"Let me try," Lord Richard said, his voice brittle.

"Sir, if you would," Christian said gratefully.

"I will not say it is my pleasure," Lord Richard said, with a ghost of his usual humor.

The elegant earl took out his handkerchief and spat into it. Then he laid the white square over the damp ashes in the hearth and knelt beside it.

"Corley, Mistress, Queen of Gla.s.s, Open the doors that I may pa.s.s."

At once the broad hearth stretched itself up into an arching doorway. Lord Richard turned and raised one eyebrow at Christian.

"Your Highness?"

Christian didn't need to be asked twice. Short sword gripped tight, he strode through the ashes with his companions at his heels. The floor turned from sooty hearthstones to gla.s.s, and then the gla.s.s turned sticky, and they fell through a hole into nothing.

247.

Double

The room filled with soot and cinders, startling Eleanora out of a doze. She had planned to stay awake all night, until Roger and Poppy and the others returned, but her feet were so heavy and she was so wrung out with emotion that she finally fell asleep.

And then they they came, in the midst of the ashes, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her out of bed. The Corley's servents were huge, but they burst from the fireplace as lightly as dancers, lifted her up, and returned to their mistress in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. came, in the midst of the ashes, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her out of bed. The Corley's servents were huge, but they burst from the fireplace as lightly as dancers, lifted her up, and returned to their mistress in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat.

"Did you think that I wouldn't know?" The Corley tsk'd at her. "Did you think that that foreign princess could fool me?"

Eleanora felt weak. She couldn't walk, couldn't escape, couldn't think what to do next. They had had no real plan, only to replace Eleanora with Poppy and hope there was some c.h.i.n.k in the Corley's gla.s.s armor. But there was none, and now Eleanora was in her G.o.dmother's palace and had no way of knowing if she would ever see Roger or the others again.

248.

"I don't like it when my G.o.ddaughters disobey me," the Corley told her. "We shall have to see about your punishment."

"G.o.dmother dear," Eleanora said in a timid voice. "I didn't mean to upset you. But my feet... I couldn't walk! Poppy was only trying to help." She bit her lip, not having to feign her uncertainty. "Could you ... will you let us go now?"

The Corley gave her a disdainful look. "You betrayed me, and now you must pay the price. I have half a mind to let my spell run its course and turn the rest of you to gla.s.s. You would make a lovely addition to the statues in the throne room, you disobedient little baggage."

Eleanora fainted.

When she recovered, she was still being held up by the two servants, her hard gla.s.s feet slipping against the floor. Poppy was there, chalky pale and clearly trying to put on a brave front. They were taken down the hall to the dressing room where Eleanora had dreamed of marrying Prince Christian and spending her life dancing in palaces.

Surrounded by mute servants, with the Corley looking on with an expression of malicious glee, Eleanora was dressed in a gown of peac.o.c.k silk and plumes exactly like Poppy's. Her hair was done in the same elaborate coiffure, cosmetics applied, and then a mask. Poppy's hair was tidied, her lip rouge freshened, and her mask tightened in place as well.

"I am so sick of being dressed like someone else," Eleanora said as the two of them stared at their twin reflections in the mirror.

249.

Poppy gave a startled laugh.

"Don't worry," she said. "When this is all over and we've won, I'm sure that Roger will buy you dozens of gowns, all unique."

"When we've won?" Eleanora reached over and took Poppy's hand.

"Yes," the princess said firmly. "Sometime around dawn, I'm guessing."

"So confident, Your Highness," the Corley said. "You might make an excellent G.o.ddaughter as well. Perhaps I shall keep you both, no matter the outcome of my little contest."

"Contest?" The back of Eleanora's neck p.r.i.c.kled.

"A little exercise, really, to see if our handsome yet spoiled prince can recognize his true love."

She snapped her fingers, and a servant brought a tray with two goblets. She gave one to each girl, and Eleanora exchanged an uneasy look with Poppy.

"What is it?" They asked at the same time.

"Just drink!" The Corley's voice was hard.

Poppy shrugged and raised her gla.s.s to Eleanora.

Eleanora tried to return the salute, but her hand was shaking and she nearly spilled her drink. She gulped it down quickly, praying that it wasn't poison, although that would hardly serve the Corley's purposes.

"Much better," the Corley beamed.

Poppy opened her mouth to reply, and frowned as her lips moved but no sound came out.

250.

The Game

Christian didn't know where he was. In fact, for what seemed to be a very long time, he didn't know who who he was. He was lying on a cold, slick surface, and his wrists itched. When he scratched at the rough woolen bands around his wrists he remembered that his name was Christian, and that he was a prince. he was. He was lying on a cold, slick surface, and his wrists itched. When he scratched at the rough woolen bands around his wrists he remembered that his name was Christian, and that he was a prince.

Sitting up, he also remembered that he was looking for someone. A princess. She was to be his bride and he had lost her somewhere here in this strange cold place. Where was she?

"h.e.l.lo?"

He looked around. He was in a room made of green gla.s.s. It was round, and even the floor curved, rather like being in a bubble. There was an archway leading out of the bubble, and as he stepped toward it, something fell from his pocket and landed on the floor with a chime.

Looking down, Christian found a woman's high-heeled dancing slipper, made of exquisitely blown gla.s.s in blue and green and gold. He picked it up, and a brief flash of memory 251.

told him that it belonged to his love, who had lost it entering her golden carriage. He was bringing it to her now, and he held it tightly to keep from dropping it again. "h.e.l.lo?"

He carried the slipper out of the green room, into a red room, then an orange. Was there nothing more here but a long silent chain of round gla.s.s rooms? He saw no other signs of life, heard no sounds but that of his footsteps and his breath.

