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Chapter Text

i. 

There was once a widow, who lived alone with her two daughters on a small estate in the middle of the countryside. Her husband, a merchant, had died in the storm that unfortunately sunk his ships and ruined his family fifteen years before. So the widow – who by virtue of her marriage had become the Lady Tremaine – lived with her daughters in genteel poverty, surviving on rents from the land and the expectation of good marriages once they came of age. 

But Lady Tremaine had a secret. She was not her husband’s first wife. His previous marriage had produced a boy called Kit, only a few years older than her girls. She disliked the boy, for he was well-liked by the staff of their estate while they shunned her own daughters – and though it should be noted that the boy himself rather liked his sisters, irritating though he sometimes found them, Lady Tremaine resented him as if he too snubbed them. Additionally, he had a great resemblance to his father, which after his death caused her pain she did not care to admit. 

In the cold rage and spite with which she carried herself in the months after her husband’s death, Lady Tremaine took her revenge on the boy. She dismissed all the original servants and hired ones not from the area, and instantly demoted her stepson from new lord of the estate to a lowly boy-of-all-work. When asked in town about her stepson, Lady Tremaine lied that he had been sent to his father’s family. As his grandparents had died shortly after her wedding, but that sad news had not been widely circulated, she knew that she was unlikely to be caught out in her lie. After a few years of prolonged absence to the townspeople it was as if Kit had never existed, and Lady Tremaine had always lived on the estate with her daughters. 

As her daughters Anastasia and Susanna grew up to be accomplished young ladies, so too did Kit grow up skilled from working almost everywhere in the house he had once called home – first as a kitchen boy, then caring for the animals, before finally becoming groundskeeper – although he was not allowed to sleep inside as the other servants did. As a child he slept in the stable loft during the summer, but was permitted to sleep by the dying embers of the fire in wintertime. More than once his sisters had woken him up by laughing at his cinder-covered hair and clothes; they were always in such disarray that everyone in the house had taken to calling him Buttons on account of his never having any. Once he turned sixteen he was permanently installed in the stables, his wardrobe benefitting from the stability of a fixed living area, but the nickname stuck. 

Despite the many hardships of his short life Kit remained a kind and helpful boy, who grew into a shy but charming man. He was aware that Lady Tremaine’s treatment of him was unjustified and that she had wronged him in some way, but he had been so young when his father died that both the details and magnitude of her deceit remained a mystery to him. And so years slipped by, with little about the house changing besides the age of its occupants. Indeed, if Anastasia hadn’t wanted a new ribbon for her bonnet one May morning, Kit might have lived the rest of his days on the edge of the house from which he had been unfairly barred. 

“Oh, Mother, it’s only a small length to freshen it up again!” Anastasia said. “I’ve had it for so long, and the old ribbon is so frayed it’s in danger of flying off my head!”

“For the third time, Anastasia,” Lady Tremaine said as she sipped her wine, “you will not go out to town today. Get the maid to go.”

“It’s Bess’s day off,” she said. “Please, Mother, it’s only a short walk to town and back!”

“It is not appropriate for a young lady such as yourself to walk to town and back alone.” She placed the glass back on the table beside her, lifting her needlework up once again.

“But there’s no one else in the house to accompany me!” Anastasia sulked. “Bess is away, and Mrs Walker is making dinner! The only person still here is Buttons.”

Lady Tremaine’s eyelid twitched; the only outward sign of her displeasure. “Send him there, then,” she said, completing her stitch. 

“He’s a man, Mother! He won’t know what to get, and it’ll all clash horribly.”

Lady Tremaine slammed her work, hoop and all, onto the table with a sharp clatter. Anastasia jumped, freezing in her spot before the fire where she had been pacing. Susanna, who had been on the opposite couch to her mother, sat perfectly still, her own needle half-inserted into the fabric. Lady Tremaine rubbed at her temple with one hand, lifting her wine glass again with the other. After sipping carefully and replacing it on the table, she spoke again. 

“Anastasia, if it will stop your incessant bleating, then by all means call Buttons and get him to chaperone you on the way to and from town. Why this nonsensical little ribbon can’t wait one day, I cannot imagine, but I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about it. Now go!”

With an elegant wave of her fingers, Lady Tremaine dismissed Anastasia, who quickly trotted out the door and towards the stables, where Kit could usually be found at this time of day. 

“Buttons?” she called out as she approached. 

Sure enough, Kit poked his head out the stable door at his sister’s shout. He was two heads taller than her, with the same dark hair that curled when it grew long and the beginnings of a beard on his cheeks (he had evidently forgotten to shave that morning), his eyes dark blue to her pale grey. Their similarities ended there; Anastasia’s hair was always pinned to within an inch of its life, never allowed to naturally curl; and despite the fact that there was only a year’s difference between them, his strong bones made him look every day of his twenty-five years, while her soft, rounded cheeks caused everyone to think her a girl of eighteen at first sight. 

“What do you need, Miss?” he asked, shrugging on his new green jacket. 

Anastasia flushed a little. “I need you to come into town with me.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Can you not figure out some way to get there by yourself?” he asked. “I’m tired of being your ‘chaperone’ while you make eyes at the baker, when there’s more important things I could be doing here.”

“Important things like what?” she asked. “Waiting around for Mother to order you inside only to scream at you for not having the ground itself growing to her impossible standards?”

Kit’s eyes flicked down to the ground. “You heard that.”

“It was hard not to,” she said, biting her lip. “Susanna had already set her off a little because her stitches weren’t straight enough – we were thinking it had been a while since the last time she exploded like that.”

“About a fortnight,” he confirmed. “I suppose she was overdue.”

“Come on, Buttons,” she wheedled, leaning against the doorframe. “I haven’t seen Jamie in eight days, he’ll have almost forgotten me.”

Kit sighed wearily. “If ever there was a man besotted, it’s James Graves,” he said. “He’d no sooner forget you than – than pigs would fly.”

“Buttons, please,” Anastasia said. “Mother’s in a foul mood, I can’t go back inside just now. And I know you’ve been itching to go wander in the woods, or whatever it is you do there that’s so fascinating.”

Kit paused. 

“If we go now, there’s still a few hours before anybody will miss us,” she said sweetly. 

“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Fine, you’ve convinced me. Do you want to ride?”

“If you insist,” she grinned. Following him into the stables, she continued, “And besides, Mother only needs to see me leave with you. There’s no need for you to follow me all the way to town.”

Kit gave her a withering look. 

“I can behave myself!” Anastasia laughed. “Besides, there’s not much mischief I could get up to anyway – between mother and brother, I’m not allowed to do anything reckless, am I?”

She laughed as she said it, but it was in a low voice and after ensuring, with a quick glance around, that they were alone. All three siblings remembered their relationships to each other, but were equally aware that Lady Tremaine was adamant the staff should never have cause to find it out. 

“No, you’re not,” Kit chuckled. “Come on, then,” he said, after readying two horses. “Let’s go and get this . . . deathly important ribbon.”

“But of course,” Anastasia smiled, and they rode out on the road together. Once they passed the bend in the road and were hidden from the houses’ view, the siblings both visibly relaxed. 

“You know this means that it’s Susie’s turn again, to escape the house at the next opportunity?” Kit asked after a few minutes of silent riding. 

Anastasia sighed. “I wish there was a way for all three of us to get away. Oh, but Mother would never fall for it; it’s as if she’s spent so much time being miserable, she can’t bear the thought that anyone else could possibly be happy.”

Kit hummed non-committedly. “Do you ever think about it?”

“Well, this has been the highlight of my fortnight, Buttons. So yes, I think about my afternoons away almost all the time.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I mean – I mean about properly getting away.”

Anastasia turned her head so sharply that her bonnet – which really did have a ribbon which needed replaced – almost flew off her head. “I . . . sometimes, yes,” she admitted. “I have daydreams about it, but – well, they’re daydreams. Not reality. Every time I get so far, I think of a snag – Susanna’s so frightened she might not even go, or Mother might get so furious she’d tell the police that you kidnapped us, or she’d find some clever way of trapping you here with those papers.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Kit conceded reluctantly. It wasn’t until another moment or two had passed that he fully processed her last sentence. “Wait – what do you mean, ‘those papers’?”

“I mean, the inden–” Anastasia stopped herself suddenly, tilting her head away to one side. 

“What? The what, Anastasia?” Kit asked. 

“Nothing – nothing, forget I said anything,” she said, kicking her horse’s sides lightly to spur him into a trot. 

Kit spurred his own horse, catching up to Anastasia and grabbing her reins. “Anna, what are you talking about?” he asked as he slowed them to a standstill, his eyebrows furrowing. “Tell me.”

“I – I thought you knew – I promise, Buttons, I thought you already knew,” she stammered. 

“Already knew what?” he asked with a deliberate measuredness. 

“She – Mother – I was snooping around in her study one day, years and years ago, and I – I found a contract, with your name on it. You’d signed it, I could see that it was your signature –”

“I’ve never signed any contract –” Kit interrupted. 

“Well, you must have signed something, because it looked like your handwriting!” she snapped. “I – I don’t know, exactly – it was dated for the year that Papa died.”

Kit thought for a moment. “Maybe . . . maybe I did,” he muttered. “I mean, I can’t remember, it must be coming on to fifteen years ago this November – but Anastasia,” he said, getting back on topic with a shake of his head, “what – how did you know it was a contract? What did it say?”

She looked at him solemnly, and Kit felt the truth in the pit of his stomach before she even said the words. 

“It was a contract of indenture,” she said. “I – I don’t remember for how much, but I know it was an astronomical sum.”

Kit abruptly let go of her reins; if he hadn’t been on horseback, he would have staggered back. He could feel a tether connecting him to the estate, a tether which was bound around his wrist and was secured at the other end around his stepmother’s ring of keys. 

“Buttons,” she said desperately. “Buttons, talk to me.”

“I’ll never be free,” he said numbly. “I’ll never be free of this place – she’ll keep me there forever, just to torment me – no marriage, no children, no future – just her, keeping me miserable because it brings her joy –”

“Buttons!” Anastasia repeated. She reached for his hand, and he let her take it. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew.”

After a moment, Kit squeezed her hand. “Don’t let this spoil your day, Anna,” he said. “Like you said, this is the highlight of your fortnight. Go and spend it with James.” He spurred his horse into a walk, swiftly speeding to a trot. “I’ll meet you at the usual place and time!” he called back over his shoulder as he headed towards the forest.

“Buttons!” Anastasia shouted as he rode away. “Buttons! Kit!”  

But he was already gone, his green jacket perfectly blending into the forest greenery. Within ten seconds even the sounds of his horse had been absorbed by the forest, and she was left alone on the road. She knew well that in these moods, Kit liked to be alone. And besides that, he was right – this would be the highlight of her fortnight, and one of her only chances to see James alone. With a guilty look in the direction he had vanished, Anastasia spurred her horse on again towards town. 

Meanwhile, Kit carefully steered his horse, Jasper, through the trees at a walking pace totally at odds with his body’s longing to run, jump, scream, something. He could feel his heart beating jackrabbit fast, the blood pounding in his ears as dread ate him up inside. Indentured, he thought numbly. All this time, and I couldn’t even have left if I’d felt able to. Any wages she had paid him would go towards paying off his ‘debt’ – a contract he did not remember, and which she very well may have tricked him into signing. 

Kit took a steadying breath, pushing his hair off his face with one hand. As the trees began to clear, and they approached the emptier parts of the forest, he squeezed Jasper’s sides with his legs, easing it into a trot. He needed to move, needed the exertion of a good ride. As the trees thinned out even more moving away from the main road, he urged the horse into a gallop. The steady beating of the horse’s hooves on the undergrowth hammered into Kit’s ears, sometimes in time with his own heartbeat and sometimes providing a syncopated offbeat. Between the noise of his horse, the blood still rushing in his ears, and his own harsh breathing, it took him longer than it perhaps should have to realise that he was not alone in the forest – that there was another rider, also pushing their horse to a gallop. 

“Easy! Easy, boy, easy – woah!”

Kit looked to his left, where he could hear the other rider. In between the thick tree trunks, he caught fractional glimpses of the whole – a woman in a pale blue riding habit riding a grey horse, gripping the reins with stiff arms. Glancing around to ensure the path was clear, Kit steered his horse over towards her, still keeping up their dizzying pace. 

“Woah, woah, slow down, boy – easy!” she cried out again. 

“Miss!” he called out. “Miss, are you alright?”

Her head snapped towards him as she heard his voice. He saw brown eyes wide with panic, before she turned her attention once more to keeping her seat on the horse.

Without thinking, Kit reached his hand across the distance between them and seized the reins, arrested by the impulse to do something to ease the woman’s distress. He slowed his horse in increments, and the woman’s horse mirrored its behaviour, the two of them easing to a walk after only a few moments. He released the woman’s reins immediately, directing Jasper until they were parallel to her. 

“Are you alright, Miss?” he asked again, the sudden shock of adrenaline causing his breath to shorten. 

The woman looked over at him, also busy catching her own breath. Now that they were both moving at a slower pace, he could take in her full appearance. Her riding habit was of a fine material, with enough clever finishes he recognised from his half-sister’s clothes that Kit knew she was a gentlewoman of some kind. She had pale blonde hair that glittered gold in the dappled sunlight, some of which was braided around her head and the rest of which lay in a hairnet studded with pearls. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the excitement, which only seemed to make her eyes appear darker. As those dark eyes met his, Kit felt blood rush to his own cheeks.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She leaned over to rub her horse’s neck, the two of them still circling each other. “Major and I normally don’t have any problems, but today I just . . .” She shrugged, keeping her eyes low.

“It’s sometimes easy to forget that the animals have minds of their own, as we do,” Kit chuckled. “I know I’ve been at this one’s mercy more than once, when he took it into his head to gallop off somewhere. Of course,” he added, “when it was just he and I, it usually ended with me on the ground.”

He laughed at the memory of breaking him in, and the woman chuckled with him. “Well, I’m glad that you were around to prevent that,” she smiled. “I haven’t fallen off a horse in quite some time; it would be a terrible blow to my ego.”

Kit ducked his head, still grinning. When he looked up at her again he saw that she was still looking at him, her lips curved into a smile. He got the impression that it was the habitual expression of her face – and that despite her laughter, she had lost control of the horse because of some unhappy emotion which had clouded her judgment until it had been too late to ease the horse back. “Forgive me,” he said, “but should you be this deep in the forest alone?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said. “Although, as we’re both here, we are by definition no longer alone in the forest.”

“You’re a wordsmith.” He pulled Jasper up short. 

“You’re certainly more generous than my father – he likes to call it pedantry,” she chuckled, easing her horse to a stop as well. 

“We may be here together, but we’re still strangers, are we not?” he replied. 

“My father likes to say that once you know a person’s name, they’re no longer a stranger – so what do they call you, Mister . . . ?”

Kit glanced down at his own hands, work-roughened against the soft chestnut hair of his horse. “Never mind what they call me,” he said lightly. “And you – what do they call you, Miss . . . ?”

“Don’t you know who I am?” she asked, her brows drawing together in honest confusion. 

The response was so unexpected that Kit couldn’t stop the small burst of laughter that came out. “No – should I?” he asked. 

“I – you can call me Ella, if you like,” she said. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, her clever eyes darting between him and her horse. 

“And where do you live, Miss Ella?” he asked, in an effort to maintain the conversation. “I know most of the ladies who live by these woods, and your face isn’t one I’ve seen before.” He was half-afraid of himself for asking such bold questions of a woman he had never met before – he’d certainly never behaved so in the past – and yet there was something about the woman’s manner that had him wanting to talk to her for hours and hours. 

“I live at the palace,” she said. “My father’s teaching me his trade.”

“Wordplay?” he teased. 

She blushed again, and Kit found himself wondering if she reacted to all light teasing in the same manner. “In a sense,” she said.

“Do they treat you well, there?” he asked. He had a rather dim knowledge of the royal family – he thought he remembered hearing that the late Queen had been fond of reading, as had her daughter. “It can’t be an easy trade for some to see a woman in.”

“They treat me better than they should, although you’re right about the few.” She brushed across her skirts, transferring the motion to another caress of her horse. “And you?” she asked.

“Oh, they treat me as well as they’re able,” he said in a tone which attempted to be breezy. 

“I’m sorry,” Ella said, her eyes serious in a way which Kit suspected meant she had seen right through him. 

“It’s not your doing,” he said.

“It’s surely not your doing, either,” she said. He could see a spark of anger in the way that she straightened her posture, almost as if it were a form of attack. 

Kit shrugged. “There are others for whom it is worse, I’m sure.”

Ella stared at him, as if he had just said something profound. “My mother had a saying,” she said. “That in order to get through the trials of life, all one needs is to have courage and be kind. I never really understood what she meant by that.”

“I – I’ve faced no great trials,” Kit said, shaking his head. “Nothing which I’ve needed a great deal of courage for.”

“But you are kind, Mister – Mister Greensleeves.” 

Ella broke off mid-sentence, evidently remembering that she still did not know his name; the pseudonym she adopted instead made Kit laugh again. Before either of them could say another sentence, they heard the sounds of a third horseman approaching. 

“There you are, You–”

Ella turned around frantically in her seat, facing the opposite direction. 

“Ella! Ella, it’s Ella!” she called out. “I’m – Ella, I’m on my way!” she called out. 

Kit began to wonder if perhaps she had been less than honest about her background. When he saw the rider who approached, however, the thought was banished from his mind – he was a tall uniformed man, evidently in her house’s livery. The man frowned, but took her reply in stride. “Alright then . . . Ella,” he said from his short distance. “We’d best be on our way. Your father is waiting for you.”

Ella turned back to him again, her face filled with an apology. “I have to leave, I’m sorry,” she said. “I should like to see you again, though, Mister Greensleeves.”

“And I you, Miss,” he replied. He could feel a blush rising in his cheeks, and could see her notice it, but did nothing except nod his head to her respectfully. She nodded back to him, a smile lighting up her face once again, and was gone. Within two minutes, she and her companion had ridden out of earshot, and Kit was once again alone in the woods. He glanced down at his hands again, looking at his fine green jacket which, after all, he had only worn today by chance. 

Feeling far lighter than he had half an hour earlier, Kit spurred on Jasper and began riding towards town to meet his sister, absent-mindedly whistling a tune. When he recognised the melody as Greensleeves, he laughed so loudly that it disturbed a small flock of sparrows nesting in the trees above him.

There was once a king, who lived with his wife and their retinue of servants in a glittering palace. Although he was a good and wise ruler, and he and his wife loved each other dearly, they were nevertheless unhappy; for although they had been married for some years the queen had never borne a living child. 

The queen was a wise woman, and counselled her husband to always have courage and be kind. It was by these words that the king maintained his sense of justice, even on the darkest of days, and which allowed him to remain a worthy monarch. And so the king and queen lived childless for many years, and although they showed no outward pain to their court or servants, yet deep in their hearts they were troubled. 

After ten years of trying for a child, their dearest hopes were granted one stormy July evening. After a long and difficult birth, the queen delivered a tiny girl, who they named Eleanor after her mother. Despite this longed-for arrival her parents were paralysed with fear, for their daughter was born before her time. For an eternal fortnight it was unclear if she would survive. 

Survive she did, however, and as the earth around her blossomed into summer so did young Ella blossom into a perfectly healthy child. For a time, all seemed well. But no life is without tragedy; not even the charmed life of a princess. When Ella was ten years old, her beloved mother fell ill; weak as she had been ever since her daughter’s difficult birth, the queen died before the year was out. 

