Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [74]
The carriage slid to a stop, the horses nearly falling to their rumps on the slick glass floor. All the servants leaped off of their perches and one of them grabbed Poppy’s arm, hauling her out of the carriage like a sack of potatoes.
“Do you mind?” She clambered to her feet, straightening her elaborate skirts with great dignity.
What she saw next made her heartily glad for the man’s rough manners, however.
Before their eyes the carriage was melting. In a matter of seconds it was nothing but a sizzling pile of orange gold slag in the middle of the floor. Poppy gulped, thinking what it would have been like to be trapped in the carriage as it melted.
She turned to thank the footman, but he, too, was gone. All the servants had faded back to wherever they came from, and so had the horses. At least, she thought they had. But there were twelve fat white rats scuttling around the smoldering remains of the carriage, their pink noses wiggling. One of them had a distinctly horsey look, Poppy thought, as it peered up at her. Then they all turned and scampered off to some unseen hole.
And Poppy was alone.
“Hello?”
She looked around. The room was circular, and there seemed to be one way in or out: an arch just large enough for her to pass through. The only sign of the carriage’s entrance was a streak of greasy soot on the floor. She took a step toward the arch, and yelped with pain as something stabbed her instep.
Raising her skirts high, she looked down to find that the glass slipper on her left foot had broken in half. The glass, which had been uncomfortably hot but pliable during the ball, had hardened now. Her right shoe was missing entirely, and Poppy couldn’t for the life of her remember where she had lost it.
She probed her feet with a wary finger, but there was no sign of the glassy hardness that had affected Eleanora. The broken glass had scratched her instep, but it was shallow and hardly bled. She knotted one of her abundant layers of underskirt into a pocket and slipped the two halves of the glass slipper inside.
Then Poppy padded off to find the Corley.
“Hello?” She called out with false bravado as she passed through half a dozen empty glass rooms. “He proposed … I accepted … I want to go now.”
She turned a corner and found herself in the Corley’s throne room. The old witch was crouched on her throne like a toad, eyes glittering, and her silent court gathered around, watching Poppy as she stumbled into the room.
“Well?” Poppy held out her arms, hoping that they didn’t shake or her voice tremble. “Here I am. Prince Christian proposed. Can I go now? Um, to be with my prince?”
The Corley laughed.
“Do you think I am a fool?” she asked sweetly. “Christian was to propose to Lady Ella. But he didn’t. He proposed to you, Princess Poppy. You should be sipping tea in the Seadown parlor while Ella dreams of her marriage. But instead you’ve ruined everything.”
Poppy’s blood froze in her veins.
“Like your dreams of getting your goddaughter back?” Poppy choked out. “Eleanora isn’t Mary Bess, you know. Nothing can bring her back from the dead.”
“Don’t you say her name!” The Corley shook with rage, leaping from her throne and coming at Poppy with hands outstretched, her fingers like talons. “Don’t ever say her name! She was mine! My goddaughter—my child! He stole her in the night, took her away to marry that spoiled prince!”
Poppy stepped back but the Corley didn’t advance, just stood there in the middle of her throne room with her face transfigured by madness and her hands clutching at something unseen.
“Now I have my Eleanora,” she ranted. “I’ll give her whatever she wants: gowns, jewels, a handsome husband, and she will never leave me!”
Poppy pulled the pistol out of her skirts and pointed it at the Corley. Her hands