The carriage rolled like a dream over the forest path—too smooth, too quiet, like the wheels never touched the ground.
I sat beside Cinderella, who kept looking out the window like the world might disappear if she blinked. Her fingers trembled in her lap, delicately folded, but tense. I could tell she was trying not to mess up the perfect picture she'd become. The dress. The hair. The shoes. Magic made it all fit, but she wore it like armor—heavy, unnatural.
And me? I didn't know what I looked like anymore.
The cloak felt like it had a will of its own now. It wrapped around me as if shielding me from something I hadn't met yet. I ran a hand along the edge, and it pulsed—just faintly—under my fingertips. Not exactly alive. But not just fabric either.
Cinderella turned toward me. "You're quiet."
"Thinking," I said.
"About what?"
I considered lying, then didn't. "Magic always has a cost. That's what I'm trying to figure out."
She looked away. "Do you think I made a mistake?"
"No," I said after a beat. "But I think stories like this only end two ways—happily ever after, or not at all."
She nodded slowly, but I wasn't sure she understood what I meant.
We rounded a bend in the path. The woods here had thickened. Branches arched overhead, forming a sort of tunnel, and the light thinned into a bruised gold. A fog clung low to the ground. The horses slowed. The driver—a man I hadn't noticed before, hooded and still—tugged on the reins.
Something lay in the road ahead.
From a distance, it looked like a bundle of rags. But as the carriage drew closer, I felt it like a punch to the gut—metallic in the air, sharp and quiet.
Blood.
"Stop," I said sharply.
The driver obeyed, and the carriage came to a halt.
"What is it?" Cinderella asked.
"Stay inside."
I pushed the door open before she could argue and stepped into the thickening mist.
The air was wrong. Heavy. Like it had been holding its breath for hours. I moved slowly, boots crunching over the path, until I reached the thing in the road.
Not rags.
A man.
Slumped face-down, arms sprawled, his body half-buried in the brambles near the edge of the road. His coat was torn, shoes missing, one hand still curled around something I couldn't see.
I crouched beside him.
Blood had dried at the back of his head, matted in his hair. Not an accident. No animal had done this.
This was murder.
I looked back at the carriage. Cinderella had stepped out and was hovering near the door, staring at me like she didn't want to know the answer.
I turned back to the body.
No signs of life. His clothes were rough but well-made. There was a pouch near his belt—half-open, filled with bits of polished leather, tiny nails, a broken awl.
I recognized the tools. I'd seen them before, in the markets.
He was a shoemaker.
I rose, wiping my hands on my skirt. "He's dead."
Cinderella's eyes widened. "Dead? But how?"
I shook my head. "Blunt force to the head. No weapon around. No signs of a struggle, which means it happened fast. Probably someone he knew."
She stared down at him, her face pale. "We can't just leave him here."
"No," I agreed. "But we can't stay either."
I scanned the trees. No movement. No birds. Whatever had happened, it was already done.
I turned back to the body, kneeling again. Something glinted near his collar—tucked beneath his coat. I reached in and pulled out a scrap of paper.
Folded.
I opened it carefully.
A drawing. Precise. Stylized.
A shoe.
Not just any shoe—the shoe. A glass slipper, etched in ink and labeled with arcane symbols I didn't recognize.
And beneath it, a name.
Isabella.
I tucked it into my cloak.
Cinderella watched me, tense. "Red… are we going to the ball?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Then I said, "Yes."
"Even after—this?"
"Especially after this."
I looked once more at the shoemaker's body.
Something told me this night was about more than princes and pumpkin carriages. And I wasn't about to let a mystery rot in the woods while everyone else danced in gold shoes.
The wind shifted.
The trees watched.
And we rode on.