After a time of mourning, her father the king set about preparing his only child and heir for his own eventual demise, and the responsibilities she would be entrusted with on that inevitable day. Ella grew to develop a fuller understanding of the duty she had to her people, and as she grew into a young woman she felt it settle on her shoulders, a grounding weight not dissimilar to that of the ceremonial robes she would wear on the day of her coronation. It was this awareness of her responsibility which lent a seriousness to her dark eyes, and which caused many around the court to whisper that she had been forced to grow up before her years. Ella did not let such whispers trouble her; she knew how to laugh, and did so often with her father and servants with whom she was friendly. There was a kernel of truth to such rumours, however – as there are with all such things. Ella may have loved her father and known how to laugh with him, but she could never forget that he was her king as well, and consequently there was always a distance between them that neither could quite close. 

On the day that she met the young man in the green jacket, Ella’s routine had been entirely normal; after an early morning of reading and responding to communications from foreign dignitaries, she had proceeded to practise archery in the grounds, before sitting down to lunch with her father. It was then, with the golden May sunlight streaming in through the wide windows, that Ella noticed with some shock that her father looked like an old man. His hair, which had long been salt-and-pepper, was now a dark grey; his cheeks were gaunt and there was a lustre missing in his eyes, so like her own. 

“Father,” she said hesitantly. 

He looked up from his breakfast, and evidently read her distress in her face. With a whisper to the butler, the room was cleared of staff and father and daughter sat alone in the breakfast room. 

“There’s no sense keeping it from you much longer, my dear,” he said. 

Ella stared at him, horrified. “How long?” she whispered, not trusting her voice to remain steady at any louder volume. “How long did you –” She broke off as her throat caught on nothing. 

“Dr Matthews thinks that the initial ailment began with your mother’s illness,” he said quietly. His consonants hit Ella’s ears like a round of bullets. “But it didn’t seriously resurface until August.”

“August?!” Ella hissed. “That’s – that’s almost an entire year! How long were you planning on keeping this from me?”

“Dr Matthews thought that I could be safely guaranteed a twelvemonth,” he said, still calm and collected. “Eleanor – I wanted to wait until you had reached your majority, and given the doctor’s advice I thought it only prudent not to worry you before time.”

Ella took in a shuddering breath. “Did it not occur to you that I would have preferred to worry?” she said once she was certain her voice was under control. 

“I wanted to spare you,” he said. “When your mother fell ill, we counted down the weeks like madmen, desperate to measure out as much time as possible. I didn’t want that for you – I want you to enjoy what remains of our time together, without looking over your shoulder all the time for Death’s shadow.”

Ella couldn’t stop herself any longer, and began to quietly cry into her half-eaten breakfast. 

At the first sound of his daughter’s distress, the king’s face crumpled. “Oh, Ella – Ella, come here,” he said, reaching out a hand towards her. 

Ella pushed back her chair with a loud scrape, hurrying over to her father. Remaining in his seat, he wound a comforting arm around her waist. Ella pressed one hand to his shoulder, the curve of her arm against his thin back, burying her nose in the thinning hair on top of his head. She cried quietly into his hair, her young body shaking with sobs, as he stroked her back soothingly. After a long moment, she lifted her head but did not otherwise adjust her position. 

“How long do you –” 

The king understood why she could not bear to finish her sentence. “Doctor Matthews is a good man, but a terrible liar,” he said. “I can see in his face that I worsen every day. I think that I will be lucky to see the end of those twelve months he promised me.”

Ella pressed her face back into his hair again. 

“You needn’t worry about announcing anything to court, or parliament,” he continued after a moment. “I imagine that it has been something of an open secret for a while – or a rumour, at the very least.”

She took a deep breath. Her father reached up to stroke her wrist with his free hand. “I do wish –”

“What, father?” Ella disentangled herself and sunk to her knees before him, as she used to when she was a child. Her cheeks were tacky with drying tears, and her nose was cherry-red. “If there is anything I can do, just name it.”

Her father brushed a stray tear away with the pads of his thumb, his cold hand resting on her cheek. “I wish I had seen you happy and settled, before my time was up. Perhaps at your birthday celebration, I will.”

Ella started back, almost losing her balance and falling backwards before darting to her feet. “Father, you can’t seriously be suggesting that we still host this ball?”

“Ella,” he said gently, “it’s scheduled for the beginning of July. It’s all been arranged for months, and there are representatives coming from royal families across the globe.”

“But – father, I couldn’t possibly go out and enjoy myself when you’re – when I know that you’re going to – we have so little time –”

“Eleanor.”

Ella stopped her tongue. She knew from experience that there was no arguing with her father when he took that tone. He took her hand once again, and Ella noticed how sharply his wrist bones jutted out. “Perhaps, if I had married again, it would have been easier.” He almost seemed to be talking to himself more than to her. 

“For whom?” Ella choked out. Her father snapped his head towards her, his eyebrows furrowed together – she had never answered back to him like this before – but Ella couldn’t stop the words from clambering out her throat. “Either way, I’d still be losing my father.”

She drew her hand away from his sharply and left the room without bowing, pressing one hand against her mouth as if that could stop her heart from screaming. She wasn’t even halfway down the corridor before she began running to the stables.

Ella rode back to the palace with Captain Harker, apologised to her father, and continued on with the business of preparing to take her father’s throne. After a long, sleepless night where she cried until she had a headache and both sides of her pillow were sodden, she grew calmer. She had known, after all, that her father would die some day. He had not been a young man when she was born, and that had been almost twenty-two years ago. The fact that it was coming much sooner than she had anticipated caused her much grief, which that sleepless night by no means healed; what it did do was allow her to suck the poison out of the gaping wound in her heart. 

After all, she thought, he could have died with no warning at all. Now at least I can cherish the time that remains with him.

To her irritation, however, Ella found that the following days proceeded exactly as normal. She saw her father at mealtimes and in the afternoons, and was busy the rest of the day with both the routine business of running a country, and the more seasonal tasks of final dress fittings for her twenty-second birthday celebration. Her father had told her about the extent of his illness on Saturday; by the time Monday rolled around again Ella had accepted that the best way to please her father was to behave normally and not draw attention to herself with unusual behaviour. 

It was therefore understandably irritating to find that when her mind wandered during fittings or briefings, it was noticed and commented on by those who surrounded her; it was disquieting that the path Ella’s mind took often led back to the young man in the green coat who had been so kind and charming; and it was borderline insufferable that Captain Harker, who had known her the longest and therefore could get away with the most brotherly of behaviours, knew exactly whom her thoughts lingered on. 

“You’re surely not still thinking about that man?” he said after a week of knowing glances and teasing smiles. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Captain,” Ella said archly from her perch on the bench. 

The painter – a mousy little man who, when he wore his eyeglasses, looked rather like an owl – peered around the side of his easel. “Your Highness – if you could keep your arms in position –” 

“Of course,” Ella said, crossing her wrists back over the flowing skirts which cascaded over her legs like sea foam. “I apologise.”

After a few minutes of silence, during which the only sound was that of the paintbrush gliding over the canvas, Ella gave in. 

“He was very lovely, though,” she said. “He was kind, and talked to me like – like I was a person, and not the woman who needs her whims to be catered to if you want your bill to be passed. I could have spoken to him for – hours, probably.” She felt her cheeks flush as she remembered their conversation – how he had laughed at himself without worrying that she would think less of him, how he had seemed to genuinely want to know her better. And how disarming his smile had been; changing him in an instant from some distant yet kind person concerned for her welfare, to a charming young man of about her age.

“It’s rather entertaining to see you smitten, my lady,” Captain Harker grinned from his corner. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”

“Oh – hush, you,” Ella said. She tried to glare, but the smile that still played over her lips rather ruined the effect. “And what does it matter if I am taken with him – I met him once in the woods, and I don’t even know his name.”

“Well,” Captain Harker said, with the patience of a man explaining what colours are to a child, “you could always go back there.”

“I – no, I couldn’t do that –”

“Why not? What’s stopping you from adjusting the route where you usually go riding? And if your paths happen to cross again . . .”

“I . . .”

Ella closed her mouth, pressing her lips together tightly as she realised that the captain made a valid point. “Oh, you are insufferable when you’re right,” she said. 

Captain Harker laughed. “After fifteen years, you would think that you’d have gotten used to the sensation, my lady.”

Ella burst into laughter, lifting her hand to her mouth as her face crinkled up. The joke wasn’t even especially funny, but she almost needed an excuse to laugh now that there were no charming young men in the woods who didn’t look at her with sympathy hidden in their eyes. 

“Your Highness – Your Highness –” the painter pleaded. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Ella said between giggles, replacing her hand on her lap. She took a breath in an effort to compose herself, and soon all was quiet again. 

“Captain, do you know why my father wanted this portrait taken?” she asked after a few more minutes of sitting. 

“As I recall, it was to be sent to our neighbours near and far – and particularly those who have not yet responded to the invitations for your birthday celebration.”

“I thought so,” Ella said with a sigh. “I wish he wasn’t so insistent that the future strength of our kingdom lies only in brokering a new joint dynasty.”

“It’s how he met –”

“ – my mother, and how his father and mother met, yes, I know.” Ella completed. “Our kingdom is larger than what it was even two generations ago. I just feel . . . unconvinced that the most beneficial path lies in always expanding – surely we should devote some time to furthering our own strengths, and caring for the people we are sworn to protect?”

“You words sound more like a minister’s than a monarch’s, my lady,” the captain said. “Some would say that we were lucky not to be caught up in the wars of the last few decades, and that the best way to ensure that no more break out would be by securing an alliance.”

“An alliance, I am not opposed to,” Ella said, scratching at her nose. “I remain unconvinced, however, that a marriage is the most suitable form of alliance to take. Families squabble all the time – or was that not the cause of those wars after all?”

Captain Harker chuckled. “You know my opinion, my lady. It’s your father who you’ll really have to convince.”

“Yes,” Ella said resignedly, “and I’ve never managed to change his mind yet.”

“Your opinions have always been taken into consideration, my dear,” the king suddenly said. 

Ella, Captain Harker, and the painter all jumped in surprise, turning to the back of the room where the king had entered unannounced. “Your Majesty,” the Captain and the painter said, bowing while Ella ducked her head from her spot on the bench. 

“Forgive me, father – I didn’t realise you were here.” Ella said while the two men resumed their previous positions. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Long enough to hear that apparently you’re smitten with some mysterious woodsman,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. 

“I – he’s not a woodsman,” she said. 

Her father chuckled. 

“She’s been talking of little else this past week,” the captain said. 

“Captain Harker!” Ella gasped in mock outrage, feeling her cheeks flush. “I – I have been keeping up with my duties with no problems, and I talk of plenty things –”

“But it’s when her mind wanders, Your Majesty, that the trouble begins,” he chuckled. 

The king laughed as well, and despite her embarrassment Ella felt her heart ease a little, seeing that he didn’t seem opposed on point of principle. “So, between this mysterious woodsman and now rethinking how we should broker our alliances . . . I rather think that you’re growing into your own woman, Eleanor. I’m curious, though, about what exactly this young man has to offer that could rival the political implications of a marriage alliance.”

Ella smiled gently. “He made me laugh,” she said. 

She could see her father’s expression soften around the eyes, although to someone who didn’t know him well his face would appear unchanged. “Well, then,” he said. “Perhaps you should try and see this nameless gentleman again.”

“That is what I suggested, Your Majesty, and yet she refuses to take my advice,” Captain Harker said. 

“He was a lovely man, and I had a wonderful conversation,” Ella said. “But everything is so busy now, what with preparing for this ball – and Parliament will be ending their session soon for summer leave, and –”

“Ella,” her father said, looking straight through her words. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were looking for an excuse. I did say, last week, that I wished I could see you married.”

“Father – oh, father, you’re teasing me, you must be!” Ella said. “How could I possibly know if I wished to marry a man or not based on one conversation?”

“I knew that I would marry your mother the first time we met,” he said. “When you know, –”

“ – you know,” Ella said in unison with him. She ducked her head down, tucking a loose strand of hair off her face. “Father, I don’t even know his name, I don’t think –”

“You said to me that you felt you could have talked for hours,” Captain Harker chimed in. “When have you ever said something like that about the dignitaries and representatives who’ve come here, even when not debating or negotiating?”

Her father shared a look with Captain Harker, before leaning forwards to take Ella’s hands in his. “Ella, my dear,” he said – so quietly that if Captain Harker and the painter heard him, they politely pretended not to – “you are not yet Queen. You still have time to be young. Enjoy these months, for my sake.”

“It feels . . . frivolous,” Ella said. 

“Happiness is never frivolous,” he said. “Remember what your mother said. Courage and kindness. You’re a kind soul, my girl, but sometimes I wonder if you lack the courage to be kind to yourself.”

Ella’s breath hitched at his words. 

“Will you at least promise me to try?” her father asked. “You always take your responsibilities seriously – and I’m glad of that, for I know that you’ll be a good ruler because of it – but you should marry one who makes you laugh. Maybe it will be this man, maybe it won’t. But will you at least try? For me?”

“Alright, Father. I’ll try.” She patted his hands, and not even her years of practice in concealing her emotions could prevent her father from noticing that her eyes had grown bright after she made her promise.

Much like Ella, Kit found himself thinking about their conversation in the forest over the course of the next week. When he had met up with Anastasia later that afternoon, a half-dreamy smile still on his face, she had said nothing to his face – but that night, she had whispered about it to Susanna in the room that they still shared. The next day Kit had had to contend with both of his sisters giving him half-knowing, half-teasing looks, which only the threat of Lady Tremaine finding out could keep in check. 

“Who is it?” Susanna asked as the week drew to a close. The siblings were in the small expanse of grounds behind the house, the same forest which met the road curving around the perimeter of Lady Tremaine’s territory. Their time together was ostensibly for a riding lesson, but at almost twenty years old Susanna was already a very accomplished horsewoman. She knew better than to willingly deprive herself of that which brought her happiness, however; whenever her mother decided to evaluate her Susanna’s proficiency mysteriously decreased, and play-acted that she was too terrified at the idea of an outsider coming to teach her to ride. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kit said carelessly from his own mount. 

“You must have met somebody in the woods,” she said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense!”

“You know, Susanna, moods can change over a period of time.”

“Oh, stop it, Buttons,” she said, sticking out her tongue at him in a moment of childish teasing. Kit chuckled, and although Susanna’s own dignity returned a moment later she was smiling as well. “So? Who is it?”

Kit sighed. “It’s just a girl.”

He pretended not to see his sister’s eyes light up. “What’s she like?” she asked, drawing out the vowels. 

“A better horsewoman than you pretend to be, for one thing,” he teased. “And very quick-witted.”

“Is she beautiful?”

He remembered the shape her lips made curving into a smile, the light and life in her brown eyes. “She – yes, she’s very pretty,” he said. 

Susanna giggled. “It’s like you’re in one of those novels that Anna likes, Buttons.”

Kit turned to face her. He drew the horse to a halt, and Susanna got her own sweet mare to do the same. “Susie, this is reality. Not one of Anna’s novels. I’m probably never going to see that woman again.”

“Do you want to?” Susanna asked. 

“I – that’s not the – Susie –”

“Buttons.” She raised her eyebrows, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you want to?”

Kit spurred his horse, walking it on for another few moments before relenting with a quiet, “Yes.”

“Then you’ll have to go to the woods again!” Susanna said, as if it was the simplest thing to do in the world. 

Kit shook his head, but was otherwise silent. As he watched his sister spur her own horse onwards and heard her laugh, a small smile crept over his face; if Susanna had taken that moment to ask him why he was smiling, he would have fiercely denied that it had anything to do with the memory of helping the pretty young woman from the woods. 

The next day was a Saturday, and Kit spent half the morning feeling jittery and nervous for reasons he refused to even acknowledge. He instead focused on the monotonous but necessary work of weeding the vegetable garden, as he had done for the past eleven days in a row. 

The main household staff had their own internal, hopelessly complicated system of organising days off which Kit had long since given up on attempting to make sense of – he instead opted to work until either his sisters dragged him away for a break, or he was informed offhand that it was his turn off duty and he should have left the house hours ago. This Saturday, the latter happened; one of his sister’s maids had noticed him in the garden from their window, telling the other chambermaid to tell the cook to tell the scullery maid that he should leave now, before Lady Tremaine noticed that he was here and worked him to the bone, again. 

“I was in town for a few hours last week,” Kit said, wiping away the sweat which had already gathered on his brow and leaning against his hoe. 

The girl shrugged. Her eyes lingered over his face and neck, and Kit felt himself blush – sweaty and dishevelled as he was, he didn’t exactly look his best. “You were with Miss Anastasia?”

Kit nodded. 

“Doesn’t count as a day off if you were escorting her,” she said. “Besides, if you don’t go then Cook’ll get annoyed, cause that messes up her break, and then if she’s late that means –”

“Alright, alright,” Kit said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’ll go, I’m going, I’ll just wash up first.”

The girl gave him another once-over, and Kit could have sworn he felt every inch of dirt on his clothes and person as her eyes passed over him. When she raised her eyes again, she blushed, and scurried back to the kitchen quickly as a mouse. 

Kit sighed. He hurried back to the stables, where he replaced the hoe with the rest of his gardening equipment and washed the grime of the past few days off as quickly and thoroughly as he could. He dressed hurriedly, only slicking his wet hair back instead of properly drying it, and hesitated only over his choice of jacket. The blue was a perfectly serviceable jacket, despite the many patches over the elbows and the small burned panel from where he had stood too close to the fire last winter. It was a jacket completely fitting his station, and one which, despite what his sisters said, still had plenty life in it yet. His green jacket was practically new, had been originally bought for the purpose of wearing to a wedding, and taking it out to the woods for the second week in a row would just be tempting fate before it grew muddy, discoloured, or both. 

But Ella had called him Greensleeves. She had called him Mister, and smiled at him radiantly. She had said she was sorry to hear that he was mistreated, in the few words he’d offered on the subject. She had said that she wanted to see him again. 

Kit bit on his lower lip. He released it an instant later and slipped his arms into his green jacket. 

Chapter Text

ii. 

Ella bit her lip nervously. Major, unaffected by her moods as he always was, continued to bend his head and snack on the grass covering the forest floor. The sounds of wildlife, which had silenced on her arrival, had long since tentatively resumed in the amount of time she had spent sitting on Major. The sun had started to slowly tip from its midday zenith to a firmly afternoon position, by the time Ella began to accept that the whole endeavour had been foolish, and she should really return home to the palace. 

Her legs had grown stiff in that time, and so before leaving she decided to dismount and walk around the clearing for a few minutes. She landed on the ground heavily, wincing at the slight ache in her knees and thighs, before carefully winding Major’s bridle around a nearby branch. Ella left him happily nibbling on more grass as she eased her stiff legs to wander around the trees. 

She stewed in her embarrassment as she did so – it was ridiculous to expect the man in the green jacket to magically reappear just because she wanted him too, and magnitudes more so to wear the blue riding habit again, as if he wouldn’t recognise her without it. On a deeper level, Ella was furious with herself – she had never behaved like this about a man before now, and just because her father and Captain Harker had encouraged her didn’t mean that it was sensible to do so. Their meeting in the first place had been fuelled purely by chance, and it was incredibly unlikely that they would meet again, and even if they did –

Her thoughts were suddenly cut off by the distant sound of hoofbeats. Ella raised her head and half-turned in their direction, where the noise was growing louder. Despite her prior self-remonstrating, she glanced down at herself on instinct. Her habit was clean and spotless, the pale blue skirts long enough that there was no need to fuss with them – although she did, anyway – and likewise brushed any loose strands of her braided and pinned hair back into place with her fingers. She lifted her head back up as the sounds of the horse and rider drew closer. 

A chestnut horse came walking steadily through the trees, its rider momentarily obscured by the shadow of the trees – the sun had decided to shine particularly brightly at that moment, and Ella had to lift one hand to shield her eyes. When she caught sight of the rider, she felt a smile creep over her face. 

“Well met, Mister Greensleeves!” she called out. “I have to confess, I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t been awfully foolish, coming here again.”

The man from last week, wearing the same green jacket, smiled and flushed. “And I wondered if I wasn’t being presumptuous, riding out here on my day off.” He dismounted as well, securing his own horse the way that Ella had hers. “Yet here we are,” he said. 

