37

“Get up.”

I’m floating. Drifting away. There isn’t any pain. I’m letting go.

“Sophia!”

I know that voice, but it’s so far away, and I can’t answer.

“Sophia! You open your eyes right now!”

I try, but I can’t. Then I realize they are already open, and I’m staring up at the blazing orange sky.

“Breathe,” says the voice. “Please, Sophia … please.”

Clean, crisp air fills my chest, but it only makes the pain worse. I gasp, taking in breath after breath. Someone is there. Her hair melds with the sky, and her hands clutch at my face.

Constance.

“That’s it, Sophia.”

I roll onto my side and suck in the cold air, my throat raw from the smoke. Constance leans in next to me as I cough until my ribs ache. I reach up and put my arm over her shoulder. We are far from the castle, which is ablaze on nearly every floor.

“How did I get out here?” I ask, still disoriented.

“I saw the girls coming out of the castle, and I went in to help. You were on the floor, just like the vision I had, and I thought—” Her voice catches, and she pulls me closer to her.

“You saved me,” I say. She has. And in more ways than I can count.

Thick black smoke billows out the windows. A crowd gathers. Girls from the cotillion stand in shock as more and more people arrive in carriages and on horseback. Everyone rushes around, unsure of what to do.

“Where’s the king?” someone shouts.

Constance helps me to my feet, and I scan the crowd. Even now, as the palace burns, some of the suitors hold tight to their newly won prizes. One young woman struggles in her partner’s grip as he looks around, wild-eyed. The king may be a pile of ash, but his ideas are still alive and well. I steady myself before marching through the parted crowd. I stand in front of the man and turn to the girl.

“Is this what you want?” I ask her. She stares at me, afraid.

“What do you think you’re doing, wretch?” the man yells.

“The king is dead!” I shout back, putting my face very close to his. A hush falls over the crowd, and the man gawks at me as if I’ve struck him. Constance does a double take. This is news to her, too. “He is dead, and his disgusting laws and rules will die with him. This ends now.”

Everyone stares at me in confusion. The parents of many of the girls descend on the scene and find their daughters in the crowd. The flames crackle and snap behind me.

Much more than beams and timber are burning to the ground.

Determination swells inside me. I watch as the young woman in front of me pulls her arm from the man’s grip, scowling at him. He leans over her, and several of the other girls rush to stand in front of her. A murmur of voices ripples through the crowd.

“Cinderella’s story is a lie,” I say. “It was used to manipulate you. To make you feel as if your voice shouldn’t be heard. The king lied to us.” I pull out the journal and hold it up. “The words written here are in Cinderella’s own hand. It’s all right here.”

Constance stares at the little book. A man walks toward me, gritting his teeth and spewing obscenities. Before I can confront him, Constance steps between us. She pulls out her dagger and shoves it against his chest.

“If you dare touch her, I will end you. Is that in any way unclear?” Constance’s tone leaves no room for discussion. A young woman pushes through the crowd, sword in hand, and stands at Constance’s side. Constance seems shocked.

“Émile?” she asks.

It’s the young woman from the cell. They share wide smiles, and Émile glances back at me. “Leave it to Constance to find the girl who could bring all this to an end.”

The man backs away and disappears into the mass of bodies gathered in front of the castle. There is a shift in the crowd. Many of them have never seen a woman defend herself. This is how it will be from now on.

“Everything Sophia said is true,” Constance says. “My family is descended from Gabrielle, Cinderella’s sister, and she was not the monster the king made her out to be. None of them were. You’ve been lied to. But you have a chance to change things. Right here. Right now.”

I see fathers with tears in their eyes. “You can keep your girls from harm,” I say. “And more important, they can be allowed to keep themselves from harm. These girls don’t want to be here tonight. Look at your children, your friends, your wives, and your daughters. Don’t do what is right because they hold those titles. Do what is right because they are people. Make a choice to change things.”

The entirety of Lille has gathered in the front drive of the palace. A few people nod and embrace each other, but even more have looks of disbelief, of confusion. They need more convincing.

“I know this is hard to understand,” I say. “Many of us have never known anything other than Manford’s way.”

“How do we know he’s dead?” a woman yells, fear distorting every syllable.

“I put him in the ground myself,” I say. “You don’t have to fear him anymore.”

Constance stares at me as tears well up in her eyes. A murmur runs through the crowd. A group of people have broken off and are talking among themselves. Forty deep, at least a half dozen palace guards and many suitors from the ball among their ranks, they shove their way toward me.

“We’re going to have a problem here,” I say to Constance, who follows my gaze.

“Are we?” she asks as she holds up her dagger.

Émile takes a wide stance. Even though her frame is skeletal and her face bears the look of someone who has seen unspeakable horrors, she is ready to fight.

Shouting erupts as this faction of angry men push their way through the crowd. The man at the lead is the same man I’d seen haggling with the guard in the dungeon. He’s found a sword and apparently has made himself the leader of this mob.

“Who is the king’s lawful successor?” the man asks.

“He has no heirs,” I say. I stare at the man unflinchingly. “And if you think we are going to allow another monster to sit on that throne, you’re mistaken.”

“Why should we listen to you?” The man clasps his hands together around the sword’s grip. “You’re just a girl.”

Constance steps in and disarms the man so quickly that I don’t know exactly how she’s done it. All I see is her flaming red hair and then the man lying on his back in the dirt, clutching his chest, a trickle of blood dripping down his lip. I pick up his sword and stick it in the ground.

The crowd pushes in, surrounding the mob who at the very first opportunity are trying to put us right back where we’d been before. I didn’t kill the king and almost lose my life in the process for them to do this. The people of Lille—women, men, the children from the dungeon, the girls from the ball, the families who’ve come looking for them—stand at the ready, glaring down at the man.

“We want a say in what happens next,” the man on the ground says as he scrambles to his feet.

“You’ve sat idly by while the people of Mersailles suffered and died, and now you want a say in what happens to us?” I’m shocked at his arrogance. “You’re not in a position to make demands. I watched you try to buy a young girl in the dungeon.”