‘We’ve searched the entire kingdom, Your Highness,’ the head guard announced as he and his army returned to the throne room. ‘There’s no sign of Cinderella, her dog or her horse.’

‘Don’t stop searching!’ the king ordered. ‘No one goes to sleep until she’s been found. I will not have a witch roaming wild in my kingdom.’

He’d been pacing up and down ever since Joderick had explained how the girl had put a spell on him to make him help her, and then disappeared into thin air outside the dining hall.

It was witchcraft all right and the king was almost certain that, somehow, those fairies were involved as well.

‘We believe she may have gone towards the mountains, Your Highness,’ the guard went on. ‘We found tracks that led right up to the edge of the forest.’

‘The Deep Dark Scary Forest?’ the king asked.

The guards nodded.

‘At the bottom of the Dark Mountains?’ the queen asked.

The guards nodded.

Joderick sighed. Exactly what he’d told Cinders not to do.

‘Then she’s a goner,’ the queen said, almost happily. ‘Nothing can survive in those woods, not even a witch.’

But Prince Joderick wasn’t so sure. If anyone could survive in the Deep Dark Very Incredibly Scary Forest, he was fairly certain it was Cinders.

‘Cinderella is officially exiled from this kingdom,’ the king declared. ‘Inform her family.’

‘I’ll go,’ Joderick offered. ‘I’d like to tell them myself.’

The king shrugged. ‘I was thinking we’d send a text, but all right, if you must.’

‘We still need him married by midsummer’s eve,’ the queen reminded her husband as Joderick left the throne room. ‘I’m certain the fairies are behind this plot somehow.’

‘Me too,’ the king agreed. ‘Don’t worry, this time we’ll take matters into our own hands and find him a far more suitable match.’