“Here we are,” Ella agreed. She took a step closer to him. Nerves began to pool in her stomach, although she was too well-trained in diplomacy to let it show in her demeanour. She had not, in truth, thought much beyond seeing him again. What exactly she would say to the man had not crossed her mind. However, Ella was still her mother’s daughter; she refused to let any conversation stagnate due to lack of effort on her part. 

“Do you come to these woods often?” she asked. 

“Most of my days off, if I’m not needed elsewhere,” he said. “Not usually this far north, I must admit.” He smiled again, a flash of white teeth. “Although I’m glad that I did.”

Ella hoped that her blush wasn’t as obvious as she suspected. “As am I,” she said. “The greenery is lovely this time of year.”

He blushed at that, all pink cheeks, dark hair, and pale eyes; Ella was almost as pleased at that as she was with her wordplay.

They walked slowly around the clearing until the afternoon turned golden, talking almost the whole time. Ella spoke of her mother’s garden and her father’s love of horses, and the love they had shared together. The young man shared stories his father had told him of far-off places he had seen as a merchant; he carefully avoided any mention of his mother, aside from casually mentioning that he had never known her and had grown up with a stepmother. He was more enthusiastic talking about his half-sisters; Ella found herself laughing along to many of his stories, wondering what it would have been like if her father had remarried, as his had. 

Their conversation took them down various wandering paths – he learned that Ella could fence, something which few others at Court did – and she learned that a usual day off for him meant riding to a hollowed-out tree in the woods and reading until his eyes were straining for lack of light. At this, Ella began excitedly asking him about what he had read, and the two of them happily passed the rest of their time discussing books. 

“Well,” he said reluctantly after they reached a natural lull in their conversation. “I should probably start for home. It’s getting late.”

Ella blinked; until he had said it, she hadn’t noticed that the sun had shifted into the golden hour. “I suppose I should as well,” she said. 

They walked over to the horses, his hands tucked behind his back and hers lying between the folds of her habit. Ella unwound Major’s bridle, and was about to walk him over in search of a suitable stump to mount when the young man approached her, his hands already cradled together. 

“If you need assistance?” he said. 

“I – thank you, yes,” Ella said, a little surprised at the offer. The thought of him being a groom hadn’t crossed her mind – although, now that she was thinking about it, he had volunteered precious little information about his present employment besides the fact that he was ill-treated and the implicit assumption, given that his stories of them were clearly recent, that it must be near where his half-sisters lived. 

He crouched down, and Ella gripped the pommel. She placed her foot in his hands – she had never thought of herself as small before, but maybe it was just because his hands seemed so secure that the comparison came naturally. Their eyes met. 

“Ready?” he asked. 

She nodded. He pushed up, and Ella settled in the saddle with no difficulty. 

“Thank you,” she said as he rose. 

“Not at all,” he smiled, mounting his own horse with the ease born of long practice. 

“Will I see you again next week?” she asked. 

He hesitated before answering. “I – not next week, but maybe the week after?” His eyes grew distant for a moment, and Ella could see his lips silently mouthing out dates as he, presumably, was searching for his next day off. “Yes – I think the week after next,” he said, wincing. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologise,” Ella said. “If you’re working, you’re working.” 

“Still,” he said. “If I could come here next week, then I would by all means.” He smiled, a little roguishly, and Ella felt the little fluttering sensation about her heart intensify. 

“Well then,” she said, thrown off her equilibrium and not particularly caring to hide it from him, “I eagerly await the end of the next two weeks.”

His smile widened, changing into something far more earnest, and Ella lifted a hand to wave at him. He turned his horse to leave the clearing, when Ella suddenly remembered –

“Wait!”

The man turned back towards her. The golden light dappled both horse and rider, and a line of poetry snuck into Ella’s head. The steed that my true-love rides on / Is lighter than the wind; / Wi’ siller he is shod before / Wi’ burning gowd behind.

“You still haven’t told me your name,” she said. 

The man, unexpectedly, smiled. “No, I haven’t,” he agreed. 

“Are you going to?” Ella asked. To her own surprise, she was neither offended nor concerned that he had declined to give it again. If he had, she might have had to reveal her true status, and she was just as reluctant to do so now as she had been last week. 

His horse began to walk, spurred by his thighs. “Maybe the next time we meet,” he called back, before leaving the clearing altogether.

June had properly settled over the countryside in the intervening fortnight, as hot and muggy as the threat of July on the horizon. Mrs Walker, the old cook, had been grumbling on and off for the past few days about a storm approaching. Unfortunately, in Kit’s opinion, the approaching storm had not been one of thunder and rain, but instead Lady Tremaine’s temper – the former would have been a novelty after the pleasantness of May, while the latter, although nothing out of the ordinary, always managed to upset everyone in the household regardless of who was on its receiving end. The storm broke, finally, the day before he was due to meet Ella again. 

Kit was poking around in one of the lower vegetable patches, sweating through the heat in his shirtsleeves, when Anastasia silently perched on the fence to his left. He looked up, a question on his lips, but the words died before they could leave his mouth. Her nose was red, and fresh tears were still falling from her red-rimmed eyes. Silently, he fished out his handkerchief from his blue jacket, abandoned on the ground by his feet, and held it out to her. Anastasia took it, and Kit turned his head back to his work while his sister quietly cried. 

Eventually, she broke the silence between them. “I hate it here.”

Kit looked up again. He rested his elbows on his knees as he sat back on his heels. Anastasia looked calmer now, with something of steel in her grey eyes. “I know,” he said quietly. 

“I want to leave. Run away. Marry Jamie. Have a mother who’s actually affectionate towards her children.”

“You could marry Jamie,” Kit pointed out. “You’re both of age.”

Anastasia looked at him flatly. “I can’t. Not if it means you and Susanna would be stuck here without me.”

“I’ll be stuck here whether you leave or not,” Kit shrugged. He overbalanced, throwing a hand out in an attempt to catch himself as he landed painfully on his tailbone. He winced; the impact had jarred his arm as well, and he could feel it along his forearm and up to his elbow. “Don’t – don’t hold back on your happiness because you feel guilty about what might happen to me or Susie. Elope with him and set up a bakery in a city far away from here, so that you never have to come back.” He was half-teasing, but only half. “I’d look after Susanna. It’s not like I can leave even if I want to.”

Anastasia hopped off the fence, joining Kit in the dirt. Her lips were drawn together in a thin line, and she punched him in the arm without ceremony. 

Kit yelped. “What was that for?!” he asked, rubbing at it while trying to glare daggers at her. “Did I miss something? Are you secretly still twelve? I could have sworn that you’re turning twenty-five in October!”

“You’re being ridiculous, Buttons,” Anastasia said. The corner of her mouth threatened to curve upwards into a smile, although she was still doggedly keeping her lips straight. “As if I’d leave Susanna – as if I’d leave you, you stupid lump.” She laid her hand on the spot where she had punched him, and Kit squeezed her fingers once before they both stood back up again. “There must be some way we can get you out of that indenturement,” she said, “and I won’t even think about leaving before we have a plan in place.”

“That’s sweet of you, Anna, but –” Kit started. He cut himself off abruptly at the return of her glare. 

“No,” she said firmly. “All three of us need to get away from her, I’m not denying that, but it needs to be all three of us.”

Kit shifted awkwardly on his feet. The sun was almost directly behind Anastasia, the summer heat making the atmosphere oppressively heavy. He wished he had thought to wear a hat; not only to stop the feeling of his dark hair absorbing the heat, but also so he could avoid his sister’s piercing gaze. After a long pause, he sighed. 

“I don’t want you or Susie sticking around and getting hurt by her for my sake,” he muttered.

She smiled, a little sadly. “Didn’t it occur to you that we feel the same way about you, Buttons?” 

He smiled back at her and gently shoved at her shoulder. He hoped it was enough to hide the truth he hoped was not written on his face – that it had not, in fact, occurred to him that his sisters wanted to protect him just as much as he wanted to protect them. 

“Well,” he said with a slightly unsteady voice, “I suppose that’s settled, then.”

“Yes, it is,” Anastasia said, with a shadow about her eyes that suggested she had seen straight through Kit’s act. “Will you come with me to town tomorrow?”

“Yes – wait, no, actually – I can’t,” Kit said. 

“Why not?” she asked. 

“It’s my day off tomorrow,” he said. “I . . . have other plans.” Kit could feel a blush rising to his cheeks at the mere thought of Ella. He knew it would be too much to hope that his sister wouldn’t notice. 

Anastasia’s face, indeed, had acquired a devious-looking smirk. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that woman you mentioned meeting a few weeks ago, would it?” she asked slyly. 

“You – shush –” Kit said ineffectually, as Anastasia began to laugh. “I was not nearly as irritating when you began making eyes over Jamie,” he muttered. 

“No,” she giggled, “you were much, much worse.” 

Kit rolled his eyes, more for show than anything else, before picking up his jacket and heading to the stables to start feeding the horses.

When Kit arrived in the clearing the next day, wearing his green jacket despite the heat, he was a little surprised to find that Ella wasn’t already there. She had obviously been waiting for some time the last time they met, and he had made an effort to leave earlier in the day to avoid the situation repeating itself; obviously, today he had left too early. Kit loosely tethered Jasper to a nearby tree, scratching his ears affectionately and making whispered smalltalk with him that would have mortified him, had anyone been around to hear it. 

“Good boy,” he murmured, smiling as Jasper’s large brown eye flicked in his direction. “You settle down in the sunshine, hmm? I’ll sit here while we wait.” He sat on a fallen tree trunk and fished around in the inside pocket for the book he was currently reading. It had been a habit of Kit’s for longer than he could remember to always have a book on his person; they staved his boredom, and had made many a lonely night in the stable or in front of the kitchen fire bearable when thoughts of his stepmother had kept him from sleep. Kit quickly became engrossed in the book, and didn’t realise that he was no longer alone until a large shadow fell over his page. 

His head snapped up, instinctively shutting the book over onto his finger to keep his place. “Oh,” he sighed after a moment, relaxing into a smile. “It’s you.”

Ella stood in front of him, a half-guilty smile on her face. “I must apologise,” she said, “I didn’t mean to give you a fright.”

Kit let out a chuckle, quietly dog-earing his page and slipping it back into his pocket. “If I didn’t hear you and your horse, I have no one to blame but myself for getting a shock.” He smiled at her again as he stood. Her riding habit was yellow today; her bodice was pale white, with only the sparsest amounts of lace at her cuffs and neckline. It reminded him a little of the daisies and buttercups he had to root out of the vegetable gardens. Pretty. Delicate under his fingertips, and deceptively hardy when attempting to uproot them. Not welcome on the Tremaine estate. 

“Are you alright?” 

Ella was still smiling, but a small quizzical line had appeared between her brows. 

Kit shook himself mentally. He hadn’t realised he had gone so long without speaking; or, indeed, that he had allowed his feelings to be so clearly broadcast. 

“Yes,” he said, in what he hoped was a convincing tone. “I’m just – it’s been a difficult few days.”

Ella’s frown deepened, and he knew that his attempt at breeziness had failed. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she said. Her dark eyes were serious. He was half-surprised to see no sign of nervous fidgeting; on the rare occasions he confided in his sisters instead of vice versa, they had seemed compelled to worry at their sleeves or skirts while he awkwardly poured out his burdens. 

Then again, it was probably because his sisters knew full well what Kit was burdening them with, while Ella, lovely as she was, simply could not. 

“I’d really rather not,” he said. “I don’t want to think about it today, not –” 

Not when I’m with you. His brain helpfully clamped his tongue before he could say something so presumptuous. 

“Not when it’s so lovely outside,” Kit finished, gesturing awkwardly with one hand. 

Ella paused for a moment, those dark eyes flickering over his face as though she had seen right through the words he didn’t say, before nodding her head. “It is lovely today,” she agreed in a lighter tone. “I’m surprised to see you in a jacket like that, given the heat.”

Kit flushed. It wasn’t her fault that everything kept leading his thoughts back to the estate and his lack of status today. “I –” he started, but trailed off just as quickly. His eyes darted towards Jasper where he stood next to Ella’s horse, both of them munching on the grass companionably.

“But then, I suppose,” she said quickly, “it would be odd to call you Mister Greensleeves if you wore a jacket of a different colour.”

Kit turned his head back towards her. He saw that her face was guarded, and her fingers laced tightly together in a way he had never seen before. She was giving him an opening to save his pride. The most humiliating part was, she wasn’t even wrong – her nickname had indeed prompted him to wear the jacket for the third meeting in a row. 

If Kit had been a different man, he might have taken the moment to deny the half-truth and tell her that he wore the green jacket so often because he was ashamed to be seen in the patched and mended blue one. He could see the way the conversation would go from there – she would be too polite to ask why he only had one good jacket, and he would be bound by his own conscience to tell her everything about his life despite that. She would smile sadly, and say again that it was wrong for him to be ill-treated, and then she would ride away from the sun-dappled clearing on her fine horse and fine dresses, and they would slot back into the places determined by their rank. By rights, she shouldn’t even be talking to him in the first place – he was an indentured servant in his own home, with nothing to offer even the poorest of women in the next town over, let alone the young woman of noble birth that Ella undoubtedly was. Their few weeks of conversation would be nothing more than an upstart weed soon plucked from the field, and everything would go back to the way it should be. 

The thought alone gave Kit a gut-wrenching twist of despair. His meetings with Ella already gave him a bright spot to look forward to week by week, and this was only the third time they had spoken. He liked Ella herself; her quick mind and generous heart. Perhaps most damning of all, he had actually thought he was fulfilled in his claustrophobic life before their chance meeting; ferrying himself from stable to grounds and back again, the monotony only sometimes broken by a visit to town, Lady Tremaine a constant, background threat against him and his sisters. 

All this flashed across Kit’s mind in a matter of seconds. He came to a decision – one that he already half-regretted, knowing that there was no possible way it could end well for him. 

“You have me figured out, Miss Ella,” he said with a smile. “May I be bold, and suggest we take advantage of the fine weather and ride a little?”

Ella smiled, and walked over with him to the horses. Their fingers did not brush against each other as they walked side by side, but he was acutely aware of the possibility, and that was almost more electrifying. 

“You know,” Ella said once she was mounted on the horse – a nearby stump had left his services unneeded, and Kit was still trying to decide whether or not he was displeased about that – “a simple solution to this problem would be to simply tell me your name. As I recall, you did say you might tell me the next time we met.” She was playful again, the laugh beneath her words clear even as she managed not to vocalise it. 

Kit laughed as he urged Jasper up to her right-hand side. “I might,” he said. “But I think that perhaps you don’t want to know.”

She did laugh, then, sending a few blackbirds scattering from their tree. “You’re being far more mysterious about this than any other aspect of your life,” she said. “I’d think that maybe it’s some horrible name that you’re ashamed of, but I don’t think your name could be ugly.”

“Why not?” Kit asked. 

“Because it would be yours,” Ella said. 

Kit flushed deeply, and said, “Well – then guess it, if you like.”

Without missing a beat, she said, “Rumpelstiltskin.”

They left the clearing to the sound of their shared laughter echoing amongst the trees and the horses’ hooves picking up into a canter. The breeze that came from their fast movements on the horses provided some relief from the oppressive heat of the sun, which only seemed to settle deeper as the day grew onwards. The greens of the forest had already begun to darken to their richer, more mature shades, while the younger leaves blazed in their intense brightness. The effect of the dappled shadows, some darker than others as the older leaves grew less translucent, reminded Kit a little of opening his eyes underwater, to look at the sunlight dancing over the wrong side of the stream’s surface. 

As midday shifted into early, and then late afternoon, KIt could see that Ella was clearly deliberating over whether she should ask him something as they trotted back to the clearing – their clearing, as he had started thinking of it in his head.

“Are you alright?” he asked. Clouds had begun to gather overhead, although neither rider had yet noticed that they were the angry, dark steel colour of thunderclouds. 

“Yes – only, I was wondering – and you don’t have to say yes –” Her cheeks had turned a faint pink, although it was difficult to tell whether from embarrassment or simply the exercise. “There’s going to be a ball, at the palace – next week.”

Kit ducked his head to hide the small crumb of bitterness in his smile. He stroked Jasper’s neck, and when he lifted his head again he was fully composed. “I suspect that such an event would be for diplomats and monarchs. Important politicians. Not . . .” 

He left the sentence unfinished, and it hung there limply between them. He shrugged, the gesture lighter than it would have been earlier in their meeting. “But thank you for the invitation. It was kind.”

“Have your sisters received an invitation yet?” she asked. 

“No,” Kit said, without having to cast his mind back at all – if his sisters had received an invitation to attend the palace ball, not even living in the stables would stop him from hearing the news. “But why would they? Isn’t the purpose of the ball to find an eligible bachelor for the princess?”

Ella laughed, although the corner of her mouth seemed a little stiff. “I think it’s supposed to be for her birthday,” she said. “Although I believe the king wouldn’t be displeased if an eligible bachelor was found there.” Her cheeks turned a little pinker, and Kit slowed Jasper down to a walk; Ella’s horse, whom he had discovered was called Major, followed. 

“You know her, then?” Kit asked. “The princess?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Ella said, her voice lilting as if unsure whether to frame it as a question or not. “In a manner of speaking.”

Kit hummed thoughtfully. “What’s she like?” He had never put much thought to the idea of the princess; he had known of her existence in the same abstract way that he knew all four of his grandparents had died when he was still a child. The idea that she was an actual person whom Ella knew was startling in its novelty.

“Well,” Ella said slowly, “she’s . . . my age.”

When she struggled to add anything for the next thirty seconds, Kit couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

“What?!” she exclaimed. 

“Nothing, nothing!” Kit raised his hands in an appealing gesture which Ella clearly did not buy, not helped by the fact that he had not stopped laughing. “It’s just – she’s your age? That’s the best you can do?”

The corner of her mouth twitched in a smile, although her brows remained in a straight, serious line. “She . . . doesn’t confide in a lot of people,” Ella said eventually. “Her father, and the captain of the guard, William Harker. That’s about it.”

Kit’s laughter eventually settled down, and he settled his hands on Jasper’s reins again. Thunder rumbled overhead, and both of them instinctively glanced upwards. 

“Well, there’s your answer as to why I can’t go,” Kit said apologetically, preparing to say his goodbyes – he did not want to be caught in a rainstorm if he could possibly avoid it, not while wearing his best green coat. “Any event prestigious enough to host Princess Eleanor herself will be far too exclusive for even my sisters to attend, let alone me.”

Ella frowned, her eyes softening it to one of disbelief – disbelief in what, Kit couldn’t say. 

“Mister – Mister Greensleeves –” She urged Major closer towards him, until they were side by side. She reached out and laid the fingers of one hand on the cuff of his jacket, directly over the bump of his wrist bone. 

Kit’s eyes darted to her hand, almost on his, and then her face. He could feel the heat of her fingers through the material; if he concentrated, he could feel each individual fingertip. This close, he could see that pale freckles dotted Ella’s forehead and cheekbones, and his first thought was to wonder if they were always there or if they had appeared because of all the riding she had been doing in the sun these last few weeks. His second thought was that he wanted to kiss every single one of them. Led by the thought, his eyes darted down to her lips unconsciously – but just as quickly, he forced them back up to her eyes, as startled by the direction his thoughts had taken as he was by the touch of Ella’s hand. 

It took a moment for her gaze to meet his, and Kit realised with a jolt that Ella had been looking at his mouth just as he had been looking at hers. Her fingers were still on his jacket, although he was headily aware that all her forefinger had to do was slip half a centimetre to touch the naked skin at the base of his thumb. 

“If I can get an invitation to you and your sisters,” she asked, “would you come to the ball next week?” Her voice had dropped its pitch significantly, and Kit’s eyes flickered down to her mouth and back up again. Their faces were closer together now than they had been a moment ago. 

