Faeiria Glassboria's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Faeiria returned to the pumpkin patch where the night had begun. The cottage stood empty now, its door still open from when Cinderella had left hours before. Faeiria did not enter. She stood among the pumpkins and waited for midnight to come. She felt the clock tower begin its strike before she heard it. The first chime rang across the city, and Faeiria's chest constricted with the weight of what she had done. The carriage would dissolve. The gown would fade. The slippers would—but no. Faeiria made a choice in that instant that went beyond her orders. She reached across the distance to the palace steps where Cinderella would be running, and she seized one glass slipper with invisible hands. The girl's foot slipped free as she fled, and Faeiria held the slipper exactly where it fell on the grand staircase. She poured her power into it, anchoring it to that spot, making it stay when everything else would vanish. The magic fought her—it wanted to disappear with the rest—but Faeiria was stronger. She forced the slipper to remain, a fragment of celestial glass that would not dissolve, and the effort tore through her like fire. The clock tower finished its twelve strikes, and the night shattered. Faeiria felt the carriage collapse back into rot, felt the dress unravel into nothing, felt the second slipper on Cinderella's foot begin to fade. But the first slipper stayed. It gleamed on the palace steps, solid and real, exactly where the girl had lost it. Faeiria released her hold and staggered backward among the pumpkins. She had not been sent to leave evidence. She had been sent to give one night of visibility, and visibility was supposed to end at midnight. But she had made the slipper stay anyway. Faeiria knelt in the dirt and pressed her hands against the ground. She had broken the rules she was given because leaving Cinderella nothing felt like erasing her completely. The girl had been brave enough to tell the truth. She deserved something that proved she had existed. Faeiria did not know what punishment would come for this choice, but she would not take it back. The slipper would stay, and the prince would find it, and Cinderella would not disappear.