3 DAYS. 14 HOURS. 28 MINUTES.
I didn’t have the luxury of crying for days on end and bathing in misery while lying in bed, so I did it while working in the garage instead. Well, I tried to, but work was a little dry. Instead, I spent time with my head in Dad’s textbooks, refreshing my technical knowledge before the start of school next month. But at the end of every paragraph, whether I wanted to or not, Meena’s crying face screaming my name washed into my mind and stuck there. It wasn’t leaving.
She was permanently etched into my brain, she had forever changed my chemistry, and I didn’t think I’d ever forget her. No matter how hard I tried. Her dad was right, after all—she needed someone more like herself by her side. Not some nobody from level zero who couldn’t even keep a single business alive, let alone a country.
The more I thought about things, the more I wondered if I had rushed into that decision. Had I let him manipulate me? But I agreed with him. He was right. I was thinking that long before he had said anything.
Usually, I was a ‘think everything through’ kind of woman, but when it came to Meena, I soared headfirst into every decision: Helping her do something very illegal, leaving Palatina on a mysterious trip, prodding for answers in dangerous places, and going to a ball as her official date. There was just something about her that made me crazy. Made me irrational and made me not think things through.
A knock on the garage door sounded, and I threw it open with a frustrated groan, which silenced the moment I saw a royal courier outside.
“For Miss Cinderella Ferning.” He handed me a small box with a letter taped to the top.
Familiar handwriting was scrawled across the letter, and I took a shuddering breath. “Thank you.” I shut the garage door and placed the box on the desk while I slipped open the letter.
Dear El,
I enjoyed our time together, and you are someone I will cherish for the rest of my days. I won’t beg you to stay with me or force you to live a life you don’t want, but I owe you the world, and that will never change. You deserve everything this life could possibly offer. Please find enclosed two things: your missing shoe and a bank account. Use it however you wish.
Please be well, and remember me fondly.
Meena
I scrunched it up and threw it onto the desk, frustration bubbling over the edges of my sanity. I wanted nothing more than to be with her, to learn where my place was at her side, but I couldn’t. She deserved a practiced noblewoman. Someone her father approved of.
Days slipped by, the weather remaining the same dry heat it was most of the year, but I had become cold. Something inside of me had frozen over, the ice spreading through my soul like a disease. It had gotten bad enough that even Phyllis had stopped asking me to do mundane things. Lapis constantly asked how I was doing, neither prodding nor nosing into my personal life—which was rather unlike her—and by day three I snapped. I yelled at her to stop wondering about me, to stop badgering me over my feelings, to just leave me alone. By the end of the day, I felt so bad that I bought her a slice of apple bread as recompense.
Even the smile on her lips when she unwrapped the rare treat wasn’t enough to thaw the winter inside of me. It seemed nothing could. The one person I could have counted on to listen to my woes was now dead, sacrificed for the princess I would never see again. The thing I had always wanted was right in front me, starting in mere weeks, but I couldn’t look forward to it. The ice barred even the strongest threads of happiness from slipping through.
“Cinderella?” Phyllis asked the following morning, caution in her tone. “I was wondering if you’d like to attend Lord Fathom’s ball with Lazuli next Wednesday. It might be a good chance for you to meet some of your classmates before the semester starts.” Lord Fathom, a lanky fellow with a mustache I found rather ridiculous, owned the series of hardware stores found on every level, even ours, and Phyllis had managed to score Lazuli an invite to his annual ball during the princess’s birthday party.
I had no interest in attending a ball she might also be at, so I shook my head and grabbed the toast from the grill before plating them up for everyone. “No, thank you. I have studying I’d like to do before school starts.”
“Okay. Well, pass me today’s newspaper then. It’s on the counter in the entryway.” Her hand flicked in the general direction of the door to our tiny apartment, as though I might somehow get lost in the few feet between the kitchen table and the bedroom door that makes up the entirety of our living space.
With a small sigh I tried to unsuccessfully hide, I grabbed the paper blindly and threw it onto the table in front of Phyllis, barely missing her toast. Upon sitting down, the front headline caught my eye: Princess Jemeena on her Death Bed with Hours to Live.
The ice inside me shattered, and days of emotions flooded into me at once, the dam bursting. Tears fell down my face in raging rivers as the butter in my hand clattered to the floor.
Phyllis looked at the article with a confused expression, and Lapis looked at me with a matching face. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Did you know she was going to die?”
“I . . .” Words failed me.
What had I missed? IoN had saved her. He had given her the last of his years. The last of Dad’s days.
Days . . .
Dad only had days to live, so how had IoN lived for years? Did time change when you transferred it between human and steambot? And if so, what did Meena’s time say once IoN had died?
She knew all along.
She knew she was going to die, and I just abandoned her like she meant nothing.
I couldn’t . . . breathe.
I had to save her.