Kit forgot, for once, that he was a servant; that he would not be due a night off for weeks; that Ella did not know his name, let alone where he lived; and that if he and his sisters were in attendance then Lady Tremaine would certainly be there as well. Instead, he nodded and whispered a hoarse, “Yes.”

A smile spread across her face, slow and eager. “Then I look forwards to seeing you next week,” she murmured in the same tone. 

Kit hummed an agreement. He didn’t trust his voice at the moment.

“Won’t you tell me your name?” she whispered. Her brow was furrowed in an attempt to keep looking at him head-on. He could feel her breath against his cheek when she exhaled. “I fear you won’t be the only man wearing green next week. I’ll need something to distinguish you from everyone else. Even just your first name, if you can’t tell me the rest.” Her eyes lingered on his lips as their faces inched closer together. The tips of their noses brushed.

“I – I can’t,” he whispered regretfully into the corner of her mouth. “But hopefully this should distinguish me from the other men at this ball.”

Ella’s chin tilted upwards towards him as the rest of her hand came to rest on his wrist, her palm covering the back of his hand as her thumb settled over his knuckles. He was briefly thankful that her fingers were not resting on the underside of his wrist, where his racing pulse would have surely betrayed his nerves at what he wanted to do. Kit’s eyes slid shut as he bent his head. Their lips met. It was a sweet, soft kiss; like the sheen of a buttercup’s petals held under someone’s chin. His first. The gentleness of the moment stood in sharp juxtaposition against Kit’s heart, which hammered away at his sternum like it was trying to break his bones from the inside out. 

They broke apart, and Ella gasped against his lips. Kit tilted his head to chase the sound with his mouth. She kissed him back, and he heard a small, desperate noise; distantly, he realised it had come from his own throat. He could feel the gentle tickle of her lashes on his cheeks, the infinitesimal pressure of her thumb on his hand. They were the only points of contact between them besides their mouths; he was afraid to let go of Jasper’s reins, for some reason he couldn’t quite identify. 

Unnoticed by both of them, lightning flashed in the skies above. Thunder followed, several seconds later.

“Buttons!”

Kit glanced up from his work cleaning their horse’s tack (the little stableboy whose job it normally was, Bill, was ill at home with scarlet fever; in an effort to prevent Lady Tremaine hiring a replacement that would deal Bill’s family a blow they couldn’t afford, Kit was picking up the slack himself, and sorely feeling his absence). 

“Susie!” he said, his face easily splitting into a grin. His sister had burst straight into the stables without her customary trio of knocks – a habit which she only ever broke at moments of great emotion. 

“You’ll never guess what just happened!” She appeared to be almost vibrating with excitement as she stood beside the worn old table where he was working. Her dress today was a pale muslin which no doubt stained easily, and he didn’t blame her for not sitting down next to him in a heap the way she normally would have. 

“What’s just happened?” he replied, still carefully removing flecks of mud from the pair of stirrups in his hands. 

“An invitation from the palace just arrived in the post! Inviting every eligible lady and bachelor to the royal ball on Friday!” 

Kit’s eyes shot up to her as the stirrups slipped; his quick fingers stopped it clattering to the ground, but he knew that Susanna had noticed the fumble. “That’s – the royal ball?” he asked. “This Friday?”

“Yes!” Susanna laughed, although Kit couldn’t be sure whether it was with delight or from whatever expression was on his face.

“Are you and Anna going?” he asked. 

“And miss out on an opportunity to start an engagement?” she said, with the slight curl of her lips that showed she was quoting Lady Tremaine. “The dressmaker’s been here all morning. I only just got away – I had to tell you!”

“I – and why is that?” Kit asked, hoping that he wasn’t blushing. He hadn’t told either of his sisters about the kiss on Saturday; it was now Monday. With that tidbit of information missing, he had no idea what Susanna could be referring to. Equally, Susanna was more perceptive than she appeared; he couldn’t wholly set aside the idea that she knew what had happened between him and Ella just by looking at him. 

Susanna glanced at the door nervously, tucking her loose hair – a paler, more mousy shade of brown than either of her siblings’ – behind one ear. “The princess will be there,” she whispered. “And so will the king.” She looked at him expectantly. 

Kit looked back blankly. 

Susanna wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully. 

“Susie,” he said wearily, “please tell me you’re not suggesting I offer my hand to Princess Eleanor herself, in front of the entire country.”

Susanna rolled her eyes, in the manner of all little sisters.

“No, Buttons, don’t be dense,” she whispered. “I’m saying that as far as I know, Princess Eleanor is a kind woman, who might be willing to look at a . . . an unjust promise that was made, when one of the parties was tricked into it, and have it nullified.” 

“What are you – ” 

Kit gasped as he realised what she meant, and why she was afraid to say the exact words in the stables. 

Susanna wiggled her eyebrows again, no less meaningfully. 

“How do you – I thought Anna was the only one who knew about the contract,” he said.

“She told me about it once when we were children, not long after she found it” she shrugged. “And then again, a few weeks ago when you found out – I could see she was really upset, and I asked her why. Buttons,” she said, reaching out to grip his shoulder, “you have to know that we both thought you knew already. We would never keep something like that from you.”

Kit nodded. “It’s alright, Susie. I know that.” With the cleaner of his two hands, he gently patted his sister’s hand where it rested on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. He couldn’t let himself think about all of the world-changing implications of Susanna’s suggestion – it was too much, too overwhelming by half. Instead, he focused on the barest bones of a plan that she had suggested – get to the ball on Friday, with the contract of indenture, and speak to Princess Eleanor – if, and only if, he completed all three stages would he allow himself to think about the nebulous concept of what would happen next. 

Susanna pressed her hand in closer, clearly caught between embracing her brother and avoiding the scolding that would follow, should Lady Tremaine notice any stains on her gown. Eventually she ducked down and pressed a little kiss to the curve where his shoulder became his upper arm; Kit could feel the love she poured into the gesture anyway. 

“I should go back,” Susanna said regretfully. “They’re going to miss me if I’m away much longer.”

“Enjoy your dress fitting,” he said. 

Susanna rolled her eyes again before dashing out of the stables, leaving Kit alone with the tack once again. Kit managed to hold onto his smile until the sound of her footsteps faded away completely; once she was out of earshot, it began to crumple at the corners. 

He glanced over at the cupboard where his green jacket hung. It had been a close call on Saturday, but he had managed to avoid getting it soaked by the rain; as the storm had approached their clearing, he and Ella had made hasty excuses, both of them riding in opposite directions and giggling like children as they waved goodbye. Once he was out of sight, he had pulled the jacket off, folded it as small as it could go, and stuffed it under his shirt to shield it from the worst of the rain; by some miracle, this had actually worked, and the jacket was no worse for wear. 

“Well,” he sighed, “I suppose one more night won’t hurt it.”

The rest of Monday passed uneventfully enough. Anastasia managed to sneak away from the dressmaker at lunchtime on Tuesday to tell him that under no circumstances should he try to retrieve the contract of indenture himself; as he was so seldom in the house, his presence there would be a sure sign that something suspicious was going on. Instead, either she or Susanna would retrieve the contract themselves and leave it in the breast pocket of his green jacket at some point before Friday morning, when they were sure to be under such scrutiny from Lady Tremaine that there would be no opportunity to give it to him. Kit frowned, but couldn’t argue against her logic. 

“Anna,” he said as she left, “please – I don’t want either of you putting yourselves in danger for me. If you think there’s any chance of you being caught –”

“We won’t be caught,” she said reassuringly. “We’ll be careful, Buttons. All three of us need to get out together, right?”

She smiled, a little sadly, and left him sitting alone in the sunshine. It was then that he remembered – the phrasing that had secured him his place had also ensured hers. Lady Tremaine would, no doubt, be on the prowl for husbands for both of her daughters. And Jamie, much as he loved Anastasia, in no way qualified as a suitable match under Lady Tremaine’s conditions. 

The rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday passed with no direct word from his sisters, and no indenturement contract. The entire household had begun to be caught up in the excitement, now; Kit spent as much time outside as he could, to avoid being caught in Lady Tremaine’s path. When she was in high spirits, which she had not been for some months, she would turn from steadfastly ignoring Kit’s existence, to summoning him to her side to insult and berate him, only to send him from her sight again as if his very shoes disgusted her; this sometimes occurred multiple times a day. To save everybody’s time and his own dignity, Kit elected to simply try and avoid her. 

Even the other servants had been caught up in the giddiness of preparing for a ball. The little maid who always seemed to turn red around him was caught up in visions of the dressmaker Anastasia and Susanna’s dresses, eagerly describing them to the scullery maid, her eyes as big as the dishes she washed. Mrs Walker had spent most of the week reminiscing about balls she had staffed in her youth, gushing about how the wording of the royal invitation meant that her unmarried nephew would be allowed in to see the palace for himself – and maybe even the princess! Kit felt a little heartened at that, knowing that he wouldn’t be the only bachelor below the station of the ladies attending the ball – if, he quickly reminded himself, everything went to plan. Mrs Walker had smiled at that, and said it would be good for him to finally go out dancing like other men his age. Kit had hardly been able to contain his shock; he wasn’t aware that Mrs Walker had ever taken much notice of him, or that she liked him enough to smile at the thought of him going to a ball. 

When he eventually took to his bed on Thursday night, after umpiring a lengthy back-and-forth between the little maid and Mrs Walker about whether her nephew would or would not find his own bride at the ball, Kit was almost ready to give up any thoughts of petitioning the princess for her help. He had barely allowed himself to think about it all week, and he scolded himself for having the nerve to be disappointed. Didn’t you say to Anna and Susie not to be reckless? he thought as he trudged over to the stables. 

He paused outside the stable door, suddenly half-afraid to go inside and search his jacket pockets for a piece of paper that, more likely than not, wouldn’t be there; no matter what his sisters might promise, after all, it was still incredibly dangerous and reckless to even think of stealing the contract, much less actually do it. But as he stood there in the dusk, an unexpected phrase appeared in his mind, fully formed and unbidden. They were the words Ella had said she lived by, during that very first meeting. Have courage, and be kind. The memory of her voice echoed in his head, sunshine-yellow. 

Kit opened the stable doors, and steadfastly avoided walking straight over to his green jacket. Instead, he lit the small lamp that lived on his table, closed the door firmly behind him, and peeled off his shoes. Kit had no particular reason to pantomime his usual evening routine with as much dedication as he had for the last three days – unless the lingering fear that Lady Tremaine would burst into the stables herself and find the contract in his hand, a concept as unlikely as it was terrifying, counted as a particular reason. 

Eventually, he couldn’t delay it any longer. Kit walked up to the jacket, and gently felt inside the left pocket. For the last three nights, there had been nothing there. Tonight, Kit felt the thin brush of paper against his fingertips.

Instantly, he froze. It took several seconds for him to grip it tightly along the thin edges and pull it out, painstakingly slowly. It was smaller than he had expected; unfolded, it would be around the same height and width as one spread-out page in his reading books. The edges were still straight and the paper itself un-yellowed. With shaking hands, Kit brought the paper close to the lantern. The bottom had been cut so that the edge was jagged, and Kit realised why the paper was so small; it was only half of the contract. Had Lady Tremaine indentured anyone other than the son of her dead husband, Kit would have owned this half from the very beginning. The two jagged halves would prove that they came from the same whole, on that day when he had finally worked off his debt. 

Kit looked at the contract itself, finally. It was very simple and straightforward. It said that he, Christopher Tremaine, of his own will and accord, consented to be in the servitude of Lady Sarah Tremaine, née Russell, from the present date (a November date, from almost fifteen years ago) until such time as £50,000 had been paid off of his outstanding debt. The entire contract was handwritten. Lady Tremaine’s signature sat neatly in the bottom left corner. His own name sprawled across the bottom right in large, rounded, childish letters. 

Kit sat numbly at the table for quite some time, the contract in his hand and the lantern burning beside him. The first conscious, fully-worded thought that crossed his mind, after perhaps five full minutes of dazed silence, was I didn’t know her name was Sarah.

After another few minutes of staring, during which he gently traced his ten-year-old’s handwriting with the pad of his thumb, Kit folded the contract back up again. He moved to put it back in the green jacket’s pocket, but abruptly stopped himself for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. Instead, he picked up the pair of brown boots he had polished last night in preparation for the ball, and dropped the folded-up contract inside the left boot.

Friday arrived more quickly than it had any right to. 

Ella had spent the greater part of the last week alternately riding Major to the clearing and back (which she had started to call their clearing in her head, ridiculous as it was), standing through final alterations on her dress, and having calm, collected arguments with Captain Harker about the wisdom of inviting the eligible youth of the kingdom, and by extension the man who she still knew only as Mister Greensleeves, to the ball. He was, inexplicably, still in favour of the decision, and Ella struggled to understand why. 

“Captain Harker,” Ella said on Friday morning, more quietly than she had for the past week. 

He turned to look at her, his face – normally occupied with a pleasant and genuine smile – drawn and serious at her tone. “Yes, my lady?”

They were walking together away from the training room, where he had taught her to use a sword as a child and now taught her to fence. Sword-fighting was one of the few genuine eccentricities she had that did not originate from her being seen as too serious for her age. Today had been a distracted practice, for numerous reasons; for one, both she and Captain Harker were aware that she could not sustain so much as a bruise, lest it bloom over the course of the day and appear mid-ball. For another, her thoughts had kept slipping back to the kiss on Saturday, and her footwork was consequently more clumsy. 

Ella took a breath. “Do you think it was foolish of me to invite him here? I just . . . I want to know his name. And at this stage . . . he needs to know who I am. Otherwise, surely it’s . . . there must be some sort of dynamic imbalance, surely?”

“He still doesn’t know that you’re the princess?” Captain Harker asked, his eyes blown wide with disbelief. 

“No!” Ella groaned, pressing her thumb and fingers of one hand against her temples, shielding her face from the Captain’s gaze. “I told him about the ball, and he asked if I knew myself!” She braced herself for this to finally be the breaking point of Captain Harker’s patience and for him to finally say what had been creeping in her thoughts all along; that this was a foolish idea, one better-suited for silly little girls than full-grown women, and if it all exploded in her face then it would be well-deservedly so.

Instead, she heard him start to giggle. 

Ella dropped her hand and stared at him helplessly. She could feel her mouth hanging open. “Captain Harker!” she eventually managed to squawk. 

“Oh, my lady,” he laughed, reaching out with one hand to clap her shoulder. “Only you could find the one man in the whole kingdom who doesn’t recognise you on sight, not tell him who you are, and then worry that you’re taking advantage, when you couldn’t do so if you tried!”

“Captain Harker –”

“No, no, I was being too flippant,” he said, sobering up. His smile remained, wide and easy on his face. “But my point stands. My lady, you have more kindness in your little finger than most others do in their whole body.” As if to illustrate his point, he patted her hand gently between his before letting it go. “The fact that you even worry about it tells me that you could never act maliciously in the way that you fear.”

Ella nodded quietly. “I do worry about it though. He’s told me no more about his station than I’ve told him, but – he’s full of contradictions. From his manners and his clothes, he seems poor, or a servant to a rich man swiftly becoming poor – but he’s as widely-read as I am, and parts of his childhood seem not so different to that of any lord’s son.” They walked on in silence for another few moments before she added, softly, “He’s worn the same jacket every time we meet. I don’t think he can afford a second one. Either that, or he doesn't want me to see him in his second one.”

Captain Harker sighed, not unkindly. “I think,” he said, “that you and him have much to discuss tonight, one way or the other. I think that you should listen to what your heart is telling you, instead of getting so caught up in your head all the time. And I also think you should remember your mother’s motto.”

“Have courage and be kind,” Ella murmured, almost to herself. 

“Yes,” the Captain said. “You’re always kind, my lady. Maybe it’s time to have some courage.”

In retrospect, Kit should have known that it was foolish to think their plan would actually work. 

He had spent most of Friday in the same way he had spent the rest of the week; keeping unobtrusively out of Lady Tremaine’s way, working outside as much as he could, and feeling a little lonely for the lack of seeing his sisters out and about the estate. They would be indoors, he knew, whiling away most of the morning and afternoon until it was time to ready themselves for the ball. So Kit did the same, although he didn’t begin his own preparations until an hour before his sisters and Lady Tremaine were supposed to leave. 

He washed himself carefully, scrubbing to the point of redness the skin behind his ears, the lines of his palms and his fingernails; nothing could get rid of the years of calluses, but he could at least be certain that his body, hands, and nails were as clean as any gentleman’s. He used his small, cracked mirror – the only one he had, and it would have to do – first to shave, and then to carefully use the last of his little jar of pomade to slick his hair back from his face. He looked himself over once he was satisfied; generally useless as the mirror was, Kit didn’t often look at himself in it outside of the routine required for shaving. He looked a little sharper around the edges; like himself, but with focus drawn to places it normally wasn’t. Without his hair flopping over his head, his forehead and cheekbones drew more attention. Long after he had stopped looking in the mirror and was carefully buttoning up his best white shirt, reserved solely for Sundays, Kit found the words to describe what he looked like. He looked like his father. He had to pause, while only halfway finished with buttoning up his shirt, to take a shaky breath. He released it, slowly, and continued getting dressed. 

By the time he was completely dressed; trousers, boots (with the indenturement safely tucked inside), shirt, cravat, and, most importantly, his green jacket, Kit felt like a bundle of nerves. He knew from Mrs Walker’s chatter in the kitchen that Lady Tremaine was renting a carriage to take her and his sisters to the ball, so she wouldn’t be coming anywhere near the stables all night. All he had to do was climb down the ladder, saddle Jasper up, and ride through the forest all the way up to the castle. It would take longer for the carriage to arrive than one lone horse. If Kit had planned everything correctly (and he knew he had) even if he was only able to leave the palace at the same time as Lady Tremaine, and not with the head start he was hoping for, he would still arrive back at the estate before her. 

Kit took a deep breath, lifted up the trapdoor, and carefully descended the ladder into the main area of the stables. 

“You have quite the nerve, boy.”

Kit froze on the ladder, one foot on the ground and one still on the bottom rung. He couldn’t have described it in any other way; it felt as if ice had begun to flow through his veins instead of blood, upon hearing her voice. Stiffly, he lowered his other foot to the ground and turned to face Lady Tremaine. 

She was standing some distance from the wooden table where he worked, eyeing it as if she didn’t trust it to remain standing unassisted. Her eyes flicked back to him, the displeasure in them clear even from this distance. She looked a little like the illustration of praying mantis he had seen in a book once, or some other predatory bug made large. Her dress was a light green silk, the soft light from the lantern catching each of the folds. It curled up to frame her shoulders; if she had been a bug, it might have been seen as an intimidation tactic. Kit knew from experience that his stepmother did not need dramatically-constructed clothes to be intimidating. 

“What on earth makes you think you have the right to attend the palace ball?” she asked, a lilt of a laugh making her words sound disarming and gentle. 

Kit had to clear his throat twice before the words would come out. “It says right there in the invitation, by royal decree. Any eligible lady or bachelor may attend.” He stuck his chin out a little. He was in the right on this. He knew he was in the right. 

Lady Tremaine drew closer. Kit had to fight the urge to back away from her. The feathers in her copper hair bounced as she walked. 

“You will not ruin this,” she hissed. “Not for me, and not for my daughters.”

“I – I don’t want to ruin anything for them!” Kit protested. He had to resist the urge to look down and check that the contract wasn’t poking out the top of his boot, even though he knew that it wasn’t. “I won’t ride with you, I’ll avoid you all night if that’s what you want, nobody will know that I –”

“No,” she spat. 

Kit closed his mouth immediately. 

“There is no question of you going,” she said. “Not just because you have less than nothing to offer a vagrant, let alone the ladies who will attend this ball; and not just because you have been deceitful enough to plan this – this escapade behind my back – and this is the gratitude you repay me with?”

