself from reaching into his pocket to be sure it's still there.

“What
are
you doing here, Shoemaker?” she asks.

“I'm here for Pin,” he answers, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Mm. I think you're not here at all,” she says. “You are not part of this. I advise you to scurry away at once or something nasty might happen to you.”

He shakes his head, stubborn. “I'm not leaving unless Pin comes with me.”

Tap-tap
, thimble against teeth. “Did you know that there's a post here in the city? It's in the marketplace. I don't have to use it very often, but it makes an excellent deterrent to crime and other such things.”
Tap-tap
. “I'd hate to see you at the post again, Shoemaker. I'm not sure you'd survive it a second time.”

“It's a risk I'm willing to take,” he says unsteadily.

“Oh, I'm sure.” She gives a low laugh. “So pale. Are you frightened?”

He had been, but suddenly he has become furious. “No,” he bites out. “I'm going to stop you. I'm going to stop Story from turning.”

She laughs again, the tinkling sound of breaking icicles. “What are you going to do, boy? Heroically make shoes? No, there is nothing you can do to stop this. In fact, the ending of your sordid little story is approaching rather quickly.”

He tenses as she steps closer. She raises her thimbled finger, brings her hand close to his face, and brushes aside a lock of his ragged hair. His heart is slamming in his chest and his every nerve is trembling with the urge to flee. He tries to take a step back, but he is frozen in place. She touches his forehead with the thimble; it flares with icy cold.

The
thimble
, he realizes in a terrified flash. It's how she takes away memories, how she forces people to do her bidding. She's going to make him forget Pin.

Then the Godmother gives an edged smile and draws back her hand. “Wait,” she says softly, and cocks her head as if something has just occurred to her. “I believe I can come up with a better twist than that. Yes, I think so. It will be entertaining, and it will all lead to the same thing in the end.” Briskly pulling the thimble from her finger, she nods at the door. “Penelope will be meeting the prince on the terrace at midnight. You will find her there very soon, alone, waiting for him.” She steps aside, giving him a clear path out of the room.

Released from her spell, he's taken two quick steps toward the door before his brain catches up to what she's said. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want you to see how little you matter, you silly boy.
Penelope has absolutely no memory of you. She will never choose you. She is meant for other, bigger things, not a nameless, pastless Shoemaker. There is nothing you can do to change what will happen here tonight. You can try. But you will fail.” Her smile sharpens. “And you know what is waiting for you when you do.”

The post.

And the wheels of Story, grinding toward its inevitable ending. He can't stop them from turning, he will only be crushed. In that grim thought he glimpses a fleeting truth. “You're just as caught up in it as the rest of us,” he realizes.

The Godmother flinches, just the faintest flicker of a flinch, but he sees it.

Then she is all coldly controlled fury, her smile the glint and slash of a blade. “Very soon you will die a bloody and bitter death, Shoemaker,” she hisses. “And as you die, you will understand that your life was such a tiny thing that no one will even notice you are gone.” She turns on her heel and sweeps from the room, leaving Shoe in the darkness.