Before the tailor woke, it would be gone.

The parasite slunk through the shadows, mindful of the wafting lilt of music that originated in the towering castle. This was the perfect night for sneaking around the city, for everyone who would typically be out and about had gone to the ball, and everyone who would typically stay in had gone to bed early, muttering about how they had better stay ahead of the noise lest they never be able to fall asleep.

While the dress itself was perfect, the plain girl’s sturdy boots would not do. And the parasite couldn’t very well show up at the ball with bare feet.

Thankfully, she knew a girl.

Well, Madame LeFleur had known a girl, the parasite supposed.

It was a bit of a detour to get to the modest cottage where Ellie Payne lived with her parents. She was a frequenter of Madame LeFleur’s shop, though she never bought anything.

The Madame had always thought Ellie Payne beautiful, though it had frustrated her host to no end that she couldn’t pinpoint Ellie’s exact features. But her flawless deep brown skin and perfect black ringlets had the other girls in the shop tripping over each other in a demand to know what products she used, and that was enough proof for the Madame.

To the Madame’s ever-present frustration, the products never came from her shop.

No, Ellie Payne was too practical a person to bother with the Madame’s magical remedies, claiming she preferred the natural products she could purchase from a shop down the street.

The Madame had always suspected that this had not been entirely true, and that Ellie Payne had simply been onto the fact that half of the Madame’s storefront was a sham.

Although Ellie Payne had never entered the store as a customer, she occasionally bought trinkets, probably hoping to butter up the Madame. What the girl really wanted was to sell her glassware. At an exorbitant prince, the Madame had always thought.

The parasite had never agreed.

Ellie Payne had a talent. The intricate designs she fashioned out of glass might have had the parasite wondering if one of her siblings inhabited Miss Payne, had they not been gobbled up by the fae centuries ago.

There was no telling what the girl and parasite could make together.

The parasite couldn’t count the times that she’d almost done it—slipped from the Madame’s thick fingers into Ellie Payne’s smooth and slender ones, just to get a taste of what they could achieve.

But the parasite had little need for glassblowing, and Ellie Payne didn’t exactly emit the aura of a woman easily controlled. Madame LeFleur’s mind might have been sharp, but it could never have been described as strong.

Thus Ellie Payne had been regrettably disqualified.

Still, the girl had her uses. She had held a fondness for the Madame and often ranted to the woman about the hours of labor she invested in her work.

For over a year, she’d been trying her hand at making glass slippers.

Glass slippers, the Madame had scoffed internally many a time. The parasite herself didn’t think it possible. A shoe made of glass would never hold under the weight of the wearer, after all.

But just this morning, Ellie had come bursting through the shop door, declaring that she’d done it. She’d created the perfect set of glass slippers.

Her only regret was that she hadn’t perfected the design in time for the ball—at least, not to produce multiples and sell them to princess-hopefuls and their mothers, who would have been more than eager to throw heaps of cash at the chance of arming their daughters with something to help them stand out.

The upstairs window of the cottage flickered. Good, the girl wasn’t out working in her father’s shop like she tended to do all hours of the night. She must not have gone to the ball either. Though this didn’t come as a surprise, the parasite was still glad about it. No need to chance Ellie noticing the glass slippers at the ball and accusing the parasite of thievery.

It took no time at all to pick the lock on the workshop behind the house. Even less to find the metal box in the back of the shed, in which a pair of glass shoes were rather poorly hidden.

They glittered in the glow of the dying cinders Ellie Payne had left in the furnace.

The glass slippers did not fit the plain girl’s feet, and though the parasite waited to change into them until she arrived at the castle, even the stroll up the palace steps had already rubbed blisters into her soles.

No matter. The Prince of Dwellen would not be looking at her feet, anyway.

The parasite had spent the entirety of her walk constructing an identity for herself—one the prince would not soon forget.

She only had a few hours before the moon reached its apex, and she needed the impression to linger on the prince’s heart for an entire mooncycle. Or at least until she could determine how to free herself from its curse.

The memorable story came to her with little effort. Ellie Payne’s talent served as an inspiration in more ways than one, and it was a simple task to construct a tale surrounding the shoes.

Gifted by a faerie who had watched over her since she was a child. Crafted to fit her and only her.

Yes, that would do.

Yet another detail to hammer the concept into his fae brain with its many folds—this girl is special; she even has special shoes to prove it.

The name proved more difficult. It needed to be different, memorable, but not so unfamiliar it would slip from his mind.

The parasite thought of the dying embers of Ellie Payne’s furnace, of the remarkable woman whose confidence she would soon channel, whose artwork would aid her rise to power.

Then the parasite smiled.

Though she was late to the ball, that only seemed to serve as an advantage. She had no trouble slipping in as most all the guests had already shuffled through the doors and now waited inside for their Crown Prince.

The parasite huffed. Funny how two weeks ago every human Madame LeFleur had come in contact with had despised the Crown Prince; now they’d all stuffed themselves into the massive ballroom, hoping to hand their daughters over to him in marriage.

Humans can be amusing sometimes, the parasite conceded.

The parasite practiced a demure yet seductive smile, getting used to the feel of it on this unfamiliar face, then stepped onto the ballroom floor.

And so, a mystery woman with no name stole the first dance with the Crown Prince. And the next, and the next.

When she slipped away at midnight, all she left behind was a glittering glass slipper.

She had called herself Cinderella.

CHAPTER 1

ELLIE

Contrary to popular belief—rather, the belief of a certain prince prone to decisions made in haste and under the influence of copious amounts of flattery—there were plenty of human women in the kingdom of Dwellen whose feet were the same size. Maybe that was why my parents and I thought the entire ordeal was so hilarious.

At first.

A crisp morning breeze wafted into my family’s breakfast room through the nearest window, rays of light warping as they bent through the amateur etchings I’d carved into the glass with my mother’s favorite kitchen knife when I was nine.

My mother had eventually forgiven me.

The knife had not.