Kit stood where he was, unable to offer a rebuttal to Lady Tremaine. She had said nothing that wasn’t true; he did, after all, have less than nothing to offer a bride; and he had, after all, planned the whole thing behind her back. The one saving grace was that she seemed to be unaware of his sisters’ involvement. 

“Don’t just stand there,” she said between gritted teeth. “You do this every time, boy. Don’t you have anything to say? Look at me!”

Slowly, Kit said, “It’s only one night.” He lowered his eyes to hers. “I have my own outfit, and I have my own way to get there and back. It will not affect my work in the slightest, Madam. I will do my best to avoid you at the ball.”

“You will do no such thing,” Lady Tremaine said. “I will not have anyone associate my daughters with you. Two unmarried, unencumbered heiresses is better than two unmarried girls and a servant with delusions of grandeur. Especially not a servant who dresses in such tatters.”

Before Kit could open his mouth to ask her what she meant, Lady Tremaine had gripped the lapel of his jacket and tugged it with such force that Kit almost fell forwards into her. He braced himself at the last moment, and instead heard the sickening sound of ripped seams. He looked down in shock, but the damage had already been done. His jacket, which had taken months of saving to afford, and which he had been so proud of, was ruined. Half the left breast had been torn completely off the seam, the threads hanging uselessly in mid-air. The heavy rings Lady Tremaine wore on her fingers had caught on the embroidery of the other lapel, and it too was ruined, the silk rucked in ways that had Kit, inexperienced as he was with fashion, wincing. Before he could catch his breath, or move a hand to stop her, she had gripped his right shoulder seam and pulled the panel on that side of his jacket loose as well – not as completely as the left side, but enough to mark the deed done. 

She stepped back, a little short of breath but otherwise with nothing to show that anything unusual had occurred. “There,” she said. “Let that be a reminder to you about what happens to those who seek to rise above their station.”

Lady Tremaine swept out of the stable without a backwards glance. Kit barely noticed her go. He was too caught up in the state of shock that had overcome him the instant she had ripped his jacket apart. Distantly, he heard the sounds of horses and wheels growing louder, and then faint again. He was, once again, alone. 

With shaking hands, Kit pulled the lapels of the jacket back into place. The left one fell back down again immediately, although he was in no fit state to notice. In a daze, he walked over to Jasper. The horse had stuck his head over the door of his stall at the commotion, and his ears were still pointed stiffly forwards despite the fact that Lady Tremaine was long gone. Kit opened the door and slipped in beside him, stroking his hand carefully across the horse’s neck. As Jasper began to calm down, soothed by the gentle movements, Kit bowed his head forwards until his forehead was leaning against the smooth hair of his horse, and he was enveloped by the familiar, soothing smell. It took him a long time to realise that he was crying, hot tears running down his cheeks and near-silent but powerful sobs wracking his chest. The realisation only made him cry more, and he pressed his forehead deeper against Jasper’s shoulder. He had been brought to tears on occasion over the years – he was only human, after all – but Kit hadn’t cried like this, with heaving sobs and a running nose, since he was a little boy. 

A tentative knock at the door roused him from his tears. Kit immediately straightened up, blowing his nose and wiping away stray tears with clumsy, jerky movements. He tucked the handkerchief onto the nearest shelf – there was no sense in ruining his best clothes with a wet handkerchief just because he wasn’t going to the ball anymore – and turned to see who had knocked with a hoarse, “Hello?”

A little old woman stood in the doorway. From the state of her clothes, Kit was fairly certain that she was a beggarwoman – her hair was grey and straggled over her face, and the few teeth she had left were yellow and stained. 

“Excuse me,” she said timidly, “but might I trouble you for a cup of water, young man? Or a crust of bread, if you please.”

Kit stood for a moment, his mind still two steps behind processing what was before his eyes and ears. “Oh, you – of course,” he said distractedly. “Please, sit – I promise it won’t break, it’s very sturdy,” he said, directing her to the one chair. 

“Oh – oh, thank you,” the beggarwoman said, taking the proffered seat. 

Kit walked over to the small counter where he kept the odd scrap of food, for times when he didn’t want to wander over to the main house to eat something at a late hour. He picked up a small apple, and cut a generous portion of cheese for the woman; he also poured her a cup of water from the ewer. After a moment of consideration, he poured a cup for himself as well, and brought the whole thing over to the table. He set the food and cup down before the beggarwoman, before leaning his hip against the table as he sipped at his water. The beggarwoman tore at the food hungrily, and he felt a stab of guilt that he had nothing more sustaining to give to her. 

“Give me a moment to go to the main house and I’ll find some bread for you,” he said. 

“Not at all,” the beggarwoman said. “This is plenty.” She looked at him from under her hood, and he was struck by the bright green of her eyes. “You’ve been crying.”

Kit ducked his head, embarrassed, but didn’t deny it. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I got my hopes up for something that I knew was impossible from the very beginning.”

“What’s an apple, or a hunk of cheese?” the beggarwoman said. “Nothing. And yet there are so many who cannot, or will not, give even that. It’s the kindness that makes it something.”

Kit smiled a little at the words, hiding it with a sip from his cup. 

“And what of the impossible?” she continued. “I saw pumpkins growing in the garden outside. Would you say that one of those vegetables could become a golden carriage?”

Kit couldn’t stop himself snorting. “I apologise,” he said instinctively, reaching one hand out in a soothing gesture. “It’s just that – well, that’s the sort of thing that comes from a fairytale, isn’t it? Carriages appearing from out of nowhere.”

“Are you sure?” 

Kit looked sharply at the beggarwoman. She looked just as old and dishevelled as she had before, and yet there was a glint of something in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Take a look outside,” she said. “Check for yourself.”

Kit frowned, but set the cup down on the table all the same. He walked slowly to the door, shooting one last glance back at the beggarwoman, who was still sitting at his table, nibbling at the cheese. She urged him on with a flick of her fingers, and he stepped outside into the night. 

Kit was suddenly glad that he had left the cup inside the stable, because if he had carried it with him he was sure he would have dropped it. One of the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch was – there was no other word for it – bouncing uphill towards the stables, growing larger and larger every time it reached the apex of the bounce. It was almost in front of him, now glowing a soft, warm yellow. When it made its final leap, Kit skittered backwards instinctively. Instead of colliding with his head, however, a shower of white sparks appeared; when they had cleared away, the pumpkin had been transformed into a small, intricately-wrought golden carriage. 

Kit could feel his mouth hanging open in shock. The carriage was undoubtedly a carriage, and yet he could see the grooves and vine decoration that told its true origins. He turned his head to the right, to see that the beggarwoman had emerged from the stables – only she wasn’t a beggarwoman anymore. Instead, she looked like a woman not much older than Mrs Waters. Her hair was white-blonde where before it had been grey, her shabby robes replaced with an intricate white dress that sparkled and shimmered in the moonlight. In one hand she held a long wand that glowed, a trail of sparks fading even as she stood there.

“Now, dear Kit,” she said, in a breezy yet business-like tone, “if you are to get to this ball then we really must send you off sooner rather than later.”

“I – who –” Kit started. 

“Oh, come now,” the woman chuckled. “I’m a Good Fairy, dear boy – do close your mouth, dear, it isn’t polite to gape quite so openly.”

Kit closed his mouth with a click as his teeth met; he drew back as the woman – the Good Fairy – continued to wander around the garden. 

“Horses, we need horses – ah!” She flicked her wand, and Kit had to stop his mouth dropping open again as four little mice, who he had not previously noticed, began to grow and swell until they were four fine horses, already linked up to the carriage with fine tack. “And a coachman . . .” she murmured. “Oh, yes – you’ll do!” She flicked the wand towards the stable; Kit did gasp as he saw Jasper, upended to his rear legs, shifting and changing as he bounced towards the carriage. By the time he was settled on the bench, he appeared to be a normal human coachman, albeit one a little long in the face. 

“What did you do to my horse?” Kit whispered. 

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” the Good Fairy said airily. “It’s only temporary, and he won’t remember it once he’s back to normal.” She nodded at Jasper, who tipped his hat to her, and spun around to face Kit. 

“Now, dear boy,” she said, “everything is ready for you to depart.”

“I –” Kit cut himself off again. He seemed incapable of finishing a sentence around the Good Fairy. He gestured, a little helplessly, at his jacket. 

“Oh goodness me,” she said. “No, no, no, that won’t do at all.” She gestured at it, and said, “Take it off, Kit, and I’ll magic up something new for you.”

“Oh – no, please don’t,” he said. “It’s only – I’ve grown rather attached to this. It’s the first new jacket I’ve had in years,” he chuckled. 

The Good Fairy smiled, her seemingly manic energy subsiding a little for the first time since she had revealed herself. “Alright, then,” she said. With a flick of her wand, the ripped seams and ruined embroidery reversed themselves, and it was as if Lady Tremaine had never gotten her hands on it. 

“Although . . .” She bit her lip, as if unsure whether her next words would land. “Maybe – for the sake of tonight, we – spruce you up a little? It’ll be back to its normal colour by morning.”

Kit blushed, thought it over for a moment, and then nodded. His Fairy smiled again, and flicked her wand at him. Sparks flew from the tip of her wand and settled over his clothes; Kit screwed up his eyes at the brightness, but almost as soon as his eyes had shut the sparks faded. He opened his eyes again, and couldn’t contain his gasp. 

His jacket and trousers had completely changed colour, from their well-known and loved green and brown to both being purest white. The golden embroidery across the jacket had become a shimmering silver, the cuffs a pale blue slightly lighter than his eyes. Even his boots had changed colour to a striking black. He looked up at the Good Fairy, who was smiling at her own handiwork. 

“Now, do hurry along, dear boy,” she said. “This carriage will get you there as quickly and easily as a single rider, but even then we’re cutting things fine.” She bustled him towards the carriage, only to drag him back by one hand. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She placed her two hands on his cheeks, and bent his head down to kiss his forehead. Rather than being shocked or repelled at the sudden liberty, Kit instead felt a little jolt of recognition and love. “That will prevent your stepmother from recognising you,” she explained, quickly bustling past him. 

“Are you – do I know you?” he asked. 

The Good Fairy stopped in her tracks, and turned to face him again. “Oh, dear me, your father did always say I would be too scatter-brained to introduce myself properly,” she smiled fondly. “You haven’t seen me since you were very, very small, but you do know me.”

Hesitantly, Kit asked, “Mother?”

The Fairy smiled again, and kissed his cheek. “Dear boy,” she said. “Dear man, I should say. I’m sorry I can’t do more to help than this, but rest assured – you have everything you need to save yourself. I’m just glad I got to see you, all grown up.”

Kit smiled back at her, and gripped her hand tightly for one moment. 

“Now, go, go!” she cried. Obediently, he hopped into the carriage and closed the door, keeping the window open on the latch. 

“I – Mother, thank you,” he said earnestly. 

“Not at all, dear boy,” she smiled. “But I must warn you – you have only until the stroke of midnight at the ball. Once the clock finishes striking twelve, the spell will be broken and all will be as it was before.”

Kit nodded. “Thank you,” he said again. 

His mother stepped away from the coach and blew him a kiss, before vanishing in another tower of sparks. Kit heard the horses – the mice – the horses start to move, and he settled back in his seat. He glanced out the window, only to see that his mother’s promise had been true; they were not travelling at the steady pace of a carriage, even a carriage at full gallop, but with the quick movements and forest route that Kit had planned to take as a single rider. Kit let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding. With one hand, he snuck his fingertips down his left boot to check that the contract was still there – to his relief, it was. 

As the carriage rumbled on, Kit began to sketch a quick plan in his head for how the night would, hopefully, pass. First, he would find Ella, apologise for being late, and maybe even kiss her again. Then, with Ella’s help to pinpoint which of the no doubt numerous young women in beautiful ballgowns she was, he would find Princess Eleanor, and ask for her help to regain the freedom he had lost for fifteen years.

Chapter Text

iii.

To Kit’s surprise, the palace steps were almost deserted by the time the carriage drew to a stop in front of them. From inside he could hear the sounds of distant music and the rolling, rich laughter of a large crowd. The carriage door flicked open by itself and Kit tentatively stepped out as the clock tower, looming tall and bright from the centre of town, finished striking three-quarters past ten. Sparing one glance back at the carriage, where the four horses and Jasper still stood at sharp attention, Kit began the long climb up the steps of the palace. 

There were two guards standing at the open doors. While Kit met both of their eyes, he was aware in some mysterious way that they took no notice of him, beyond the fact that he was a tall, male guest. He frowned in confusion even as he walked past them, before remembering his mother’s kiss. Evidently it worked on persons beside his stepmother. He continued through the entrance hall, following the obvious signs of traffic and the occasional straggler; taking in the bright colours and lush fabrics around him, Kit was suddenly glad that he had been given the gift of a magically-created outfit. He was already out of his element simply by being here. His outfit, at least, wouldn’t cause him to stick out even more. 

As he wandered through the warmly-decorated halls, the sounds of music and dancing grew louder. Kit could see two more servants standing tall by a pair of ajar double doors, through which he could just make out the wildly spinning skirts of ladies as they danced along intricate patterns. He approached the doors cautiously. Now that he was nearer, he could feel how much warmer the ballroom was than the entrance hall; due as much to the numerous bodies, swinging and clapping in time to the music as the sheer number of candles he could see illuminating the room. 

The two servants seemed to notice he was there for the first time, looking him up and down with a look of unmistakable confusion. One of them seemed about to ask something, but was silenced by a pointed look from the other before he could do more than take a breath. 

“Do you wish to be announced, sir?” asked the one who had glared. “We are in rather mixed company tonight, and not everyone here has a title.”

The servant clearly didn’t know how to treat Kit, between his fine clothes and how clearly overwhelmed he was by the majesty of the palace. Despite his pointed words, his tone erred on the side of sympathetic, assuming (correctly) that Kit was most likely a poorer man who had somehow stumbled into fine clothes for the night. 

“No, thank you,” Kit said, relieved at being given the out. “That won’t be necessary.”

The servant nodded, and together with his companion swung the doors fully open. Kit took four short steps inside, only to find to his horror that he was at the very top of an elegant staircase that led straight down to the dance floor, the clear focal point of the entire ballroom. Far, far worse, the orchestra had finished playing just as the servants had opened the door; in the comparative hush as the dancing couples caught their breath and downed drinks to cool their fevered cheeks, several people had turned with interest at the sound of another guest entering the ball. 

But beyond any of that, what truly stole Kit’s breath from his lungs was the sight of Ella, resplendent in blue, her fair hair hanging in loose waves. She was talking politely to her partner, but turned her head as she noticed the crowd’s shifting attention. Her cheeks were flushed pink from exertion, crystals in her hair catching the light as she turned to face Kit. Her eyes seemed to light up at the sight of him, a stunned smile dawning over her face. She began to walk, steadily but not slowly, towards the base of the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye Kit could see the crowd move carefully out of Ella’s path, but he could not tear his gaze away from her. He realised with a little start that he had started walking as well, and was already halfway down the last set of stairs. 

He reached the floor, and stood up tall and straight as Ella drew nearer. Now that they were closer, he could see more details on her dress. It wasn’t a block of colour, but rather several different shades of blue and purple layered on top of each other, sky-blue, periwinkle and lavender. He noticed little butterflies adorning her neckline; itself clinging to her shoulders even as it dipped below her exposed clavicle. Their wings fluttered slightly as she moved, as if they could take flight at any moment. The overall effect was as if the sky, during that brief period before night truly fell when the stars emerged on a still-blue backdrop, had been cut, drawn, and stitched into a dress. It was a true marvel of a creation; yet Kit could spare it barely a passing glance, when he had Ella’s clever eyes and charming smile to look at instead. His eyes flew back up to hers.

She was standing directly in front of him now. He bowed – he was sure he remembered that lords bowed to ladies when meeting in public – and straightened up again carefully. He smiled at her, aware even as he did it that the familiarity of the gesture directly contradicted the formality of the bow, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Ella’s smile, which had relaxed as she walked, bloomed afresh, just as lovely as the first time he had seen it. She curtsied, and when she straightened up he could see the butterflies flutter as her breath came a little more quickly. 

“My lord,” she said. Her voice was clear as a bell; although she was talking only to him, the relative silence of the ballroom meant that her words echoed through the crowd. “You came.” Her eyes flickered over him, and when they met again he could see a slight mischievous glint in them. “You’re not wearing green.”

Kit smiled. “So you do recognise me.” 

She laughed softly, her eyes darting to his lips and back again. “Yes,” she said. “I would say there’s something about you that distinguishes you from the other men at this ball.”

Kit blushed at his own words getting thrown back at him, ducking his head slightly before meeting her eyes again. As he did so, he noticed that the crowd, although they had all begun talking amongst themselves again, were openly looking at Kit and Ella where they stood at the base of the stairs. 

“They’re all looking at you,” he murmured. “Why are they all looking at you?”

Ella glanced at them out of the corner of her eye, tucking a curled lock of hair behind one ear as she turned back to Kit. “They’re looking at you,” she corrected. “I think they’re wondering if you’re going to ask me to dance.”

“I –” Kit opened his mouth to counter the statement – he’d had no intention of dancing tonight – but something in Ella’s face made him stop. She was still smiling, but it was a tad more hesitant. She looked like she had in the forest last week, before they went riding and Kit’s strange mood had subsided; as if she wanted very much to ask him something, but was half-afraid that she would cause him pain in the asking.

“I mean,” Kit heard himself say instead. Ella’s face seemed to brighten in an instant, and he continued, encouraged. “If I may, then I would be . . . greatly pleased, if you would do me the honour.”

Ella’s eyes seemed to sparkle with the reflection of the candlelight as she held out her hand. He took it gently in his. She led him back to the centre of the dancefloor, the crowd parting for them once again. Kit felt as if his entire being was hyper-focused on their two hands together; the weight and warmth of Ella’s palm, the way that it did not just rest in his hand but had a firm grip on it. Her fingers squeezed reflexively as they drew to a stop, and his twitched in response. She turned to face him in a whirl of skirts, her hand slipping out of his slowly. Her fingers dragged across his palm. 

Kit’s nerves, which had been held at bay since Lady Tremaine had ripped the seams of his jacket, suddenly returned in full force. 

Breathe, he thought to himself. Just breathe.  

They bowed to each other again, before he stepped forwards and lightly placed his hand on her waist, moving it around to the small of her back. The cool satin felt like water against his hand. Ella sucked in a breath, her eyes two wide, dark pools that Kit could easily get lost in. Kit smiled as he folded his other arm back on itself, the knuckles of his hand resting on the small of his back. The violins began to play again, and the two of them began to sway carefully back and forth. 

Kit pressed his hand in a little more firmly, leading Ella in a turn about the dance floor. She followed him as easily as if they were walking in the woods. She smiled, inclining her head to the left; catching her intent, Kit unfolded his left arm and held it out as his right arm released her waist and settled behind his back. A flurry of skirts later, she was resting against his hand once again. Now, they were side-by-side. A part of him catalogued the details even as he concentrated on the dance that they were improvising together; such as the faint scent of lavender in Ella’s hair, and the elegant line of her neck as she maintained eye contact with him. 

She left his touch again, spinning so that they faced each other; switching out his hands, Kit slid his left wrist underneath Ella’s right. Their arms crested and fell like waves, their feet eddying back and forth as they did so; at the apex of the third wave, Kit spun Ella around with the faint hint pressure from his fingers around her wrist. His hand slid down her bare forearm, an unbearable liberty as of now untaken, before settling at her waist once again. Instead of letting her hand fall again, however, Ella left it lingering tantalisingly close to his face. Kit took it with his right hand, the warmth of their two hands together for an instant, before letting go completely and gently leading her to spin independent of him. Palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss, his mind whispered. 