Gazing around a pale rose room, he thought he saw something glimmering through one of the walls. Stepping closer, he could just make out a figure through the gla.s.s. Not his own reflection, but what appeared to be a woman. She knocked on the gla.s.s, frantic, as though trying to reach him.

"Step back, step back," he shouted to her. His heart racing--it was his bride-to-be, he knew it--Christian raised his foot and began to kick the wall. He wished he were wearing boots and riding breeches instead of oddly shaped velvet slippers and c.u.mbersome robes, but he couldn't remember why he was dressed this way, either.

At last the wall splintered, and he helped the young woman step through. She was clad in billowing trousers and a tight, low-cut bodice, and he made a note to ask her to dress more modestly once they were wed.

"Is it you?" He studied her face, now feeling doubtful. She did have dark hair, and the fuzzy image in his mind of his bride was also dark haired. He held up the slipper. "Is this yours? Are you her?"

They both looked at her feet. They were bare, and the 252.

reflected glow of the pink floor made them look pearly and perfect.

Christian knelt and offered her the slipper. She slid her foot into it and stepped down. Her dark brows were knit with concentration.

"It might be mine," she said, and took a step.

The shoe slipped off her foot and she stumbled, catching herself on the slick, curving wall.

"I don't think so," Christian said. "I shall keep looking."

"May I join you?" Her lower lip trembled. "I think I'm looking for someone, too, and I don't want to be alone."

"Of course." Christian picked up the slipper, took her arm with his free hand, and together they walked out of the pink room into a blue one.

Through the wall of this room they spied a number of other people, and Christian and the men on the other side managed to break a large hole in the wall so that the three strangers could cross through. They were a stately older couple and a young man with a bare chest. Christian tried the slipper on the lady, even though she seemed too old to be his bride. Her narrow foot was too long for the slipper, so they all shrugged and moved forward.

The young man took the arm of the girl in the billowing trousers, and she smiled shyly up at him in a way that made Christian jealous. The girl said her name was Marianne, and she seemed relatively certain that this d.i.c.kon was the person she was looking for, but in this strange gla.s.s world there was no way to be completely sure.

253.

They pa.s.sed through more rooms, until they met another young man, this one bearing a strong resemblance to d.i.c.kon. He said his name was Roger. Roger, too, was looking for a dark-haired girl who was to be his bride, which made d.i.c.kon draw Marianne all the closer. But Roger peered into her face and shook his head.

"Someone else, someone else," he muttered.

"I, too," Christian said, brandishing the slipper. "Come with us."

They came to a room of gold, and Christian knew they were at the end.

In the middle of the room sat two young women in small golden gla.s.s chairs. Both were dressed alike in peac.o.c.k blue ball gowns, festooned with real peac.o.c.k plumes, and both wore feathered masks and had dark hair.

"Which one of you is my bride?" Christian studied them both, his pulse racing. She was here ... one of these beautiful girls ... but which one?

Neither of them spoke, though one lifted a hand and then dropped it, looking over her shoulder at the shadows behind her.

"May I try this slipper on you both? It belongs to my bride," Christian said, not sure what else to do.

"By all means," said a kind voice. The shadows stirred and a plump woman in a lace cap and shawl came forward. Her grandmotherly demeanor made Christian smile. The old woman laughed like tinkling gla.s.s. "Try the slipper on both of our young ladies, if you please! It will fit only your true love!"

254.

His true love! At last, he would find her! Sinking to his knees, Christian held out the slipper to the girl on the left. She lifted her feathery skirts and presented her bare foot.

Christian started to slide the gla.s.s dancing slipper over her toes, but then he hesitated. There was something wrong with her feet. They shone in the dim light like hard, milky gla.s.s. He looked up into her eyes, a question on his lips.

Her eyes were blue.

That wasn't right, either.

He looked at the next young woman, on his right. She raised her skirts to offer her foot. It was smooth and pale, too, but skin and not gla.s.s. Clutching the slipper so tightly that the filigreed design was leaving deep ridges in his palms, he gazed into her eyes, and saw that they were a beautiful deep violet. He realized that the wool bracelets around his wrists had stopped itching at last.

A sigh escaped Christian, and he put the slipper on his true love's foot.

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a wry smile, and she pulled two pieces of broken gla.s.s from a fold of her gown. She bent down and fitted the broken pieces to her foot like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Thank you," she said to Christian. "It's so vexing to lose a single shoe."

"Poppy?" The name came to his lips easily.

She laughed and threw her arms around his neck. "It took you long enough," she said, and planted a kiss on his lips.

255.

"Roger?" The other girl stretched out her arms to the tall young man, tried to stand, and fell.

Roger rushed to gather her in his arms. "No! No!"

The Corley--Christian's memories were as clear as gla.s.s now--began to scream and stamp her feet. The walls around them began to glow brighter, and Christian drew Poppy in close.

"No! No!"

The old witch seemed to swell and her face was dark purple. She gestured with clawed fingers and servants came running with strange tools and pans of molten gla.s.s.

He felt a tug on his arm, and found Marianne there.

"Let's go," she whispered. Her other arm was linked in Poppy's, and she was drawing them both toward the door.

Lady Margaret was beckoning to them silently from the pa.s.sageway. Lord Richard was helping Roger with Eleanora.

"Where is the Corley?" Marianne's eyes were wide and her voice sounded strangled. Her grip on Christian's arm loosened and she grabbed at d.i.c.kon. "She was right here ..."

"Run, now!" Lord Richard's voice was low and urgent.

However the Corley traveled through the walls of her palatial gla.s.s prison, it was by no means that Christian could detect. They ran down a pa.s.sageway and found themselves in a round green room that had no other door he could see.

They turned to go back, and the Corley was there, a seething pot of molten gla.s.s in her hands.