Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [0]
Jessica Day George
NEW YORK BERLIN LONDON
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Houseguest
Prince
Ball
Guest
Gossip
Odd
Maid
Dancer
Gleaming
Invited
Goddaughter
Mightmare
Eencer
Gown
Preparations
Honored Guest
Dance
Midnight
Confused
Investigator
Torn
Magician
Dreamer
Dizzy
Spy
Belle
Rejected
Strategist
Eleanora
Prey
Confused
Invalid
Replacement
Emperor
Imposter
Rescuer
Double
The Game
Betrothed
The Anti-Love-Spell Bracele
Acknowledgments
Also by the Author
Imprint
For my own Princess,
who danced before she could crawl
Prologue
Perfect,” the Corley said, lips stretched wide in a smile. She took a shallow pan of molten glass and set it in the air over her head. “Yes, everything will be perfect this time.”
She tilted the pan just a little, and the syrupy stuff slithered out in a green sheet. It flowed, pale and smooth, into a basin, and showed the Corley a young girl with blue eyes and black hair under a little white cap. She was ironing a muslin gown, a grim expression on her face.
“She is beautiful,” pronounced the witch. “And clever. But almost … obsessed with her loss. Perfect. She will come to me with open arms, the lovely. And now for her prince.”
She tipped the pan a little, pouring out more liquid glass, and there he was. A tall youth with pale gold hair and deep blue eyes, riding a showy gray horse down a city street. All around him, women stopped to sigh but he rode on, oblivious.
“Handsome, yet blind to his own appeal and so much more,” the Corley purred. “And it was so easy to bring him here.”
The thick green liquid flickered and another face appeared. Black hair framed a face with porcelain skin and large violet eyes. The young girl’s beauty was only marred by the frown she wore.
Curious, the Corley watched as the frowning girl was kissed and hugged by a whole herd of other young ladies, clearly all sisters. Last of all two tall young men embraced her. One of the young men handed over a bag that appeared to be full of balls of yarn with a pair of sharp knitting needles sticking out of the top. The girl finally laughed, and the other young man helped her into a carriage.
“What’s this, what’s this?” The Corley clucked her tongue when the steam failed to show her any more. “Another one coming? Ah, me! Can nothing I seek come easily?
“Still, what’s one more little girl?”
Houseguest
When someone knocked on the bedroom door, Poppy nearly leaped right off the bed. She had been sprawled across it writing, and her quill pen skidded over the paper and left huge blotches of ink on the letter to her twin, Daisy.
“Oh, blast!” Poppy dabbed at the ink with her handkerchief before it could run off the paper and onto the white counterpane. “Yes? Come in.”
After sharing a room with her twin and their sister Orchid all her life, Poppy was not used to people knocking on her bedroom door. Nor was the silence of Seadown House at all soothing, but only seemed to magnify the least squeak or whisper, until Poppy thought her nerves would never settle.
Lady Margaret peeped around the doorframe. She had been the greatest beauty of her generation, and her looks had not faded with age. Her hair gleamed like polished wood and her large brown eyes sparkled. She smiled kindly at Poppy, who was still dabbing at the letter with her ruined handkerchief.
“I hope I didn’t startle you, my dear.”
Years ago Poppy would have said yes and indignantly displayed the ruined letter. But Rose and Lily, her oldest sisters, had been teaching her tact with great determination, and so she shook her head.
“Not at all,” she replied. “I’ve made a muddle of this letter without any help.”
Lady Margaret came all the way into the room. She took the pen and ink from Poppy and set it on the writing desk without comment. Poppy felt a pang: she should sit at the desk to compose her letters, but it was so hard to break the habit of lounging while she wrote.
Lady Margaret turned the elegant little desk chair to face the bed and sat down. “Marianne tells