She spun again, with the barest prompt from their hands meeting. Kit had been wrong; her dress didn’t look like the night sky. It looked like sea foam, her white petticoats peeking out from underneath the blue every time her skirts flew wide. They moved into another familiar dance step. He extended his left arm, and Ella slipped one hand into his, resting the other in his elbow. She twirled again, effortlessly resuming her place on his other arm as she drew towards him. Hand in hand once again, they arched their arms and extended them outwards, teasingly drawing nearer and farther each time. Kit couldn’t stop his smile as they continued the dance. It had always seemed daunting, whenever he spared a thought towards it – he never would have suspected that it could be so . . . easy.

Finally, they assumed a traditional ballroom hold. Their eyes met, giddy smiles on both of their faces, as Kit spun them around the dance floor. In a distant corner of his mind, he was aware of the crowd of spectators and the distance he needed to keep from them, to avoid bumping Ella into an unsuspecting guest as she followed where he led. But the greater part of his mind was consumed with Ella; the soft laughter she couldn’t seem to prevent from bubbling over as they moved together; her bare hand in his; the dexterity of her feet as they danced down the ballroom. He twirled her out, first with one arm and then with the other, again and again until he felt dizzy just looking at her. Ella seemed to feel no such thing, however, eventually spinning into his arms again and settling back into their ballroom hold. 

“Who is he?” 

“I have no idea.” 

“Have you ever seen him before?”

“Doesn’t he look familiar?”

Kit was aware of the soft buzz of conversation following them in the same way that he was aware of the multitude of bodies that bordered the dancing space. He paid them the same amount of attention – that was to say, precious little – and focused instead on keeping his footwork as neat and quick as Ella’s. He met her gaze and shifted his hold on her waist from a leading to a grasping one, a question in his eyes. Ella nodded minutely, adjusting her grip on his shoulder in turn. 

At the widest point of their next foray towards the crowd, at the point where Kit would normally lead Ella to dance backwards, he picked her up around the waist with one arm and spun them both bodily towards the centre of the dancefloor. He heard the crowd gasp in appreciation, Ella’s skirts tangling around his legs for a brief moment before swishing back into place the moment she was set down again. They travelled towards the centre of the dancefloor, and the decision was made in a split-second; Ella braced her hands on his shoulders while Kit seized her waist, and in a moment of perfect synchronisation he lifted her straight up into the air. He could definitely hear the crowd’s applause this time, although it faded in comparison to the dazzling smile Ella gave him as he set her back on the ground. They spun around, closer together than they had been so far, before their hands met once again. Ella’s free hand curved around his waist, for once, and Kit did not have to ask for clarification before dipping her, his other hand supporting her back and taking the rest of her weight. 

They righted themselves, both out of breath, their hands lingering for a moment before breaking apart. They grinned at each other, before Kit broke into another bow. Ella dipped into a low curtsy, her skirts pooling around her legs, and the crowd broke into applause as the orchestra eased into the final chord. Her eyes locked with Kit’s as she rose, their darkness all the better-suited to highlight the candlelight reflected in them, like so many stars. 

It was only when the rest of the guests began pouring onto the dancefloor around them that Kit remembered they were not alone. He blinked twice, turning his head to glance at the other dancers. With a jolt, he realised that he recognised two of them – Susanna in green, laughing and smiling with a boy her own age, and Anastasia in pink, also smiling at her partner but with a guardedness about her eyes. 

Kit was suddenly hyper-aware of the contract in his left boot, and the fact that he had only a limited amount of time at the ball. He gently placed his hand at Ella’s elbow, stepping closer so that he could murmur in her ear, “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Follow me,” she said, without a moment's hesitation. 

She took his hand again and led him through the couples as they began dancing in quick, angular movements to the second, more uptempo song. As Ella ushered him along a hallway at the other end of the ballroom, he noticed two men looking at them as they left. One of them was pale and thin, with dark hair and eyes that took Kit in shrewdly. He looked like he had been recently ill, and his manner of dress led Kit to wonder if this was perhaps the King himself. The man beside him Kit recognised, although he wasn’t sure where from. He was Black, wearing blue and gold livery, and had a genuine smile to contrast the King’s guarded facial expression. He was clearly excited to see Kit and Ella leaving together, although Kit could not for the life of him figure out why. It puzzled him to wonder what business the King and his guard could have with a noblewoman like Ella, but the thought faded from his mind a moment later as Ella led him deeper into the castle. 

“Where are we going?” he asked after a few minutes of walking through enormous halls and cavernous rooms, each grander than the one before. 

“The gardens,” Ella said. “They’re beautiful at this time of year.” She smiled at him again, radiant, as she led him outside through a pair of French doors. Kit took a breath, grateful for the fresh air. The gardens were, indeed, beautiful – farther away from the palace Kit saw what looked like a hedgerow maze, lit by golden lanterns so that none who wandered inside could get too lost. Paths of pale stone wound through the grass closer to the palace, with vibrantly-coloured flowers blooming harmoniously in neat beds. 

“So,” Ella said, walking slowly down one path. “What was it you wished to tell me?”

Kit felt his nerves return in a flash of lightning. He held his arms behind his back, loosely wrapping his fingers around his wrists, as he joined Ella’s side. “Two things,” he said. “Both very important.”

Her dark eyes were fixed on him curiously. “I have something important I wish to tell you, too.” Kit tilted his head to indicate that she should go first, but Ella said nothing, instead waiting for him to talk. 

Kit took another breath. He was acutely aware that he had only limited time here before his mother’s spell lifted. And yet despite that, he wanted nothing more than to talk with Ella for hours about nothing in particular, as they had in the woods. 

“I . . .”

He drew to a halt as they turned around the outer corner of the plant beds. They were still close enough to the palace to hear the sounds of chatter and music coming from the ballroom, but were no longer in line of sight of its many, many windows. Ella’s brow furrowed, curiosity mixing in her eyes with a concern which had not been there moments before. 

Kit took her hand. He didn’t realise that the act had required bravery of him until his shoulders relaxed when Ella flexed her fingers. When he looked at her face, he saw that her cheeks were pink. 

“Miss Ella . . .” he murmured. 

She took a step towards him. Kit’s free hand found her waist while Ella’s slipped around his neck, guiding his head down to meet her lips in a dizzying kiss. 

This was nothing like their kiss in the woods. That had been chaste and gentle, neither of them even touching beyond their lips and her fingers on his wrist. Now, Kit felt the nerve endings over his entire body sing as he pulled Ella closer to him by her waist. He could feel the warmth of her body pressed to his and the boning of her corset under his hand, as she opened her sweet-tasting mouth and slid her tongue against his. It was an onslaught of sensation, drawn into sharp focus as Ella let go of his hand to dig her fingers into the breath of his shoulders and drag him even closer. Nothing seemed to exist outside of their little bubble. All that mattered were the little noises Ella made when Kit caught her lower lip between his teeth; the bruising pressure of her fingers on his shoulders; the delicate lavender scent in her hair; the way he couldn’t stop himself from pressing frantic kisses to her cheeks and jaw every time they separated to draw breath, before finding each other’s mouths again. 

Kit wasn’t sure how long they spent crushing each other close before their kisses eventually gentled. They became softer, more lingering, the emphasis shifting away from teeth and tongue and back towards their lips. When Ella drew away to catch her breath, Kit gently pressed his forehead against hers instead of attempting to capture her lips again. They simply stood there, arms intertwined around each other, their chests rising and falling rapidly as their breathing slowly returned to normal. Kit smiled to himself before gently lifting his head to meet her eyes. Ella was smiling too, with kiss-stung lips and her pupils wide and dark, and Kit thought with a small jolt, I did that, I made her look like that, I made her smile.

Ella let out a soft huff of a laugh, before asking, “Was that . . . the first thing, or the second?” 

Kit could feel the heat radiating off his face as he blushed, but found that he didn’t mind too much when Ella was blushing as well. “The first,” he said.

Behind them, Kit became distantly aware of a muffled conversation. He turned to look over one shoulder, catching sight of a guard and a liveried servant through a window. They both looked serious, their body language clearly tense, although neither of them had noticed Kit and Ella yet. Ella took his hand again, and he turned back to face her. 

“Come on,” she said quietly. “We can talk for a while longer without interruption if you follow me a little farther.”

Hand in hand, they skirted the far edge of the maze and entered through a gap in the hedge at the farthest point from the castle. Ella trailed her free hand along the ivy-covered wall that made up the back of the maze, stopping seemingly at random. Her eyes found his in the near-dark. They had left lanterns far behind them, and were now bathed only in moonlight. Despite that, he could see the details of her dress almost as clearly as he had in the ballroom – the moon above them was full, a bright, silver penny in the sky. 

“Not . . . many people know about this place,” Ella said to him. She twisted her wrist, pressed against the wall, and swept aside the ivy to reveal –

“A secret garden,” Kit breathed. 

With a soft smile, she swept her abundant skirts through the door and into the garden; Kit followed closely behind, letting the door swing shut behind him. It was a small garden for a palace – maybe three times the size of the vegetable patch on the estate – and was mostly grass and wildflowers. A willow tree grew in one corner; he could imagine it in daytime offering shade from the heat. A small bench was placed underneath it; Ella took a seat there in one corner, pulling her skirts as close to her body as she could to leave room for Kit on the bench as well. They both giggled a little at the situation, Kit’s partially stemming from nervousness at what he was about to ask of Ella. 

“My father built this place for my mother,” Ella said after their giggles had died down. “She always said it was a kind of . . . safe haven for her, when everything got a bit too much. Father gave me the key after she died. Now I come here, and if the weather’s clear I read.”

“I can see why,” Kit said. There was something off about her statement, although he wasn’t sure what it was, precisely. He mentally set it aside for the moment, once again hyper-aware of the papers in his left boot. 

A stray breeze swept through the garden, and Ella shivered. Her hands crossed over themselves to cover her upper arms, gooseflesh breaking out over her skin. Kit shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Ella fixed her dark eyes on him, and let out a soft, surprised, “Thank you,” before tugging the lapels to fit her torso a little more snugly. In the soft moonlight, the sounds of the ball muffled by distance, it seemed to Kit as if they had entered a completely different world. A world of companionable silences, and the knowledge that the person next to you would feel just as comfortable talking for hours at a time as they would if that companionable silence was never broken. As far back as Kit could recall, he had never felt that way about anyone before.

Oh, he realised quietly. 

“You said . . . you said there were two things you wanted to talk to me about?” Ella said. 

“Yes,” he said, setting that thought to one side for the moment as well. “I – I came tonight because I wanted to see you. But that wasn’t my only reason for coming tonight.”

Kit took a deep breath, looking down at his hands to avoid looking at Ella’s face. Why had he thought that kissing her was an act of courage, when this was so much more terrifying than that had ever been?

“I need to speak to Princess Eleanor. I need her help with . . . a matter of some importance. And I hoped that you would be able to point me in her direction, when we go back to the ballroom.” Kit slipped the indenture contract out of his boot, holding it at both ends so that the paper didn’t betray his trembling hands. Summoning what little pride he still had left, he lifted his head to meet Ella’s gaze. 

To his surprise, Ella did not appear to be displeased, or even confused by his words. Instead, her face was caught in a rueful smile, her cheeks flooded with colour once again. She tossed her head, her hair cascading down over the epaulettes on his jacket, before meeting his eyes. 

“You didn’t notice her, earlier?” she asked, her voice high and lilting – part teasing, part some other emotion he couldn’t identify. “The princess? Everyone was looking at her.”

“No,” Kit said. “I was only looking at . . .”

Ella bit at her lip. Suddenly, everything about this night, and everything Ella had told him about her life, slotted into place. The man beside the King, whom he recognised but couldn’t place. The way that the crowds of noblemen had parted for Ella without question as she walked towards him. The garden that her father had built for her mother. The emotion in her voice – the reason she was biting her lip – it was nervousness. And she was nervous because –

Kit blinked. “You’re her. You’re Princess Eleanor, aren’t you?”

Ella let out all her breath at once and nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” she said in a rush. “But – you’re the only one who’s spoken to me like I’m a person in . . . I don’t even know how long. Forgive me? I thought – I knew – you would treat me differently if you knew who I was.” Her hands twisted together in her lap. “Are you terribly upset with me?”

“I’m –” Kit let out his own long-held breath; it turned into a disbelieving laugh at the end. He shook his head, not quite believing the dramatic irony of the situation, and met her gaze once again. “I understand. I’ve not exactly been open about my own background.” They sat in silence for a moment, before Kit started, “Miss Ell – I mean, Your – should I call you –?”

“Oh, no, please – call me Ella.” Ella shot one of her hands out to cover his. His hand flipped underneath it, so that they were palm-to-palm. 

“You – you said your father was teaching you his trade. The trade of a wordsmith.”

“He is teaching me his trade,” Ella said, blushing. “I’m an apprentice monarch. And what is politics if not wordsmithery?”

Kit laughed again, and Ella joined in. He let go of the contract with one hand to cover Ella’s in both of his, and they sat for a moment in comfortable stillness. From far away, Kit thought he could make out the sounds of trumpets in the ballroom. 

“Won’t you be missed at the ball?” he asked. 

“I’d rather stay out here for a while, with you,” Ella said. “And besides, when I haven’t been talking with politicians I’ve been dancing with ‘eligible bachelors’ all night.”

“I thought you said this was supposed to be a birthday celebration, not a time to announce a betrothal?”

Ella chuckled. “You’re right, I did say that. And I won’t announce any betrothal tonight – Father knows that. He just . . . he worries about me. About the kingdom. He wants to see me happy, and settled. He fears that . . . that he may not have long to do so.”

Kit squeezed her hand. Ella moved so that her head lay against his shoulder, the line of her neck curving down from her jaw to the hollow of her collarbone. She let out a bone-deep sigh, and the butterflies Kit could see on her neckline fluttered as her chest rose and fell steadily. He turned his head, ever so slightly, and brushed his lips against her hair in the barest suggestion of a kiss.

“So, if I may ask . . .” Ella said quietly. “What do you need my help with?”

Kit sat up straight on the bench, untangling their hands so that his contract hung between them as Ella righted herself. He cleared his throat, ready to finally tell her how he really lived, and the extent of the disparity between their stations. 

At the very moment he opened his mouth, the clock tower began to strike. 

Kit froze. What was the time? He remembered coming in – it hadn’t even been eleven o’clock yet – but how long had he been here for? He glanced around in the direction of the clock tower, and felt a punched-out gasp escape. 

“It can’t be midnight already,” he whispered. 

“What did you say?” Ella asked, a small line appearing between her brows as she frowned. “Is everything alright?”

Kit swung back around to face her, and pressed the folded-up contract in her hands. “Ella, I have to go, I’m sorry –”

“Go? What do you mean? You just got here!”

“I – it’s hard to explain – pumpkins and mice and – things . . .” Kit gripped her hands firmly, looking straight into her eyes. “I – there’s no time to explain, but please read this contract. If you think it’s fair and correct, then you don’t have to do anything and I’m sorry for wasting all this time. If, as I suspect, it’s an unjust contract, then you’ll know better than me what to do about it.”

“I – wait, wait!” Ella called out, as Kit jumped from the bench and ran towards the door in the wall. The first chime of the hour rang through the night.

“You’ve been so kind to me,” Kit said earnestly. He flung the door open and spun around so that he was facing Ella, his arms braced on the door jambs. “This has been a wonderful evening – and even if I never see you again, I’ll remember every second of it.” 

Ella stared back at him from her spot on the bench, frozen in silver and blue. “I don’t –” Ella started, but she was interrupted by the clock tower striking the second chime of midnight.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Kit said again. He backed out of the door and began running back towards the castle, retracing the short path he and Ella had taken into the maze.

From behind him, Kit heard Ella shout, “You still haven’t told me your name! How am I supposed to find you if I don’t know your name?”

He kept running. Everything Ella could possibly need to find him was contained in the contract. All that mattered now was leaving the palace grounds before his mother’s magic wore off and Lady Tremaine recognised him. 

Kit left the maze with little difficulty, and sprinted across the grounds back into the palace proper. He heard the third chime ring out as he darted past the guard and servant who had been talking earlier, and clearly had not yet come to a consensus on whatever they were discussing. 

“I know she’s the princess,” Kit heard the guard say, “but I’m not sure she appreciates the risk of going into the grounds alone with a strange –”

“Sir?” The servant interrupted the guard as Kit kept running. “Sir, are you alright?”

“Fine, thank you!” Kit called back as he kept up his pace. He was thankful, suddenly, that the path Ella had taken to the gardens was a straightforward one; he would never have been able to find his way through the palace if she had taken him on a winding route. He distantly heard the fourth chime ring out as he entered the ballroom again, the orchestra drowning out the bells with their exuberant song.

The floor was flooded with dancers, and Kit hurriedly wove his way through them to get to the stairs again. He ended up passing both of his sisters on the dancefloor – in his hurry to get away, he wasn’t sure if they even saw him or not – and after almost upsetting a drinks tray carried by yet another liveried servant, rushed up the stairs. His calves were beginning to burn with the effort of keeping up his speed, but Kit knew he couldn’t slow down now. He barrelled straight through the main doors back into the entrance hall, only to come face to face with the King himself. Kit leapt nimbly backwards, only narrowly avoiding a collision. 

“Your Majesty!” he gasped, immediately producing a low bow. “I – I’m so sorry.”

“Oh – think nothing of it, young man,” the King said. “Come on, you may rise – and you may leave, as well, given the hurry you’re in.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Kit said. He straightened up and took two steps in the direction of the palace steps, before doing a swift about-turn and facing the King again. The King raised a grey-flecked eyebrow, but stayed to listen.

“I just wanted to say, Your Majesty,” he panted, “that your daughter Ella is perhaps the kindest, most wonderful person I have ever met. And she worries about you, a great deal.” He bowed again. The King’s expression as Kit backed away was thoughtful. He would have stayed to hear whatever the king had to say, had another chime not broken across his ears at that precise moment.

“Excuse me,” Kit said. He turned and ran towards the main doors, his boots rapping out a staccato beat against the tiled floors of the entrance hall. 

Kit was out of doors and already on the palace steps before he realised three things, each of increasing importance. Firstly, the carriage was exactly where he had left it at the bottom of the castle steps, although it was now facing a homewards direction. Secondly, more time had passed in the ballroom than he had realised, unable to hear the clock tower – the minute hand was ever-so-slightly past the hour, which meant that Kit had no idea which of the chimes currently ringing out into the darkness was the last chime of midnight. And, finally, the wind was far fiercer on this side of the palace than it had been where he and Ella had been ensconced in the walled garden – and he felt this last especially keenly, because it was only then that Kit realised he had left his jacket hanging loosely over Ella’s shoulders. 

There was no time to run back for it now. Kit raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time and hoping he didn’t go flying. He was over halfway down the steps, the carriage door already opened by Jasper for him, when he heard a man cry out, “Wait!”

Instinctively, he stopped. Kit twisted at the waist to see who was calling after him – to his surprise, it was the man who had stood beside the king, the same man who had escorted Ella away from the woods the first time they had met. “Woodsman!” the man called out. “Wait!”

Kit glanced over at the clock, and then back to the man steadily making ground upon him, torn between the two. Another chime rang out, and the decision was made. Kit turned back to the carriage, running as quickly as he could down the steps. He could hear the man still calling out for him to wait, but Kit couldn’t stop himself now. In one fluid movement he pulled himself into the carriage and hauled the door shut, yelling, “Now, Jasper, hurry!”

As if the momentum he had gathered running downstairs had transferred over perfectly, the carriage jolted to life and was off at high speed barely a second later. Kit collapsed against the seat, bracing his arms against the door and the back of the cushion as he fought to catch his breath. He turned around to look through the carriage window as the horses galloped back along the road that led to home. The man from the woods was still standing on the steps where Kit had left him. Behind him, Kit could have sworn he saw a glimpse of Ella in her dark blue skirts silhouetted against the main doors of the palace, his white jacket still around her shoulders, before the carriage turned a corner and they were lost from sight. 

