Why was he panicking, anyway? He was the Crown Prince of Dwellen, for Fates’ sake. He was immortal. Fae. He could do anything he wanted.

As long as he hadn’t struck a bargain, that is.

“Oh.” The realization dawned on me. The shoe. The scroll of paper the courier kept referencing. “You extended a bargain, didn’t you?” If there was anything my parents had instilled within me since infancy, it was how dangerous it was for humans to make bargains with fae, beings who had become expert deceivers over the centuries, driven by the inability to lie outright. The magic fae used to seal bargains was a tricky one that would kill any party who broke the terms of the bargain. Of course, he was panicking. The slipper must have been enchanted with a bargain. The fae prince had vowed to marry the woman whose foot fit the slipper, thinking it would only fit Cinderella because of the thief’s silly lie. If I accepted the terms of his bargain, he would be stuck married to me, and if he tried to violate the marriage by divorcing me, he would die.

The prince’s eyes locked on mine, and where I expected to see pleading, all I found was a numb resignation.

He really thought I’d do it. He thought I’d trap him in a marriage, just for the glory of being a princess. Now that I considered it, I figured he would have been right, had the shoe fit either of my neighbors. The thought perforated my conscience a bit. As much as the prince deserved a poor result from rashly throwing his life away over a silly grand gesture, I couldn’t help but feel for his helplessness. Clearly, he thought he loved this Cinderella girl, regardless of the fact that he didn’t seem to realize Cinderella had to be a stage name. Who was I to make him suffer any longer, thinking he could never marry her?

Never mind the fact that she ran away from him, my mind interjected.

Well, I figured that was all the more reason to get away from him as quickly as possible.

“Don’t fret, Your Highness. I have no intention of accepting the terms of your bargain. All I want is my other slipper, and a legal patent protecting its design. Then I’ll happily be on my way. I’ll even wish you luck in finding Dwellen’s future princess.”

The courier groaned. Prince Evander looked me over, and I had to fight the urge to squirm as he locked those piercing green eyes on mine.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“Tell me what?”

Something like grim satisfaction snaked at the edges of his lips, and I got the dreadful feeling he was sinking. And he was the type to derive satisfaction from pulling others down with him.

“That you, my dearly betrothed, accepted the terms of my bargain as soon as you put on that slipper.”

CHAPTER 5

ELLIE

Somewhere between the prince’s mouth and my rounded ears, there must have been a glamour cast, a prank that convinced my mind that the prince had really said what I thought he’d said.

What did he mean that I’d agreed to a fae bargain simply by donning a pair of shoes? Not even a pair! One shoe!

“No. Um. No. I agreed to nothing. All I did was put on a slipper. My slipper, mind you.” I meant to sound confident, assured, but all I managed was to sound like I was taste-testing the prince’s claim, hoping to catch a counterfeit. This could not be happening. Sure, I had been warned since childhood that the fae could be tricky, that they had deceived plenty of foolish humans into sly bargains that rarely ended well. For the humans, at least.

But I hadn’t made a bargain.

I hadn’t agreed to anything, actually.

Suddenly, the silver-leafed mural on the wall seemed to spin, the metallic brushstrokes swirling, throwing me off balance and churning my stomach, threatening to reveal my breakfast all over the Crown Prince’s shoes.

“I’m afraid—”

“Fates above, do you ever use another phrase?” I ran my palm over my face, snapping at Orvall, my voice shaking like an acrobat who’d just learned the net had been pulled out from beneath them for the crowd’s amusement.

Orvall bristled and, upon regaining his composure, continued on in the same drawling voice, like he was about to recite the selection of teas available for breakfast rather than the terms that would, for all intents and purposes, ruin my life. “I have reviewed the bargain drawn up by Your Highness, and it is clearly written so that the act of fitting one’s foot into the slipper is to accept the terms of the bargain, which, in this case, is to be betrothed to the prince himself.”

