There is a rustle on the other side of the wall. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m with Constance! I’m Sophia. We’re here—or I’m here—” My voice catches in my throat and tears well up. I don’t even know if Constance has made it to the castle. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to see her again, but I have to set that aside for now.

“She lives?” Émile asks. “And there is a plan?”

“Yes. But I—I just put my dagger in the king’s neck, and he laughed in my face.”

She huffs loudly. “That sounds very much like Constance, always stabbing someone.” I think I hear her laugh. “But as you saw, it doesn’t work with him. He has been poisoned, stabbed, and a few of the girls on this row tried to get close enough to him to slip a rope around his neck. He was quite amused by that attempt. It failed, obviously. And he made them pay for it. Tell me, have you or Constance been able to find anything else out about him?”

“Yes.” I hesitate because I know how it will sound, but I continue anyway. “Do you know that King Manford and Cinderella’s Prince Charming are the same person?”

“I’ve learned the impossible truth from the other girls on this row. Before I was captured, I would have said that it cannot be, but now I have seen too much to discount it.” She sighs heavily. “But it doesn’t matter. He’s killed or captured so many of us that there are barely enough of us left to stage any sort of real resistance.”

“How many of them are there?”

“There are seven other girls in the cells next to us, and I hear there are more cells in the bowels of the castle, but none of us are in any shape to fight back. Some of them have been here for months, maybe longer. We don’t have enough to eat or drink, and the draining—the draining is too much.”

“The draining?” I ask.

“Oh, Sophia.” Émile sighs. “You cannot know what it’s like. It’s like dying. He wraps you up and then you’re falling, and if you return, you are—changed.”

I press my face against the bricks as I struggle to hear. My heart is beating furiously. “How? Tell me how he does it.”

“It’s a kind of magic I’ve never even heard a whisper of. He siphons the life from your very soul. There is a light, a pull, and whatever he takes from you, he uses to make himself young, to live as long as he so chooses.”

My mind runs in circles, and a memory from the ball stands in my mind. The door Liv was taken through stood open for just a moment as the king exited. The old woman with the snow-white hair—wearing Liv’s dress. It was her. The king had done that to her. And when I saw him across the crowd, he looked different, happier, his eyes brighter.

I begin to pace the floor. The light from my vision and the pull at my chest, the illustrations in Constance’s book of tales, and Cinderella’s own words all fit together like a puzzle.

This is how he does it.

This is how he keeps himself young. And just as the thought settles in my mind, another terrible reality makes itself clear. I run back and stand on the brick.

“The ball. Is that its purpose? To bring the young women of Lille here for him to do this?”

“It is a reaping,” Émile says. “A way for him to feast on them like the monster he is. And knowing now that he has been doing this since the time of Cinderella, I fear he can go on like this forever.” Her voice becomes a whisper. “I’ve dreamed of finding a way out, but I think that’s all it will ever be. A dream. A nightmare, really. He’s taken so much from me. I’m changed in the very deepest parts of me.”

“When you get out of here, you will have yourself and your freedom, and that will be enough. I promise you.”

I think I hear her laugh, but it could have been a sob. “I want to believe you. Really, I do.”

I step down and take a deep breath. She’s lost all hope. She sounds so much like Erin, like my parents. But I refuse to accept that fate. I need to get out, and I need to find Cinderella’s journal.

I go to the door again and peek through the keyhole, listening for a moment. There are no sounds other than the steady drip of water and my own heartbeat. I hold the candle up to the locking mechanism inside the keyhole. It’s rusty, and a piece of the keyhole’s frame is broken off. I look around the room for something I can use to open the lock. Nothing useful.

I run my hand through my hair, frustrated. My fingers pass over the glass butterflies that still hang there. I yank one down and break off the glass figure, leaving just the metal pin, which looks like it will fit perfectly in the lock. I wonder if my own personal fairy godmother had something to do with crafting these little pins.

I jam the metal rod into the keyhole and try to mimic the motion of a turning key. Flecks of red-orange metal rain down as I probe the lock. I twist the pin as hard as I can, and then pop! The lock clicks.

The door groans as it opens just a crack. I expect to be rushed by the guards at any moment, but nothing happens. I poke my head out and look down the darkened corridor. A patchwork of newer-looking wood planks crisscrosses the hole in the ceiling, but the chilly evening air still gusts through. From somewhere farther off, a melody drifts in, and a sweet smell, like fresh-baked bread, wafts past me. I try the handle on the cell next to mine.

“If you come in here, make sure you kill me. Because if you don’t, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands!”

“Will you be quiet?” I whisper. “It’s just me. From the cell next to you.”

I hear her scramble around, and the light under the door flickers.

I put my makeshift key in the lock and try to get it to turn. It clicks gently as I try to find the right angle and then snap! The pin breaks off inside the lock.

“Where are the keys?” I ask.

“They’re with the guard. You’ll never get ahold of them. Just go. Get away from here and never come back.”

I see faint lights under each of what must be a half dozen doors down the hall.

“I’ll come back for you. I promise,” I say. “I’ll find the keys or something to break the lock.”

Faint sobs fade away as I head toward the end of the hall where I’d found my way out before. I twist the handle. Locked, boarded shut from the outside. The king must have amended his lapse in security.

A monster. Not a fool, I remind myself.

I turn to the opposite end of the hallway. A narrow, spiral staircase is tucked in the far corner. I rush to the foot of the stairs and look up.

The wooden stairway spirals at least two floors into the darkness. The first few feet are passable, and I’m sure this is the way the guards came when they dragged me down here, but beyond that, the staircase is in rough shape. Some of the steps are missing, and cobwebs hang between the slats of the rail. I rush past the sturdy stairs and then ease onto the first tattered step that leads into the darkness. It moans under my weight. I take a deep breath before making my way up cautiously, each step groaning in protest.

The bells toll, marking the half hour.

As I near the top, I narrowly avoid a gaping hole in the structure. When I set my foot on the other side, a sickening crack echoes through the dark. My foot crashes through the wooden stair, and I grab on to the rail to keep myself from plummeting to the floor below.