Kit let out a long, low whistle through his teeth as he sank back into the cushioned seat of the carriage. His heart was still drumming against his sternum with the ferocity of a military tattoo, although the rate was beginning to steady once more. He allowed his eyes to slide shut for a few beats as the carriage entered the forest, and listened quietly to the sounds of hooves on the forest floor and his own breathing. 

When Kit opened them again a moment later, it was to a carriage which was definitely smaller and more orange than it had been seconds before. Kit gasped, sliding over to the window to see if he could catch any glimpse of the clock tower – but no such luck. They were already deep in the woods, and clearly the allotted time from his mother to go to the ball had run out. The carriage shrunk again, the scent of pumpkin suddenly overwhelming, and Kit rapped on the roof with alarm. The walls were pressing in on his shoulders, great stringy seeds forming out of the gold curlicues on the inside, and he was suddenly struck with the image of what might happen to him if the carriage became a pumpkin once more with him still inside.

“Stop! Stop!”

To his relief, the carriage drew to a halt almost as soon as the words had left his mouth. Kit forced the door open – it was softer and squidgier – and staggered out of the pumpkin carriage, landing flat on his stomach in his hurry to get away. He flipped over, bruising both hip and elbow on the forest floor as he propelled himself backwards by a few inches, just in time to see the carriage fold in on itself in a burst of golden light, once more simply a (now rather bruised and battered) yellow pumpkin. Kit glanced to one side – the four white horses that had drawn the carriage were mice once more, already scurrying away into the underbrush. Jasper was back to his usual self, looking at the pumpkin with faint interest before deciding that the grass of the forest floor was more worthy of attention. Looking down at his own splayed-out body, Kit saw that the white trousers and black boots had changed back to brown. Kit let out the last of his breath, and looked up at the sky. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. He hoped that his mother was able to hear it. 

Jasper walked towards him – seemingly no worse for wear, just as his mother had promised – and Kit hopped to his feet. He stroked his flank, gently, reaching up to scratch his ears, before gently encouraging him towards a tree stump. A moment or two later Kit had swung himself on top of Jasper; with a squeeze of his legs, the two of them were off home again. His hands wrapped carefully in Jasper’s mane; as the horse had been neither saddled nor bridled before his transformation, Kit was riding bareback, and did not relish the thought of falling off of his horse now, after the night he’d had. Thankfully, they reached the Tremaine household without further incident, and when Kit crept into the stables with Jasper he was doubly thankful to see that his sisters and Lady Tremaine had not arrived home yet. 

He stabled Jasper, setting him down with water and food for the night, before climbing up his ladder. As Kit undressed, folding his good clothes carefully as always, he found his thoughts zipped around his head, from one thing to another. The way Ella had looked at him in the ballroom – the fact that she was the princess – he had spoken to the King without permission and somehow avoided getting arrested – he had kissed the princess – the feeling of her in his arms as they danced together – the guard had called him “Woodsman”, did he know who he was? – Ella’s head resting on his shoulder – the look in her eyes when he had given her his jacket – was his jacket green again; everything else had returned to normal, had it done so as well? – she had his contract of indenture, she held his very life in her hands and no doubt by now knew exactly who he was – and he had kissed her until his knees had gone weak, and she had kissed him back. 

Kit collapsed on his bed with a sigh. He could hear the sounds of a carriage drawing up to the house, followed by the soft chatter of his sisters and Lady Tremaine as they walked the short distance from the carriage to the front door. But when he closed his eyes, all Kit saw was Ella in the ballroom, in the forest, her eyes sparkling, two deep, dark pools, then near-invisible when scrunched up with laughter; she spun around in her yellow riding habit, blue falling over it like the night as the butterflies left the daisies and landed on her neckline, and he did not hear the sounds of the carriage trundling back towards town over the dreamed memory of the song the orchestra had played as they waltzed.

Ella sat down at the bureau in her study. She was dressed for bed, her hair neatly braided for sleep. Her ladies-maids had been quiet that night – starting the process of undressing her in high spirits, they quickly caught on to her more reflective mood. She was thankful for that. Ella wasn’t sure how she would have coped if she had had to pretend to still be in high spirits even in the privacy of her own room – it had been difficult enough turning back around and facing everybody in the ballroom, after Captain Harker had ran back up the stairs as nimbly as he had walked down them and told her that despite his best efforts, the man from the woods had barely hesitated before leaping into his carriage and riding off into the night. 

Ella had allowed herself perhaps twenty seconds of visible confusion and distress before schooling her face back into the charming veneer it had worn most of the night, before he had appeared at the top of the stairs and made her heart fly out of her chest with giddy joy just at the sight of him. She had shrugged out of his jacket, but held it to her chest, not quite willing to let go of it yet. To her and Captain Harker’s shock, on the last stroke of midnight the familiar dark green colour had seeped back across it before their very eyes. They had shared an incredulous look. 

“Tell no one of this,” Ella had whispered, folding the jacket up with quick, efficient movements. “Not even my father, not yet. This can all be dealt with tomorrow; tonight I need to go back into that ballroom and be the diplomat the kingdom needs.”

Captain Harker had nodded. “I’ll see that this ends up in a safe place.”

“My rooms,” Ella had said. “Captain – don’t let anybody see you carrying it. Not one of the guests, not even one of the servants.”

“Consider it done, my lady,” he had replied. And as always, he had been true to his word – a very short search on Ella’s part, once she was finally alone, revealed that the jacket had been hidden in the false bottom of one of her bureau drawers, the only hint the key jauntily hanging out of the lock. 

So he had spirited the jacket off to her rooms, and Ella had sallied back into the ballroom, smiling and being generally charming. For the better part of an hour she danced with both diplomats and the few common young men from the kingdom brave enough to ask her until the ball began to officially break up. All the while she was acutely aware of the thin letter that Mister Greensleeves had given her, folded up and pressed against her ribcage in the sliver of space between her chemise and her bare skin. When the first families began to leave, she pleaded a headache and swiftly left the room, her heels clicking against the polished floor of the castle like nervous fingernails on a desk. 

Now, she lifted the jacket out of the bureau drawer carefully. It looked to be in as good condition as it had ever been, despite its colour change. Ella frowned thoughtfully, before pulling it over her shoulders once again. Little goosebumps rose over her arms and chest – unlike earlier, the jacket was not warm from the man’s body heat – and Ella pulled the lapels closer over her collarbones as she considered the letter he had pressed into her hands, lying flat on the desk in front of her like an accusation. 

“What’s it all about, then?” she murmured. “What do you need my help with? And why couldn’t you stop to explain any of it before you left?”

It was maybe a little childish of her, but Ella almost didn’t want to unfold the letter and find out what was written on it. She knew, in the back of her mind, that once she read those words that the relationship she had with the man from the woods would be forever changed. He called it a contract, she remembered. He wanted to know if it was just or unjust, and he trusts you to know better than him what to do about it. Get a hold of yourself. Have courage.

Ella took a breath and unfolded the letter. She spent several seconds reading over it. At first, her face showed only professional interest. The longer she looked at it, however, the more her face changed. Her brow folded together in confusion. She leaned over towards the desk, angling her lamp towards it to be sure that she was reading it correctly. She let out a disbelieving huff of air as she let it fall limply to the desk again, bracing her arms against the wood. After a moment, her head snapped upright. Anyone could have read her face and correctly deduced her emotional state, but only a select few would understand the significance of Princess Eleanor’s righteous fury.

The rage burned within her, not a blazing inferno but an orange-red coal, all through the rest of the night and well into the next day, until she was able to meet with both her father and Captain Harker in private, and present them with the jacket, the contract, and the few pieces of information that Mister Greensleeves – Mr Tremaine, rather – had given her before he left so hurriedly. 

“Well?” Ella asked after she had told the whole story. 

Her father pushed his reading glasses down his nose as he looked up at her. “What do you think, Ella?” he asked. 

“I think that Mr Tremaine was right to seek outside advice on this contract,” Ella said fiercely. “Anybody with a brain could see that it’s completely taking advantage of him – not to mention the legality of the situation.” She leaned over the table, running her fingertip underneath the relevant section of the text. “See here, Father – the entire debt is £50,000, but it’s dated for fifteen years ago. He can’t have been much more than a child when he signed that – how can a child end up in £50,000 of debt?”

“Very true,” her father said.

“Something else seems odd,” Captain Harker added. “Sarah Tremaine, née Russell – what kind of mother would draw up a contract like this? Surely she can’t be –”

“No, it’s impossible,” Ella said. “He told me that his mother died soon after he was born; he grew up with a stepmother, and half-sisters.”

“So his stepmother drew it up,” Captain Harker said. “And obviously didn’t get it notarised or approved by anybody – see how it’s all handwritten?”

“She didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing,” Ella said slowly. “Aside from the obvious – why? Why the secrecy? Why even do such a thing to your stepson in the first place?”

“It was written fifteen years ago, you said?” Ella’s father said, as if he had just realised something. 

“Yes – why?” Ella asked. 

“Because,” her father said slowly, “fifteen years ago was when the HMS Moore sank – and the Moore carried –”

“A merchant,” Ella said. “He said that as a child his father told him stories of far-off places that he had visited in his job as a merchant.” Her eyes snapped to first her father’s face, and then Captain Harker’s. “Captain,” she said, “would you be able to verify the names of those who went down with the Moore?”

“I’d say it could be easily done, my lady,” Captain Harker said. “And once we’ve secured more information – birth records from the chapel, and the other half of this indenture – I should say it would be an easy matter to –”

“No,” Ella said. 

Captain Harker quirked his eyebrow. “No?” he echoed. 

“I gathered the impression that Lady Tremaine was not a kind woman,” she said. “She was in attendance at the ball, wasn’t she? You saw how quickly he ran away at midnight – and her family left not long afterwards. All night, he stayed away from the ballroom, apart from his first dance.” Which I cajoled him into, Ella thought privately with a sharp stab of guilt, remembering the surprise and momentary hesitation that had flickered over his face before he had accepted her invitation. If anything has happened to him because of a stupid impulse I had to dance with him, to let everyone see who I chose, I will never forgive myself.

“So what do you suggest? By your own reasoning, a wrong has been done and this man has come to you to set it right,” the king said. 

“Captain Harker is right – we need those documents, and we need to be sure that Mr Tremaine can leave without fear of reprisal from his stepmother.” Ella reached over for the green jacket, feeling the cool weight of the silk in her hands. “I propose a little subterfuge,” she said. 

“Explain yourself,” the king said. Anyone else would have thought him displeased. But Ella could see the twinkle in her father’s eye that always preceded the onset of a good puzzle.

“I suggest,” Ella said, “that we ask all eligible men in the kingdom, no matter their station in life, the answer to a simple riddle.”

“And what would be their incentive for participating?” the king asked, the corner of his mouth curving slightly as he did so. 

“Merely,” Ella answered with a wry grin of her own, “that the man who answers the riddle correctly may take a princess’s hand in marriage.”

“My lady, with respect,” Captain Harker said, “if his stepmother is as dangerous as you believe –”

“Oh, I don’t believe for a second that he would risk his own safety like that,” Ella said, even as her heart ached to think of him in that kind of danger. “But we don’t need him to come and reveal himself to us – we need a distraction. And I’d say that this is one hell of a distraction. Don’t you agree?”

Her father chuckled. “Ella, dear, you are allowed to admit that you would like to marry him as well as save him from this illegal indenture.”

Ella blushed, but didn’t deny the accuracy of her father’s words. “When you know, you know,” she said. “Right, father?”

The Captain sighed, knowing when he was beaten, although his face was already easing into a smile. “Of all the men you danced with last night, you had to go and choose that one, didn’t you?”

Ella grinned. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

The entire household spent the week after the ball walking on eggshells. Lady Tremaine, far from being pleased with the events of the ball, instead stormed about incessantly, her skirts flapping like a man-o’-war’s sails. Susanna had made several promising connections to eligible young gentlemen, which ordinarily would have pleased her; however, as Kit learned later that week when Susanna stole out to pay him a visit in the stables, Anastasia had been cold and standoffish to all her dancing partners that night and had made no such connections. This had not pleased Lady Tremaine.

On Kit’s part, it took him almost two days to stop breaking out in a cold sweat whenever he thought about the contract in Ella’s possession, and another two after that to stop himself wondering if Lady Tremaine knew what he had done with it. He could only hope that Ella had a plan – and that she would put it into action sooner rather than later. 

“Something’s not right, Buttons,” Susanna said after she had reported back the state of things in the house. “Mother’s spending more time in her study now than she has in weeks.” 

Kit felt his blood run cold. “You don’t think –”

“No, I don’t think so,” Susanna said grimly – the same thought had evidently occurred to her already. “Can you imagine if she had? She wouldn’t be able to hide it.”

“So what is she doing in there?” Kit asked. 

Susanna shrugged. “I have as little idea as you.” A moment later, she frowned. “Do you hear that commotion coming from the house, or am I finally hearing Mother even when she’s not here?”

Kit pushed back his chair. “No, I hear it too,” he confirmed. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

The siblings hurried out of the stables and back towards the house, Susanna running slightly ahead so that Lady Tremaine did not notice they had been spending time together. Kit followed ten heartbeats later, half-afraid that it would be to find his deception revealed. 

As soon as he reached the front of the house, he realised with a burst of relief that he was still safe for now. The little maid who always seemed to flush around him was all in a flutter, telling Mrs Walker, the scullery maid, and Anastasia about something she had heard in town. Kit slowed down, about to go back to the stables; if it wasn’t an emergency, he had more important work to be getting on with.

“Slow down, child,” Mrs Walker said grumpily. “Now, start from the beginning – what on earth is it that’s got you so wound up? Who was saying what about the Princess?”

Kit’s ears perked up. He swivelled back around to face the group, his interest piqued. 

“There was a town crier,” the little maid said. “He was in the livery of the Royal House, and he was ringing the bell and everything.”

“And what did he say?” Anastasia asked. 

“He said,” the little maid continued, clearly a little cowed at all the attention she was suddenly receiving, “That Princess Eleanor had declared her love for the young gentleman at the ball – the one who left without his jacket – but that because he hadn’t left a name, nor been introduced, that nobody knew how to find him, like.”

“That’s what he said word for word, is it?” Mrs Walker said sarcastically. 

“It’s the gist of it,” the little maid said airily. “He’s always so wordy – anyway, that’s not the important bit. The important bit is that because they don’t know who he is, they’re going all throughout the land and asking all the eligible young men to answer a riddle by royal decree – and whoever answers it correctly gets to marry the princess! They’re starting today – they should be here by the end of the week!”

The women reacted with appropriate enthusiasm to this announcement. Kit, by contrast, felt as if he had been hit over the back of the head with his own spade. The little maid’s last words kept echoing in his head, like the final stroke of midnight from – was it really only the week before? Marry the princess. Whoever answers the riddle correctly gets to marry the princess.

Kit walked away from the house in a daze, barely looking where he was going. He looked up in confusion moments later when he found himself back in the stables again, his empty mug of tea still sitting out on the table where he had left it. 

“Marry – me?” he whispered, as if by hearing the words coming out of his own mouth they would make any more sense. 

Jasper blinked back at him, placid brown eyes offering no comfort beyond animal presence. 

Kit blew out a breath from between his teeth, running his fingers through his hair. He let out a sigh, allowing his arms to fall back to his sides. 

“She wants to marry me.” 

He laughed in disbelief, and spent the rest of the day whistling Greensleeves under his breath, unaware that of all the eyes that followed him that day, the two that followed him the closest belonged to his stepmother.

“Mistress wants to see you,” the little maid said to Kit three days later, in the golden glow of a late afternoon. 

Kit straightened up from the vegetable patch, rolling his shoulders back to try and alleviate some of the stiffness. “Did she say why?”

The little maid shook her head. 

“I’ll be there in a moment,’ Kit said. “I’ll just clean up first.”

She nodded and stole back to the house, as Kit hurried to the stables to rinse the worst of the sweat from his brow and underarms. Buttoning up a clean shirt – although Lady Tremaine needed little excuse to deride him, it was best not to exacerbate her – Kit slipped back into his usual plain brown jacket and jogged to the back entrance. He nodded politely to Mrs Walker as he made his way through the kitchen, who was in the middle of dressing a particularly fat chicken for the oven; she smiled a little at the gesture, and continued on with her work. 

Kit walked steadily into the main hall, which he hadn’t seen in person for almost a full year. He was pleased to notice that the cheerful yellow wallpaper was still there, with the painted vines and flowers that made it seem like an extension of the flower garden. He smiled to himself – he could dimly remember the week or so that had been spent pasting the wallpaper up, although he had only been a young child at the time. Steeling himself with the memory, he rapped twice on the parlour door and waited, his hands folded behind his back. 

The door opened gently a moment later. Lady Tremaine had evidently been waiting for him to arrive; her jaw was set, and Kit thought he could see a strange, nervous energy in her eyes. This did not bode well. 

“You wished to see me, Madam?” he asked. 

“Follow me,” she said shortly. With a rustle of forest-green skirts, she blew past him and began climbing up the central stairs. Kit followed, at a loss. Usually whenever Lady Tremaine summoned him to the house, their meetings were strictly confined to the parlour. Now, she led him to a room on the first floor with a dark oak door. She withdrew her large ring of keys to unlock it, and Kit glanced behind him as she did so. He knew that Anastasia and Susanna’s rooms were on this floor, but he could neither see nor hear any indication of their presence. It unnerved him even more than he already was – had she already spent part of the day chastising Anastasia for not attempting to make a match at the ball? Was Susanna busy comforting her sister?

The door swung open, and Kit snapped back to attention. Lady Tremaine gestured that he should go first, and so he gingerly stepped past her and into the room. The drapes had been pulled shut over the windows, with no sunlight getting through the heavy material; the only illumination came from the hall behind him. Kit squinted as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He could dimly make out the impression of a desk, a fireplace, and shelves and shelves of books. He stiffened, his blood running cold. 

“I was looking through the financial records for the estate,” Lady Tremaine said quietly from the doorway. “Just as a matter of routine – it does not do for a lady to be unaware of the state of her affairs.”

Kit turned around, with some effort. He could not see Lady Tremaine’s face, silhouetted as she was, but every angle of her body language radiated calm fury. 

“And I found that one half of a document was missing,” she continued. “A document of some importance. I was quite puzzled, as I’m sure you can imagine. However, I was almost ready to put it out of my mind, had it not been for an interesting conversation I had the week before with a servant who was getting ideas above his station.” Her voice has started off pleasantly enough; now it was brittle like iron, with a winter’s bite. “Stealing is a serious offence, as I’m sure you know.”

“I am entitled to the other half of my own indenture contract,” Kit said quietly. 

Lady Tremaine barked out a laugh. “Fool.” She took two measured steps inside, and Kit instinctually moved back, granting her the space. “And yet,” she said, “I think that there’s more to this story than merely wanting the contract in your own possession. I could be wrong, of course.” His eyes had adjusted by now to the dark; he could see the calm rage on her face. “All you would have to do to prove me wrong is to produce the contract.”

Kit was silent. He had never been so afraid of her before – for the first time in his life, he had actually done what she was accusing him of, and it terrified him that she knew it. Despite this, he also felt a tiny nugget of courage from deep inside him, like the last glowing coal in a fireplace that has long since burned away to ash and nothingness. 

“And the plot thickens!” Lady Tremaine exclaimed. “Because on the very same night that servant selfishly tried to make a fool of our family, a mysterious man appeared at the Royal Ball and must have quite turned the princess’s head, based on the foolish actions she’s taking to find him again.” She took another step towards him. “Nobody remembered what this man looked like, of course. And it seems that he didn’t leave a name. But I find these two – let us be generous and call them coincidences – to be very interesting. I’m sure the story behind them is every bit as entertaining as the latest instalment from Mr Dickens.”

“You have no proof of anything besides unfortunate timing and a missing contract,” Kit said.

