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That is my father’s voice,
I thought. Polished, with a fine-honed edge, just like a knife.

“Madam,” Etienne de Brabant went on smoothly. “This is a most welcome surprise.”

“I am happy to hear you say so, my lord,” my stepmother answered, her own voice calm and even. I tried to hold its cadence in my mind.
She is so strong,
I thought. Precisely what I would need to be, what I wished to be. “We were delighted to receive His Majesty’s summons. It is always our pleasure to obey the king in all things,” she went on.

“Chantal,” I heard a voice that could only be the king’s say now. “You are most welcome back to court. No, no—stop bobbing up and down. And here are those lovely daughters of yours. I have been singing their praises to Pascal ever since he arrived.”

“All of my daughters are here, Majesty,” my stepmother answered. “Including one I think you do not know. Girls.”

In front of me, Anastasia began to rise from her curtsy. I followed suit, though my body felt stiff and clumsy. A strange coldness seemed to grip all my limbs, put there by the sound of my father’s voice. I hoped my legs would hold me.

“Your Majesties, may I present to you my stepdaughter?” Chantal went on. “She is named Constanze, after her mother, but those of us who love her call her Cendrillon.”

“Oh, but she is lovely,” I heard the queen’s voice exclaim. “The very image of her mother, if I recall. Where have you kept her hidden all this time, Etienne?” She gave a laugh like a chime of silver bells on a winter’s day, beautiful yet cold.

“Oh, dear,” she went on, her tone playful. “We
have made her nervous with all this attention, I’m afraid. Stop blushing and look up, child”

I
cant,
I thought. Every single part of my body seemed frozen in its present position.

Then I felt Anastasia slip her arm through mine. At the exact same time, Amelie did the same, and in that moment, the strange cold which had seized me at the first sound of my father’s voice abruptly loosed its hold. Warmth flooded through me.

My wish has finally come true,
I thought. I
have a mother and sisters to love me, a mother and sisters whom I love.
We were all together, a family united. I lifted my head, and looked into my father’s
eyes
for the very first time.

He was handsome. I could see that at once. Fair-haired and blue-eyed. But in his face, I could see no expression, nothing to inspire the look that gazed so lovingly from out of my mother’s portrait. Etienne de Brabant’s face was as closed as the door he had locked so long ago. There would be no love for me from him at this late date. As he had begun, so my father would carry on.

Ever so slowly, Etienne de Brabant extended his hand. I placed mine into it, even as I curtsied once more. He pressed his lips to my knuckles for a fraction of a second.

“My daughter,” he said. “You are welcome to court.”

“Thank you,” I said. “My lord.” For I discovered that my mouth would not, could not, shape the word “father.” Not for this man.

“Come now,” I heard the king say, and, at the sound of his voice, I suddenly found the courage to look into his face. It was open and kind. It was easy to see why my stepmother would give her allegiance to such a man.

“You will have time for reunions later. We must not forget why we are here tonight. Pascal.” He made a gesture and a young man dressed in soft gray velvet stepped to his side. On his brow was a circlet of silver set with moonstone. Beside me, I heard Anastasia stifle a sound.

And then my eyes were on the princes face, a face I knew as well as I did my own. There was the hair, dark as a raven’s wing, the stormcloud-colored eyes. They were staring into mine with a startled expression as if, in my own face, he was seeing things he had not known existed before.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, of course.”

And only when I saw his expression change did I realize that I had spoken aloud. A great roaring seemed to fill my ears. But it was not until I felt myself jostled from behind that I realized it was coming from the crowd in the ballroom and not from the thousands of unanswered questions streaming through my own mind.

A figure pushed its way forward, fell to its knees before Prince Pascal. Even as it did, the guards surrounding the royal party surged forward, their swords singing in their sheaths as they were drawn. My own body moved as if of its own volition. I
dropped to my knees, shielding the body of the figure on the floor with my own.

“No! You must not!” I cried out, “He means no harm”

“Stand away,” I heard the prince’s voice command.

“Your Highness,” protested the captain of the guards. He had been the first to react, the tip of his sword no more than a hands breadth away from my throat.

“Stand away,” the prince said once more, his voice as bright and sharp as the swords drawn in his protection. “Step aside.”

“Do as my son says,” the king said in a firm, low voice.

Reluctantly, the guards fell back. At a gesture from the captain, several moved to push the crowd back, then stood behind my stepmother and sisters, so that we were all surrounded by a ring of unsheathed swords.

“Let me see your face,” the prince said. “Do not be afraid, but look up”

Raoul lifted up his head, and all who saw his features gasped aloud. For a space of time impossible to measure, the two young men stared at each other.

“So,” Raoul whispered. “My wish has come true at last”

Then he pitched forward, flat on his face, at the feet of his twin brother.

“I tried to stop him,” Niccolo said, his voice cracking with the strain of his distress. “I swear, I tried. The moment I saw the prince’s face, I thought I understood why Etienne de Brabant finally ordered Raoul to court”

Several hours later, we were all still at the palace, still in our finery, for, as yet, we had no other clothes. At the king’s command, my stepmother’s household had been given a special suite of rooms, separate from those of my father. Raoul’s sudden appearance had put an end to the evenings festivities.

“To bring about what actually happened,” I spoke up, not quite sure I recognized the sound of my own voice.

How could it be safe to feel I recognized anyone anymore? In the blink of an eye, my childhood companion had become a prince. And I was the daughter of the man who had known this, and concealed it, all along. Who had taken an innocent baby and left him to grow up ignorant of what he was, reducing him to nothing more than a political pawn.