I ripped the paper from the courier’s hands, and he squelched. “Surely that’s not all it says.”

My dearest love.

In a few hours’ time, you have captured my heart. What a small sacrifice it is to offer my vows to you as well. I offer my hand in marriage. You asked for something romantic, so here it is. I’ve enchanted this slipper with the highest of fae bargains—a betrothal bond. By the authority of common Fae law, should you place this slipper upon your foot and accept my proposal, the enchantment will bind our souls together in a bond neither of us may break. Here is my vow to you: Come the Vernal Moon, I shall be your husband, if only you’ll become my wife. I will await your answer with bated breath.

Bated breath. If only the prince would hold it instead.

I wound the paper back into its roll, knotting the leather tie around my life sentence.

Orvall cleared his throat, reaching for the decree. “Miss Payne—”

“You.” I jabbed the decree into the courier’s chest. “You didn’t read this to me before you made me try on the shoe.” Try as I might to contain it, my voice went shrill at the end of my sentence. That was it. I’d officially lost all composure.

Oh, well. What did composure matter anymore now that I had unwittingly signed the rest of my life away?

“Miss Payne, you did not fit the description. It was natural to assume—”

“Yeah, well, you assumed incorrectly, didn’t you?” the prince interjected.

“And you!” I turned my paper weapon upon the prince’s Fates-chiseled face. “I’m not sure whether to hate you or pity you for being such an idiot. Who does this?” I demanded, waving the paper in the air for emphasis. “What kind of lovesick fool writes a bargain with so few stipulations? I don’t even look like her. Oh, but apparently only one human woman in all of Alondria could be special enough to have such delicate feet.”

Prince Evander closed his sea-green eyes and rubbed his temples. “In my defense, Cinderella told me they were enchanted.”

I huffed, annoyed that this male had the gall to avert his gaze from the woman whose life he’d just ruined. “I think you forfeited the right to defend yourself when you composed a fae bargain and were too lazy to deliver it yourself.”

The prince threw up his hands. “Oh, don’t act like you don’t benefit from this. We both know you’re the one who stands to gain in this misunderstanding. You? You get to be Princess of Dwellen. What more could you have asked for from your petty human life? Me? I’m stuck cuffed to a human for the next fifty years, while the woman I love grows old.”

I allowed my lips to curve into a pleasant grin, one with which my eyes did not partake. When I spoke, my voice was practically saccharine. “Ah, my apologies for ruining the five to ten happy years you would have spent together before she got cellulite and wrinkles and you had to endure the dreadful inconvenience of hunting down a mistress.”

Prince Evander ground his teeth and scraped his palms against his eyelids, as if he could wipe the sleep from his eyes, blink a few times, and look up a moment later to find that I’d been an apparition. When he deigned to look at me again, a serene, crazed expression had overcome his face. “Oh, and how delighted my father will be about all this.”

“Your father?” I scoffed. “You just made a bargain to marry the wrong woman and you’re worried about what your father will think?”

“My father happens to be the king. It tends to make disagreements a tad more complicated. Not that you would know.”

“Right, because how could my tiny human mind comprehend—”

He didn’t seem to hear me, or, if he did, he had no qualms about interrupting me as he paced. “Oh, he’s just going to revel in this.” He grabbed the scroll, taking his turn to shake it.

I went to yank it back, but he held it above my reach, like I was a child. I seethed. “Aren’t you two hundred years old? And your daddy still has to sign your bargains?”

His jaw bulged. “It’s supposed to protect royalty from making rash decisions.”

I let out a laugh, though the bitterness in it poisoned my throat, leaving a foul taste behind. “Glad that system is in place. Can you imagine what might have happened if we didn’t have an infallible system to protect us?”

“Orvall, would you get her out of here, please? I can’t think while her voice is grating my ears.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I seethed as the courier grabbed my wrist, though more gently than I had expected, and led me toward the door.