When the enormous clock at the far end of the ballroom struck half past eleven, Ellen felt a wave of relief wash over her. She hadn’t thought it would be so: the gala would last until dawn, and hearing that her godmother expected her to be home by midnight had been a disappointment.
But then the glass had been melted onto her feet.
Despite the tingling lotion that her godmother’s maid had slathered over them, the heat of the molten glass had been shocking. Just the sight of that glowing, smoking stuff coating her white skin had made her dizzy.
“Courage,” her godmother had said, a broad smile on her plump face. “Courage.” And with delicate golden instruments her godmother had shaped the glass into an elaborate pair of high-heeled dancing slippers.
“You must return to me by midnight,” her godmother had told her. “My power in the outside world fades once night begins the turn toward dawn.”
And so as soon as the Bretoner reel she had been dancing with Prince Christian ended, Ellen curtsied to the prince and bid him good evening. It was quarter to twelve now, but if she hurried she wouldn’t be too late.
“But wait—why?” Prince Christian reached out to reclaim her hands. As the evening had worn on, he had become more and more enthralled by her.
A pleased thrill ran through Ellen, and she hoped that people were watching. Rather than grinning in triumph, as she would have liked to, she kept to her godmother’s advice to remain aloof and mysterious.
“I must go,” she said, trying to make her voice light and caressing. “But perhaps there will be another ball, and another opportunity to dance …” She slipped her fingers free of his grasp and turned away.
Smiling what she hoped was an enigmatic smile, Ellen walked through the crowd and through the grand arched entrance of the palace ballroom. The crowd parted before her, making her escape dramatic and also quite fast.
Which was good, because as the clock ticked closer to midnight, something was happening to her shoes.
Down the palace steps, into the waiting carriage—a strange thing like a large round basket woven of gold, and pulled by an excess of horses. The mute coachman cracked his whip urgently, and the dozen white horses shot forward. Sensing his passenger’s discomfort—or needing to get back to his mistress with just as much urgency—the coachman used his long whip to clear the road, while the horses with their crashing hooves and shrill whinnies made the noise that their driver could not.
Sitting back on the white silk cushions, Ellen flexed her feet and groaned. The shoes were first hot, then cold, and tremors ran up her legs. The pliable glass was stiffening, and she reached down to take the shoes off but couldn’t. Her feet cramped, and she whimpered.
An eternity later, but what was surely only minutes considering that Seadown House was just a few streets away, they reached the stable yard behind the manor. A bonfire had already been lit by a mute groom who was waiting nearby to toss a bucket of water on it.
The horses ran into the steam and soggy ash, and Ellen squeaked as the ground dropped away beneath them. The wheels of the carriage struck the glass floor of her godmother’s palace with a crash, and she fell off the seat.
Her godmother rushed forward, clucking her tongue. “Cutting it fine, cutting it fine!” Her tone was both playful and scolding. “I hope this means that you were enjoying yourself, my lovely.”
“Yes,” Ellen said tremulously as a pair of footmen helped her out. “But the shoes!”
“Of course, my darling!”
Her godmother pulled out a small golden hammer and rapped it sharply on first one shoe, then the other. The pliable glass had grown quite hard as midnight came, and now the beautiful ruby-colored slippers shattered into a million tiny shards. Ellen’s feet no longer tingled, instead they seemed numb and cold, and her godmother had to help her step out of the circle of broken glass.
Then the silent servants rushed forward to divest the girl of gown and jewels. They jerked her housemaid uniform over her head and sent her back through the ashes into the garden without even fastening it.
Ellen didn’t have time to say good-bye to her godmother, or thank her, before she staggered into the manor, dazed and half-dressed, to see that it was now two minutes past midnight. Her feet were still icy cold and she carried her underclothes, stockings, and shoes jumbled together in her arms. She had just enough time to put herself back together before the Seadowns arrived home, full of questions about Lady Ella.