“To disrupt the king’s plans for Prince Pascal to marry by revealing the fact that there are two princes, not just one,” I went on. I turned to Niccolo, who was
standing beside Amelie, She had an arm around his waist, as if to show her support. Their love glowed as brightly as any candle in the room, the one bright and steady spot in an otherwise turbulent night.

“What was it you said the queen has always vowed?” I asked Niccolo.

“That she would never be satisfied until the first son of her heart and blood sits on her husbands throne,” he replied.

“A vow which made no sense.” I said, “when there was only Prince Pascal. But if there was another son, hidden away since birth, put into the care of the one person in all this land the queen trusts the most. And if that son . . .”

I swallowed against the sudden taste of bile at the back of my throat. “If that son were the first born . . .”

“Oh, but that is wicked!” Anastasia said suddenly, speaking for the first time. “To rob one son of his right, to deny the other all knowledge of who he is for so very long. How can any good come of this? The queen will break Raoul’s heart.”

“Not to mention the kings,” my stepmother chimed in softly. “He loves Pascal very much.”

“But how did you and Niccolo come to be in the ballroom in the first place?” Amelie asked. “I thought you were going to wait in the stables “

Niccolo nodded. “We did plan that,” he acknowledged. “But Raoul was restless and edgy. He wanted to see what was happening at the ball. He wished to see all of you, I think.”

He glanced at me, his expression hesitant, as if uncertain of how I would react to what he was about to reveal, I gave a nod.

“But most of all, he wished to see you, Cendrillon, He was excited for you, worried for you, proud of you, all at once, I tried to talk him out of it. He wouldn’t budge. So . . .” Niccolo paused and took a breath.

“I snuck him into the palace, onto one of the balconies overlooking the ballroom. We saw you greet your father, Cendrillon, Then the king made a gesture, a young man who could only be the prince stepped forward, and it was as if both Raoul and I had been turned to stone. He was off and running as if the hounds of hell were at his heels almost before I knew he’d left my side. I could not catch up with him. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said quietly. “Even if you had managed to catch him, Raoul would have found some way to keep on going. His whole life, he’s wanted to know who he is, wished for this one thing more than anything else. Once he had seen Prince Pascal’s face, I don’t think anything on earth could have stopped him.”

And what of Prince Pascal himself? I wondered. How did he feel about the fact that he had a brother, an identical twin? My stepmother had worried about the king’s heart, Anastasia and I worried about Raoul’s, Was there no one to worry over Prince Pascal’s heart?

My stepmother stood up. “One thing is for certain,” he said, “We won’t do anyone any good by staying up
and worrying all night, A good nights sleep is in order, I think. Perhaps things will look less dire in the morning.”

“What about Old Mathilde?” I asked, “Shouldn’t we try and get word to her?”

“I have been thinking about that” Chantal nodded. “I think it is best to say nothing about the fact that she is in the city, for now. When we know more about what may happen, then we can decide what to do. But she should be told what has occurred tonight. It concerns her.”

“I will take a message to her,” Niccolo offered.

“I was hoping you would say that,” my stepmother acknowledged, “But be careful of how you come and go, Niccolo, When you are with us, you are under the king’s protection. But when you are on your own . . .”

“I will take care,” he promised, and I saw the way that Amelie’s arms tightened. She saw him to the door. When she turned back to face the room, her face was wet with tears.

“Maman,” she began.

Her mother moved to her quickly, silencing her with an arm around her shoulders. “I know,
ma petite.”
she said, “I know, I see what you feel for him, and he for you, Niccolo is clever and resourceful. He will stay out of danger. Take heart. All will yet be well.”

“Then you do not disapprove?” Amelie asked.

“Of course not,” her mother answered with a smile, “I like him very well. And he will be just the one to take you on all those adventures you’ve always
dreamed about” She turned back to Anastasia and me. “Come,” she said. “Let us all go to bed.”

Anastasia moved at once to her mother’s side.

“I will stay up for a few moments longer, if I may,” I said. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep if my life depended on it.

“Of course,” said my stepmother. “Try not to worry too much about Raoul. If nothing else, he is now too valuable to come to any harm.” Together, the three of them vanished into the sleeping chambers.

I sat in a chair by the window, watching the play of candlelight upon the stone of the palace walls, so different from the stone of the walls at home.
So much has happened,
I thought.
And yet so little time has gone by.

A thousand images seemed to crowd for space inside my head. Raoul as a boy, fuming over some imagined insult, laughing at some unexpected joy. Standing beside me at my mother’s grave each and every year on the birthday that we shared, making the same wish, asking the same question, over and over:
Who am I?

And now, that question had been answered and nothing would ever be the same. Not for Raoul. Not for any of us.

All of a sudden, large as it was, the room seemed too small, the air within it, stifling. The palace itself seemed to bear down upon me. No longer beautiful, but a trap that had snatched my oldest friend away and would send him back a stranger.

I
want to get out of here,
I thought. Without stopping
to think, I leaped to my feet and ran to the door. Pulling it open, I dashed into the corridor. And then I was simply running, flying along the hallways of the palace on glass-slippered feet, not knowing, not caring where I was going. The journey, not the destination, was all that mattered. The sense of freedom, never mind that it was false, that always comes with motion.

Eventually, my headlong race carried me to the top of a wide and curving set of stairs and here, at last, my feet slowed and stopped. Below me stretched the ballroom I had been so nervous to enter, just a few short hours ago. The air was thick here, too, this time with the scent of flowers. The garlands of them were still in place, but they were drooping now. The candles guttered in their sconces. Only a few still flickered along the walls. I set my hands upon the balustrade, felt the cool of the stone through my palms.