Lady Tremaine raised her eyebrows, almost as shocked at his boldness as Kit himself was. He could feel his heart racing jackrabbit fast inside his chest, and he knew that his fingers were shaking – but at the same time, his legs were solid and strong, holding him upright.

“That may be,” she said eventually. “Thankfully, nobody needs proof of wrongdoing to transfer an indentured servant to a new employer. There’s a man coming down from the North tomorrow afternoon; you will leave with him, and never darken my door again.” 

Kit could feel the blood drain from his face. He could feel his blood pulsing in thick, heavy motions at his temples, in his neck, each of his fingers, his stomach, his boots. “What?” he managed to choke out eventually. 

“I knew it was a foolish idea keeping you on the estate from the beginning,” Lady Tremaine said, almost to herself. “At least the money we would have spent on schooling and dressing you kept us afloat as long as it did. I had hoped that Anastasia would make a good marriage, and keep that going. But somebody clearly put ideas into her head. Somebody who has no idea of the position young women like Anastasia and Susanna are in every day until they are safely married. It’s hard enough finding marriages for two girls and raising dowries for them – if we had had to support a son as well? Lord of the manor who could do whatever he liked to his dependents as soon as he reached his majority?” She laughed, a hint of manic energy colouring the last notes. Her eyes were wide, clearly remembering some event from long ago, and if Kit had been in a calmer mood he would have noticed this. Circumstances being what they were, he did not.

“What kind of man did you think I was going to become?!” Kit squared his shoulders. He had never, ever raised his voice to Lady Tremaine before – not even before his father had died, when such an act would not have led to consequences as dire as they later became. “I love my sisters – I loved them then just as much as I love them now. Did you think so little of my father that you truly believed he would let his son grow up to be so callous and cruel as to cast them aside at the first convenience?”

Lady Tremaine started backwards, as if she had been wounded by his words. Normally a measured man, Kit would have stopped at that first sign and perhaps even begun making an apology. Today, however, it only incensed him more. He could feel his blood pouring thick and hot through his veins, warmed by the anger that he had never truly expressed before.

“What do you think he would say if he knew you had indentured his only son? If he knew how – how cruel you are to me – and Anastasia, and Susanna? If he knew that you were going to indenture me again, and send me away from the only home I’ve ever known? What do you think he would say, Madam?!” Kit was distantly aware of blood rushing in his ears, and that he had taken several steps closer to Lady Tremaine over the course of his tirade. He felt as if he was about to vibrate out of his skin with the buzzing energy of his fury. “Do you even think of him at all?”

That caused Lady Tremaine to snap out of her state of shock. Whiplike, she slapped him across the face with the hand holding the ring of keys. Kit let out an involuntary noise at the sting of her hand, and the scrape of cold metal. It was the first time she had laid a hand on him since he was fourteen. 

“I think of him every day, as I have thought of him every day for the last fifteen years,” she spat out, low and menacing. “I could do little else, forced to look upon the child he left me with that grew more like him with every passing hour.”

Kit recoiled at the venom in her words, retreating into the darkness of the study. Their eyes met. Hers were flint-grey, he noticed with a little start, filled with anger and spite and that same desperation he had noticed earlier. 

“What did I ever do to you?” he asked quietly. “I was a child. No one deserves to be treated as you have treated me – why did you do it? Why?”

“Why?” she echoed mockingly. “Because you were young, and innocent, and good, and I . . .”

She paused, and looked at him as if she was seeing him clearly for the first time only now. Without another word, she spun around and slammed the oak door shut, locking it with a jangle of her keys. 

“No – no!” Kit shouted, wrestling futilely with the door handle. He attempted to force it open, but the bolt holding the door shut was strong and sturdy. “You can’t do this!” he yelled, slamming his open hand against the wooden panel once, twice. “Let me out!”

Lady Tremaine slammed against the door just as forcefully from the other side. Kit leapt back as the blows rained down against the door, trembling in its frame. The attack lasted for barely twenty seconds; a moment after the last sound stopped echoing through the room, Kit heard the telltale shuffle of her skirts against the floor as she left. 

The rest of the afternoon passed with typical slowness. Kit opened the curtains after some time had passed, sick of sitting in the dark. The bright, clear blue skies above him seemed deliberately incongruous to the dire situation he was in; after a while, he propped open the window to get some relief from the hot, stuffy air in the room. He flicked listlessly through some books as the sun moved across the sky, but nothing held his attention for long – how could it? 

Eventually – and yet also too soon – night fell, bringing with it cooler air. Kit lay on his back, the drapes still wide open. He didn’t want to be alone in the dark again, not tonight. At some point after midnight – with the noises of daily life at rest, he could hear the grandfather clock in the hall clearly – he heard the creak of a door opening. Kit rose to his knees from where he had been lying supine, his head resting on his rolled-up jacket, and pressed his eye against the keyhole. His field of vision was narrow, and the keyhole itself was small. Despite these limitations, he could clearly see his sisters’ faces from across the hall, small and pale with shock. Anastasia glanced downstairs before walking over and assuming a similar position to Kit, kneeling down beside the keyhole; Susanna stayed in the doorway of their bedroom, clearly the lookout. 

This close, Kit could see the tears welling up in her blue eyes. He let out a ragged sigh. Instead of offering words of futile comfort, as he had assumed she would, Anastasia pushed her index finger into the keyhole, obscuring the light. It took him a moment to realise what she was trying to do, and when it finally came he could have cried. Kit pressed his own index finger through his side of the keyhole, until their fingertips brushed. He pressed his forehead against the door. A soft answering thud told him that Anastasia was doing the same thing – the nearest they could come to a last embrace before the new day dawned.

“Is this the place?” Captain Harker asked quietly as they rode towards the small estate, so that the other men did not hear him. 

Ella glanced at him. They had spent the past week and a half since the ball compiling all the necessary documentation, cross-referencing them with maps of the local area, and seeking out old inhabitants and friends of the Tremaines who would be willing to testify in court, if it came to it. He knew as well as she did that the pretty-looking house in front of them was the place where Mister Gree – Mr Tremaine (he was still, and perhaps would always be, Mister Greensleeves in Ella’s head) lived. 

“Yes,” she said. “You remember the plan?”

“Of course, my lady,” he replied. 

“Then let’s begin.” Ella pulled the lapels of her jacket a little closer to her body and allowed Captain Harker to ride down the long driveway first, following behind on Major. As they approached the house, the doors swung open to reveal a tall, elegant red-haired woman in a becoming shade of green. She curtseyed gracefully. “Gentlemen.” She caught sight of Ella, and curtseyed again, lower. “Your Highness.”

Even if she didn’t already have reason to dislike her, Ella suspected that she would not have had a favourable first impression of Lady Tremaine had they met elsewhere. She had little respect for the kind of people who fawned on royalty while ill-treating those they perceived as inferior, and Lady Tremaine was definitely fawning on her. 

“A moment of your time, good lady,” Captain Harker said. “I’m sure you are aware of the royal decree. If you have any eligible young men in your house, please ask them to present themselves to be asked the riddle by Princess Eleanor.”

Lady Tremaine smiled, pearlescent teeth bright against her red lips. For the briefest of instants, Ella was put in mind of a shark. 

“I am terribly sorry gentlemen, Highness, but you’ve wasted your journey.” She shrugged, a rolling motion as nonchalant as it was clearly practiced. “I only have two daughters, and no son.”

As the words crossed her lips, Ella heard the faintest snatch of a whistled melody. She cocked her head, trying to find the source of it without being obvious. Her eyes slipped over Lady Tremaine again, who had visibly tensed at the same moment the whistling began. 

“Do you hear that, Captain Harker?” Ella asked. 

The captain lifted his head, listening to the distant sounds of the melody. “Sounds like Greensleeves, my lady,” he said. 

Ella managed not to smile, although she was fairly certain that her mood was easily written over the rest of her body. “Do your daughters whistle, Lady Tremaine?” she asked with an off-hand politeness, as if they were discussing the weather. 

“No, Your Highness,” Lady Tremaine said. “Of course not.”

“Then who do you suppose is whistling away up there?” Ella asked, glancing towards the upper storey of the house. 

“Perhaps one of the servants – you can try and train them all you want, but sometimes the girls will not stop singing.” She smiled again, and this time there was no courtesy about it. “I’m sorry again to have wasted your time.”

Captain Harker glanced at Ella. They had anticipated that this would happen. Ella shifted in the saddle, ready to present Lady Tremaine with the half of the indenture contract she had been given at the ball. 

“Wait!” 

Lady Tremaine turned around, taken aback. She released her grasp on the door handle as she did so, allowing it to swing open and reveal two young women standing side by side further inside the house. “Anastasia! Susanna! What do you think you’re doing – get inside immediately!” she commanded. 

“No,” the slightly taller of the two said firmly. “We will not. You have lied for fifteen years, and you are still lying now, Mother.”

“Such insolence – and in front of the Princess and her Royal Guard?” Lady Tremaine hissed. “Get inside, you foolish girls, and not another word out of you.” She made a sharp getsure with her fist, and the shorter woman stiffened. 

“She is lying to you, Your Highness,” the taller woman said. “There is an eligible young man in the house –”

“Anastasia,” Lady Tremaine interrupted, “stop this nonsense at once and get inside immediately or I will –”

“We have a brother!” the shorter woman called out. 

Lady Tremaine turned pale, except for two red spots high on her cheeks. She glanced at her daughters – and although Ella could not see her facial expression clearly, she was reasonably certain she knew what it looked like. 

“A brother?” Captain Harker said. His voice was still light and pleasant, but there was an unmistakable weight behind every word. “You said not five minutes ago that you had no sons, Madam.”

Lady Tremaine turned back to face the company. Her eyes were clearly panicked, although her poise was otherwise impeccable. “I do not,” she said. “He is a product of my husband’s first marriage.”

“Nevertheless,” Ella said, beginning to feel her skin hum with excitement, “he is here, is he not?”

Lady Tremaine was clearly loath to admit such a thing. “Yes.”

“In which case,” Ella said, dismounting Major and adjusting the lapels of her jacket, “I must beg of you to allow us to stay a while, and meet this young gentleman.”

“Really, Your Highness,” she said, “he is no one of consequence. Surely you cannot –”

“Allow me to be the judge of what I will or will not do, Madam,” Ella said firmly. “I would like to meet him, regardless of your opinion on his consequence.” She turned backwards. “Captain, if you would be so kind as to investigate?”

“It would be my pleasure, my lady,” he said. So saying, he followed Lady Tremaine inside the house; her daughters shrunk against the wall as she passed, and Ella’s heart went out to them. 

“Please, come inside,” the taller one – Anastasia – said. “If you wish to talk privately, you could do so in the parlour?”

Ella smiled. “Thank you,” she said. The women showed her into the light, airy room, closing the door behind them as they left. Ella walked over to the fireplace and removed the jacket, carefully folding it up until it was a neat green square. With nothing else to do but wait, she gripped the fingers of one hand with the palm of the other and took a full, steadying breath.

When the study door swung open, Kit had expected Lady Tremaine’s appearance, ready to spirit him downstairs to the waiting gentleman from the North. He had not expected the tall man from the night of the ball, dressed in his royal livery, to be standing behind her with a stern expression on his face. He rose to his feet from where he had been perched on the arm of the study’s large chair, bowing once to the man. 

“There, Captain,” Lady Tremaine said, clutching the keys so tightly between her hands that her knuckles blanched. “You see? I told you, he is of absolutely no consequence –”

“I will let Princess Eleanor be the judge of that,” the Captain said.

“I – I don’t understand,” Kit said slowly. “I thought –”

“The Princess has come to enforce her decree personally,” the Captain said cheerily. “She felt it would be wise, in this instance, to come to the house herself, rather than let the young gentlemen come to her.” He shot a disdainful glance at Lady Tremaine. “Come now,” he said. 

Kit followed him out of the door, but was stopped at the last minute by Lady Tremaine’s hand gripping his upper arm. He looked down to meet her gaze. The perspective seemed disjointed, and it took Kit a moment to realise that despite how large and imposing she could make herself, he was in actuality an inch taller than her. The Captain turned his head back and squared his shoulders, clearly ready to intervene if necessary. 

Lady Tremaine’s eyes were sharp, her fingers digging tightly into the meat of his arm. “Just remember who and what you are,” she said, tight-lipped. 

Kit shook off her hand gently. “I am my father’s son,” he said, so quietly that she would not have heard him if she hadn’t been beside him. And what he really said was I know exactly who I am, and You have no power over me, and I am not afraid of you. And he could see in her face that she knew it all, word for word. He followed the Captain downstairs, leaving Lady Tremaine to stand uselessly in the study doorway. 

They reached the ground floor, and after a moment’s whisper from Mrs Walker Kit was ushered into the parlour. The door swung shut behind him with a soft click. 

Ella, standing in front of the fireplace in the same blue habit she had worn when they first met, spun around to face him. Her face relaxed into a smile as soon as their eyes met, a rosy glow seeming to spread across her cheeks. 

“Hello,” she said. 

“Hello,” he echoed. He walked towards her, the sound of his footfalls cushioned by the thick carpets. He faltered slightly in his steps when he saw his green jacket, carefully folded up into a neat square, pressed against her stomach by her two hands. In what seemed both like ten minutes and the blink of an eye, he was stood in front of her.

“Good sir,” she said, with a cadence that showed the words had been practised, “have you come to attempt my riddle?” Her eyes shone mischievously, and Kit loved her for it. 

“Yes, my lady,” he said, a smile dancing around his lips. 

“Very well,” she said. “‘I ride on a horse of jasper, yet I have no riches to my name. I have read as widely as a lord, yet my hands are rough as a labourer’s. My jacket is green in daylight, and silver in moonlight. Though I know it not, I possess the heart of a princess. Who am I?’”

“An unusual riddle,” he said after several moments. “I suspect you know the answer. It was on the contract.”

Ella smiled gently. “I would prefer to hear it from you.”

He took a shaky breath. He had thought that he had already passed the most nerve-wracking stage of things when he walked towards Ella, fully aware that she knew his secret. This was easier, on a literal level. And yet, he found, it also required bravery – a different kind to the bravery that defied his stepmother. It required the bravery to be open and vulnerable with the woman he loved.

“I’m Kit,” he said quietly, the consonants landing heavy off his tongue. “My name is Christopher Tremaine, but please call me Kit.” His heart fluttered in his chest as he laid the words at Ella’s feet. 

She looked him over, mouthing his name silently. Her lips curved upwards in a lop-sided smile, her eyes flicking back up to meet his. “I was right,” she said. “It isn’t an ugly name at all. It suits you.” 

Kit felt the largest knot of tension in his stomach unravel itself. There were still anxieties and things of importance to consider, but this was by far the largest hurdle. He smiled, his shoulders momentarily sagging with relief. 

“What now?” he asked. “I solved your riddle, wordsmith.”

Ella tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she began talking. “When I named the prize – it was meant as a distraction, first and foremost,” she said quickly. “Captain Harker and I needed to find all the relevant documentation to prove your identity, and the wrong that Lady Tremaine had done to you. We didn’t want to arouse suspicion by arriving at the local church and simply asking for one family’s records, so –”

“So you asked for all of them and focused on the one,” Kit said. “Genius.”

Ella blushed. “We have it all,” she said. “Proof that will hold up in a court of law that Lady Tremaine robbed you of your rightful inheritance. It should be remarkably simple to have the deeds to this estate reworked in your name and have Lady Tremaine ejected from her position as both gentry and landowner. You can live the life you should have had from the beginning, if that’s what you want.” 

Kit took a step closer towards her. “What if that isn’t what I want?” he asked quietly. He reached out to brush the back of her hand with his fingertip.

Ella’s wide, dark eyes flew up to meet his. “What do you propose instead?” she asked. 

“I want my sisters to be out of this house,” he said. “Safe and happy, wherever that may be. I want them to be comfortable, and to never fear that their world will come crashing down around them if they do not marry well.”

“And what about you?” Her hand flexed, and Kit felt her fingers weaving around his. “What does your heart desire?”

“My heart has long been given to you,” Kit said quietly. “I think from the moment we met. I am a poor man with precious little to give you, but I offer it to you anyway.” His hands would have trembled at the words, but they were safely wrapped in hers. 

Ella smiled, and it was like the sun had risen on her face. “I accept it wholeheartedly, dear Kit,” she said. 

Kit felt a bolt of lightning shoot through him. “Say it again,” he said breathlessly. 

“I will marry you.” Ella’s hand rose to cup the side of his face. 

“No,” Kit explained, his heart full to overflowing. “The part where you said my name.” 

“Kit,” Ella said. She leaned up on tiptoe to kiss him. They kissed, and kissed, in the front parlour of the house where Kit had spent fifteen years without his name, and every time their lips parted she whispered his name like it was a song, a poem, a precious thing.

There was once a man who had nothing. Although he was poor in wealth, he was rich in love for his sisters, who he cherished dearly. One day, while riding in the forest, he met by chance a noblewoman, and soon fell deeply in love with her – but concealed his true standing, for fear that their meetings would cease. A ball was thrown by her father to celebrate her twenty-second year, and after much deliberation the man attended – at which point he discovered she was no noblewoman, but the princess of the entire kingdom. He fled, leaving behind only a silver jacket that turned green when the first rays of sunlight fell upon it. The princess searched the kingdom high and low until she found him again – for she in turn had grown to love him – and they told each other all at last. They were married a short time later, and there was much rejoicing, for that is how all good stories go.

There was once a rich woman, who loved a poor man. Her mother was strict, and treated the woman, her sister, and her brother with great cruelty. The woman longed to leave her mother’s house and marry the poor man, but could not bear to leave her siblings alone to face her mother’s wrath. One day, her brother announced that he had fallen in love with a young noblewoman – but that he could never hope to marry her, as his birthright had been stolen from him by their mother. The woman whispered with her sister, and stole the deed of his indenture from their mother’s study – at great personal risk – because she loved her brother, and wanted him to be happy. He presented his story to the princess of the kingdom, who was kind and just, and she saw that he had been cruelly mistreated. The woman, her sister, and her brother escaped her mother’s house with the help of the princess, and she told the poor man everything. Her sister came to live with her and the poor man, and her brother frequently wrote her letters and invited them for lengthy visits with him and his wife. After so many years of being miserable, they were truly the merriest of families, for that is how all good stories go.

There was once a widow, who lived alone on a small estate in the middle of the countryside. Her daughters had escaped her with the help of their half-brother, whom she had badly mistreated for several years. She had expected him to strip everything from her and leave her with nothing, and knew he would have been justified in doing so. Instead, he left her the estate in its entirety – a very comfortable living for a single woman. She remained for a season before leaving the house to lie barren, and was never seen in the kingdom again, for that is how all good stories go. 

There was once a princess, who loved a man who had nothing. They were married, and there was much rejoicing. Her father shook her husband’s hand, and she saw in his eyes that he was overjoyed at their happiness. Her truest friend, the Captain, teased her mercilessly from the moment she left the parlour with kiss-stung lips to the moment they were finally married. No matter how many times her husband tried to explain his actual profession, the Captain insisted on calling him woodsman, and it pleased her to see their fast friendship. 

On the day they were married, they stood before a pair of doors that lead to a balcony overlooking a crowd of her people – their people, now. He squeezed her hand, the pressure of his wedding band a new feeling against her skin, and the princess turned to look at him. 

“Are you ready?” she asked. 

“For anything, so long as it’s with you,” he replied. 

They walked out onto the balcony, and the force of cheering that resulted from their appearance shocked them both for a moment. They looked at each other, breaking into helpless giggles. 

“Dear Ella,” he said with a smile that crinkled his eyes almost completely shut. 

“My Kit,” she replied, and drew him into a kiss that thrilled her on a balcony in front of all her people as much as it had during a thunderstorm alone in the forest. 

They were kind and true rulers, fair and just. They loved each other, and their children, and their children’s children. They lived, and they were happy. For that is how all good stories go.