Ella pressed the golden slipper to her chest and waited for the bird to come. Nothing came. She stood alone in her chambers of Rosenfeld Castle, a princess now, wife to Prince Valentin. Months ago, a white dove had flown from her mother's grave tree and given her this slipper and a gold and silver gown. That dove had carried her out of the ashes and into a crown. Ella believed her dead mother held white magic. She needed to know if that same magic slept in her own blood. But she did not know how she had called the bird. Until she called it again, she could prove nothing. She closed her eyes and remembered the Salzmann Estate. She remembered kneeling in the dirt before the hazel tree. She had wept there until her tears soaked the roots. The dove had answered her tears, not her words. So Ella tried to weep now. She squeezed her eyes shut and strained for grief. No tears came. She only felt foolish, a grown woman begging her own eyes to cry. The door opened. Valentin stepped in, still wearing his dark traveling cloak. He had ridden in from court, where he argued against the Order of witch hunters before his mother the Queen. He saw the slipper in her hands and stopped. "You're trying to summon it," he said. He did not ask. He crossed the room and sat beside her. "I told you. I think the magic is in you, Ella. Not just your mother." "I can't make it come," she said. "I don't know what I did. If I can't prove this, then I'm nothing but a merchant's daughter who got lucky." Valentin took her hand. "You grew a tree from a dead branch with your crying. That isn't luck." He pressed her palm flat against the slipper. "Stop forcing the tears. What did you feel that day, under the tree?" Ella thought of the grave. She thought of her mother's cold body and the long nights by the hearth. The old ache opened in her chest, slow and real. Her eyes stung. One tear slid down and fell onto the golden slipper. The slipper warmed under her hand. A soft light rose from the gold. Then a white feather drifted down from the ceiling, though no window stood open. Ella caught it. It was warm, like a living thing. Beyond the stone walls, she heard wings. Valentin stood fast. "That's it. You called it." The wings grew louder, then faded. The light in the slipper died. The feather stayed in Ella's palm, proof she could hold. "The grief calls it," she whispered. "Not the words. The grief." She closed her fingers around the feather. Her magic was real. But now she knew the price. To wake it again, she would have to tear open her worst wound each time. And she did not know how many times a heart could bear that.

Ella could not sleep. The white feather lay hidden in a box beneath her bed, proof her magic was real. But proof was danger. If a servant saw the dove fly through her chamber, or glimpsed the slipper glowing in her hands, word would reach the Order. The witch hunters watched the royal court closely. A princess with witch blood would face a death sentence, crown or no crown. Every night in the castle, Ella practiced in fear, listening for footsteps at the door. She found Valentin in his study at dawn. "I can't do it here," she said. "Every time I call the bird, I risk everything. Yours and mine both." Valentin set down his papers. "Then you shouldn't do it here. I've been thinking the same." He stood and crossed to her. "My father pushes the Order harder every week. This castle is the worst place in the kingdom for you to learn." "Where, then?" Ella asked. "Your father’s house. The Salzmann Estate." He took her hands. "It stands empty. No servants, no court, no hunters. And the tree is there, Ella. The place where your magic first woke. If it listens anywhere, it will listen there." Ella felt the fear in her chest loosen. She had not seen the estate since the wedding. She had not knelt at her mother's grave in a year. "We could leave quietly," she said. "Say we want time away. No one would question a prince taking his wife to her old home." "No one would dare," Valentin said, and smiled. They left two days later, before the sun rose over the castle towers. Only a driver came with them. Ella watched the great stone walls shrink behind the carriage, and with them the eyes of the Order. For the first time in weeks, her shoulders dropped. The road ran long through the countryside. By afternoon the Salzmann Estate rose ahead, a sprawling manor of stone and brick, its towers dark against the sky. Dust covered the windows. Ivy climbed the walls. But Ella's heart lifted at the sight. This had been her father’s house but, she also remembered the ashes, the hearth, and the cruel years under her stepmother and stepsisters. She did not go inside. She walked straight to the grave behind the manor. The hazel tree stood there, taller than she remembered, its branches heavy with nuts. The headstone read ANNA SALZMANN. Ella knelt in the grass and pressed her palm to the cool stone. "Here," she whispered. "I can do it here." Valentin stayed back by the manor, giving her the quiet. Ella drew the golden slipper from her bag and held it against her chest. The old grief rose easy now, here where it began. A tear fell. The slipper warmed in her hands. White wings beat above the tree, and the dove came down to her, safe at last from watching eyes. Ella had her place. But she did not know Snow White’s stepmother Kassurina had already marked this estate, and was coming.