Epilogue
One year later, Curtis and I were married in the town square near my family’s manor house, beneath strings of lanterns and surrounded by friends and family.
The scent of fresh bread from the baker’s ovens mingled with the perfume of roses woven into garlands along every window.
Thomas the glassblower had presented me with a pair of glass shoes he had crafted just for me.
They caught the sunlight as I walked and scattered rainbows at my feet.
From that day on, glass slippers were all the rage, though I warned every bride that they were not the most comfortable shoes to dance in.
Cynthia, of course, did not attend my wedding, but everyone else seemed to.
From the lowliest serving maid to the king and queen themselves, the entire country gathered to sing, feast, and dance long into the night.
By the time the stars had faded into dawn, the cobblestones were littered with flower petals.
Mother and Comfort kept teaching at their finishing school, which quickly rose to fame as the place to send one’s daughters if they wanted to learn how to curtsy properly, sharpen their wit, and perhaps gain a little too much of Comfort’s confidence.
Curtis and I visited every week for dinner, reviving our old game night tradition, and though Mother had many suitors, she never remarried.
She always claimed she had too much fun winning at charades to bother with another husband.
Comfort eventually married a local earl who adored her boldness.
She told him once that he didn’t deserve her, and he agreed so wholeheartedly that she kissed him on the spot.
As for Hubert and Cynthia, they made a fine, polished pair, like a portrait hung on a wall, beautiful but very stiff.
Their marriage was formal, dignified, and precisely what the kingdom expected.
They produced an heir, a son with Hubert’s solemn eyes, and when Hubert took the throne, Cynthia at his side, the people cheered dutifully.
Yet everyone knew the truth: it was Curtis who quietly steered the kingdom.
Hubert and Cynthia thrived on pomp and ceremony, and Curtis was content to let them sparkle while he handled the true work.
“They can have the crowns,” he told me once, grinning as he pulled me away from another tiresome banquet. “I’ll take the people.”
In time, I found my own confidence again.
I no longer flinched when I caught sight of my scars in a mirror.
Curtis loved them, and somehow that was enough to teach me to love them too.
When we had children, each year on the anniversary of the ball, we would gather them beneath the Fairy Godmother Tree, fireflies drifting above us, and tell them the same story.
It was about a girl with soot on her cheeks and hope in her heart who was magically gifted a gown and slippers so she could go to the ball and marry a prince.
The children kept suspecting it was their Aunt Cynthia, so one night I laughed and changed the name. “No, no,” I said. “Her name was Cinderella.”
And needless to say, we all lived happily ever after.