The wording was strange—the way she separated her vows regarding Blaise and me, rather than lumping them together. Evander must have picked up on that, too, because he chanced a glance in my direction. Neither of us seemed to know what to make of it, though.

And why were her words so hurried, frantic, as if she was in a rush to seal this bargain? Of course, the sooner the bargain was made, the less chance of someone barging into the workshop and stopping it, the less time for Evander to change his mind. Still. Cinderella’s gaze kept flitting toward the window. Did she expect someone to come after us?

Evander drew in a steadying breath.

“Just say it, you fool,” Cinderella hissed. Was that my ears deceiving me, or was her voice actually trembling, not in a rush of excitement, but in trepidation?

Cinderella was working on a time crunch.

One that was about to run out.

Just like that, the missing piece clicked into my head.

Sure, Cinderella only appeared on the nights of the full moon, but…

At the stroke of midnight…

I’d thought the journalists had been sensationalizing Cinderella’s premature departure from the ball, but even the night she’d tried to murder me, she’d slipped away before she had a chance to finish the job.

The clock in my room had struck twelve not moments later.

Cinderella had until midnight to seal this bargain.

One look out the window, at the moon cresting the peak of the sky, and I realized she only had moments.

I realized too late.

Evander let out a steadying breath.

What he said next shattered me.

“I, Evander Thornwall, vow to wed you, Cinderella—”

“—No! Evander, wait!”

—upon the next full moon, and offer you full legal immunity tied to this bargain.”

My heart stopped. Cinderella’s blade fell from my throat, but I hardly noticed its absence.

It was only me and Evander now, suspended in this moment I would relive for the rest of my life.

I’m sorry, he mouthed, and a part of me died.

My tongue worked, as if to tell him, but I swallowed instead.

What would it do to him? To tell him that if he’d merely waited a few more moments…

Evander’s eyes widened in shock, and I didn’t have to turn to know what was happening behind me.

Silverly moonlight slipped across the floor of the workshop, the moon having just hit its peak.

I turned to face Imogen and wondered if I’d hate her for what the magic possessing her had done.

I never got the answer to that question.

Because when I turned to face the woman who had ruined my and Evander’s lives, it wasn’t Imogen I found.

It was Blaise.

CHAPTER 54

ELLIE

My mind sputtered, stopped, then restarted in a flurry of warped images, voices. Moments attempted to force themselves together like mismatched puzzle pieces to make sense of what I was seeing, but nothing seemed to fit.

Evander spoke first, his voice trembling. “Blaise?”

She was on the floor now, Cinderella’s scandalous nightgown draped over Blaise’s curveless body, lumping and protruding in all the wrong places. Blaise glanced down at herself, blanching at the sight of all the skin the sheer fabric left exposed.

As if out of some innate brotherly urge, Evander wordlessly tossed her a nearby empty sandbag. She wrapped it around her shaking body, her mouth moving and working, her lips parting and closing, as if she were trying to form words, but she’d lost the ability.

Evander tossed me a bewildered look, as if to say, Please tell me you’re just as confused as I am.

My voice hardened. I had my guesses, but as I looked at Blaise, my friend, my confidant, something like hatred assaulted my chest. Though it was probably only betrayal—the realization that of course she hadn’t actually been my friend—blistering between the sinews of my ribcage.

The silence, punctuated by Blaise’s intermittent sobs, Evander’s ragged breaths, and my feet tapping anxiously against the ground, swelled around us, wrapping us inside it, threatening to suffocate us.

But Blaise just swallowed, closed her eyes, then peered up at us, her gaze flitting between me and Evander, a strength there that hadn’t been present only a moment ago.

Blaise had steeled herself, and now she was preparing to face her Fate. “You need to tell me what I did while I was…” She sucked in a breath, bracing herself. “While I was her.”

Evander let out a noise that straddled the definitions of a cry and a scoff.

I was the one who answered. “We need to tell you?”

Blaise shook her head. “I can’t tell you exactly what her plan is if you don’t tell me what she did.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “You tried to murder me. Three times. You pretended to be my friend, and then—”

“No.” Blaise stood, and in a moment, Evander had moved, his heaving body a shield between me and the girl he’d come to know as a sister.

At this point, I wasn’t quite sure which one of us he was protecting.

“No. I was your friend. Am your friend, Ellie. None of that was fake, not a second of it.”

I stepped out from behind Evander so I could see the lie written all over her face.

All I found was desperation.