In the morning, I came down to the kitchen to find Cinderella petting Fessie through the window. Hodder was back in his horse form.
“What happened to you?” I asked in a whisper.
Fessie neighed, and I could hear his human thoughts again.
I wish your spell had worked. I only got as far as the edge of the Dark Wood before I changed back into this monstrosity.
“Moonrise. It expired at moonrise,” I said, realizing.
“Then cast it again,” Cinderella demanded, clearly feeling for him.
I wanted to. I could see the anguish in his eyes at being stuck inside this horse body.
“I can, but . . . I’m so sorry, Fessie. My magic isn’t as strong as theirs. I can give you only a few hours.”
His eyes narrowed on me, seemingly unconvinced of my intention to help. He pawed the ground angrily.
I wish I could believe you.
Cinderella petted him on the head reflexively and cooed at him reassuringly. “I promise you that Farrow only has the best of intentions for all of us. She’s a friend to humans.”
I stopped in my tracks at Cinderella calling me a friend. My eyes met hers.
“Well, she’s a friend to me. We can trust her,” she added with a small smile.
Fessie nodded.
“You’ll have to hide, but I promise I can give you some time each day as you until I can make it right permanently. Okay?”
Cinderella stepped in my way. “What are you going to do? You can’t confront them. You don’t know what they’ll do to any of us,” she said. Her voice was certain, and fear filled her eyes.
“I promise, I’ll find a way,” I said.
I meant the promise, but I had no idea how to keep it. My sisters were stronger than I was. And they were not restricted by wishes. But even as my head scrambled for a way to make good on the promise I just made, I felt a sense of vertigo, as if my very center had been knocked off its axis. My sisters had done a thing for which I could not make any excuse. My loyalty to the Entente, which I thought was unwavering, was now on shaky ground and I felt untethered from all that I had long believed.
The former cook sat disoriented for a full half hour before he spoke.
His voice still cracked and half neighed. I wondered aloud if Hodder had been cognizant of who he was in horse form, and sadly the answer was yes.
“It was a nightmare. One from which I could not wake. The stables. The filth. The hay . . .” He spit on the floor when he said the last, as if he were still tasting it. He then looked to the ground in shock. “I apologize. My manners are not quite back yet.”
Cinderella patted him on the back. “You should not be the one to apologize,” she said pointedly.
“She’s right. You didn’t cause this.”
Hodder took a long look at me and squinted as if he were trying to figure me out. “I’m not the only one. What about the rest of us?” he asked.
“Us?” I asked.
He looked around at the birds on the rafters, the mouse in the hay corner, and the squirrel in the doorway. “The other servants.”
I felt my stomach sink.
I remembered what Cinderella had said about the servants sneaking off in the night. But they had never left. And I remembered, too, when South had been so very certain there were other Presents in the barn. There were. South would feel terrible when he found out that he had not been able to discern the plight of the servants who were right under his barn roof. Whatever spell my sisters had cast around them had somehow mostly blocked them from him. He’d been able to hear whispers from the servants but nothing more. And in his confused state, he had not understood that the animals that shared the barn with him had been touched by magic.
“There was a full staff—a cook, a maid, a butler, and two footmen. They all disappeared before me. But I know now they are all still here,” Hodder revealed with a still-shaky voice.
“I can help them,” I offered. I pulled my wand out of my pocket.
Cinderella collected a mouse, a red bird, and a squirrel and deposited the animals into the center of the barn.
I listened to their wishes and made them come true.
Renell, the mouse, had been a footman before his transformation. He was not much older than Cinderella and me. Jacques, the butler turned red bird, was older and had a shock of red hair. Wendell, the stableman turned squirrel, was short, round, and bald.
Jacques sniffed the air with a twitching nose while Cinderella explained to them what had happened.
All the “animals” were thrilled to be human again and surprisingly willing to believe Cinderella because her kindness knew no bounds in whatever form they were in. I wasn’t sure I would feel as accommodating if I’d spent so much time as a bird. But their loyalty to her was a testament to her kind heart.
This was a good start. But I wanted to test my power away from my sisters. I needed to be around people and their wishes. And even as my power had increased by the hour, it seemed to have limits. There wasn’t a soul within range of my power whose wishes I hadn’t already read.
The carriage and horses were very much not available, and a shortcut would be extremely helpful. If I could get to town with a new face, then I would see what exactly my magic and I were capable of. And for that, I needed a wish. I could have asked South. But after our last encounter, I could not bring myself to approach him.
“I’m asking you to trust me, Cinderella,” I said when we were walking back to the house from the barn.
“You have no right to ask that,” she said automatically, with a pointed look at Hodder.
“I know, but I need to figure out what I can do. Do you understand?”
“I will help you, but only because you helped the staff,” she said out loud.
“I need you to wish for me to look like someone else. Someplace else. And I need you to wish me back by sunrise.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I explained how my magic worked. And how it didn’t.
Cinderella took it in, blinking hard. “So, when I wished the kitchen to be clean, you could hear it. And when you heard Fessie’s wish to be human again . . .”
“I granted it. But I can’t make anything happen for myself.”
“The irony. An Entente who can’t use magic for herself,” she assessed.
I nodded.
“Any chance your sisters could catch the same malady?” she said lightly.
“It seems I am one of a kind.”
“So what do I have to do?” she asked after a pause. I felt a rush of relief that she had agreed so readily, given all that my sisters had put her through.
“Imagine a face that isn’t your own. And then imagine you want it to be mine.”
She closed her eyes.
I could see what she was seeing. The face was beautiful and somehow familiar. Young, but older than we were, with a big smile and wide-set green eyes. Brown ringlets surrounded the pretty face. The eyes twinkled with kind mischief.
I tapped my wand to her temple and then to my own. I felt my face contort, and I walked over to the mirror just as the hair on my head transformed into the ringlets from my vision. I was the mirror image of what I had seen in Cinderella’s mind.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Cinderella began to tear up.
“Relax, Cinderella. It’s just magic,” I said, but I knew it was more than that, judging by her emotional reaction.
“No, it’s the face. I didn’t mean to think of her. But I guess she’s always the first person I see.”
“Who?”
“It’s my mother when she was young . . .” Cinderella trailed off.
Why would she give me her mother’s face? I wondered.
“I guess some part of me just wanted . . . wanted to see her again,” she explained, her voice breaking. Her love for her mother was so palpable, it struck a chord inside me.
“Oh, Cinderella, we can change it. Just think of someone else,” I volunteered quickly. I still had Hecate’s ashes. Cinderella didn’t even have that.
“No, it’s the perfect disguise. My mother did not leave the estate much. She was very private. No one will recognize you.”
“Thank you, Cinderella,” I said.
She sniffled and straightened up. “Where do you want to go?”
“To town and back,” I said, glancing at the clock. I needed to return before the sisters.
“Be careful, Farrow,” Cinderella said as the new image formed in Cinderella’s brain just as I blinked away to it.
It took me a few seconds to recognize the neighborhood. I’d been here before. I was next to a meetinghouse near the Couterie.
I let out a relieved sigh. I wasn’t sure if any of my spells would actually work. But it was time to find out.