The prince’s unfairly rugged jaw bulged. “Did you mishear me?”
The courier—Orvall—sighed, which I now suspected was just his default response to existing. “How I wish I had, Your Highness.” He held out a hand, in which the guard placed the small rolled-up sheet of paper. “But we are unable to throw the woman out, for she is, indeed, your Betrothed.”
The prince’s tanned face drained of color, which amused me greatly. I considered telling him not to worry about it, that he had gotten lucky and mistakenly proposed to the one woman in the city who had no desire to take advantage of such a mistake. But, then again, who knew how often this spoiled brat had actually had to face any consequences for his actions? Why not make him sweat a little?
“That’s not possible,” the prince said, though his voice had lost its grit.
“I’m afraid it is not only possible, but happening, Your Highness.” The courier shifted on his feet, causing his puffy robes to billow like blobs on the floor. “The slipper fit the foot of Miss Payne.”
The prince nodded toward the slipper in my hand. “Put it on.”
“You could say please, you know.”
“Put it on, please.” The way he said the word made it sound like he was being forced to swallow lye. His throat even bobbed a little.
I shrugged and leaned over, balancing on one foot as I slipped the shoe on the other. “See? It fits.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Are you in the habit of denying things that occur in your very presence, Your Highness?”
The prince shook his head, something like disbelief mingled with horror flickering in his wild sea-green eyes. Wow, he really was getting worked up about this, wasn’t he? Though I supposed for a male who was used to getting whatever he wanted immediately, this whole situation must have come as a shock. “Those slippers belong to Cinderella. Her faerie godmother gifted them to her. They’re enchanted to only fit her feet, and her feet alone.”
I brushed him off. “Oh, good. So the future princess of Dwellen is both a thief and a liar. Excellent.”
“Don’t call her that,” he snapped.
“Oh? And what word do the fae use to describe someone who takes objects that aren’t theirs and tells untruths?”
The prince bristled, jerking his head toward the slipper. “How did you get the shoes to fit? Are you a witch?”
I couldn’t help it. The laugh slipped out before I could grasp hold of it. “What?”
“Did you convince your own faerie godmother to bewitch your feet, then?”
I was pretty sure I’d lost all function in my jaw. The prince had broken it. “Why would I have a faerie godmother?”
The prince’s eyes swept over me, and a lopsided grin appeared on his face. “I do wonder why the faerie godmothers would have decided to skip over you, with that delightfully amiable personality of yours.”
I drew up my brow. “Is this your strategy every time a woman lacks interest in you, Your Highness? Insult her temperament?”
“Wouldn’t know. This is a novel experience for me.” I couldn’t decide what made me more uncomfortable—the way his tongue seemed to relish the word experience, or the way his wink sent my stomach nosediving into a flurry of cartwheels.
Nauseous cartwheels. Obviously not the other kind.
“The shoes fit because I made them. Not with magic. With my hands, and a blow pipe, and some sand, and a mold I crafted from my foot.”
“Is that so?” The prince crossed his arms, a gesture that should have made him look juvenile. Instead it highlighted the deep fissures between the muscles of his bare forearms, exposed by his rolled sleeves.
He was exceedingly attractive, which I found rather annoying. Spoiled brats should come with sniveling noses and bloated pouts, not looking like they were the prototype the Fates consulted when creating sentient beings.
He glanced over at the courier, who shrugged. “I am afraid she speaks the truth, Your Highness. Miss Payne and her father own a glassmaking business in town. Whether your Cinderella bought them from her for the ball or stole them, as this woman insists, we have yet to prove. But this we know: the shoe fits.”
The prince’s taut arms went limp. His footsteps echoed through the large breakfast hall as he paced back and forth on the marble tile. As he ran his hands through his already messy hair, I couldn’t help but notice how his shirt tugged at his shoulders and biceps. It was unfair, really, that such an attractive exterior should be wasted on the likes of someone who thought all humans had faerie godmothers tucked away in our pockets.
The courier and the guard went silent, and when the prince turned to face us again, I realized his hands were trembling, and his eyes had widened in panic.
This I did not find satisfying. Sure, I had intended to make the guy sweat a little, but at this rate, I wondered if he would break down into a panic attack. As someone who had never witnessed her father as much as shed a tear, I was not ready for the emotional awkwardness of witnessing the fae Crown Prince, Heir to the Throne of Dwellen, cry.
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?”
