Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [78]
“I, too,” Christian said, brandishing the slipper. “Come with us.”
They came to a room of gold, and Christian knew they were at the end.
In the middle of the room sat two young women in small golden glass chairs. Both were dressed alike in peacock blue ball gowns, festooned with real peacock plumes, and both wore feathered masks and had dark hair.
“Which one of you is my bride?” Christian studied them both, his pulse racing. She was here … one of these beautiful girls … but which one?
Neither of them spoke, though one lifted a hand and then dropped it, looking over her shoulder at the shadows behind her.
“May I try this slipper on you both? It belongs to my bride,” Christian said, not sure what else to do.
“By all means,” said a kind voice. The shadows stirred and a plump woman in a lace cap and shawl came forward. Her grandmotherly demeanor made Christian smile. The old woman laughed like tinkling glass. “Try the slipper on both of our young ladies, if you please! It will fit only your true love!”
His true love! At last, he would find her! Sinking to his knees, Christian held out the slipper to the girl on the left. She lifted her feathery skirts and presented her bare foot.
Christian started to slide the glass dancing slipper over her toes, but then he hesitated. There was something wrong with her feet. They shone in the dim light like hard, milky glass. He looked up into her eyes, a question on his lips.
Her eyes were blue.
That wasn’t right, either.
He looked at the next young woman, on his right. She raised her skirts to offer her foot. It was smooth and pale, too, but skin and not glass. Clutching the slipper so tightly that the filigreed design was leaving deep ridges in his palms, he gazed into her eyes, and saw that they were a beautiful deep violet. He realized that the wool bracelets around his wrists had stopped itching at last.
A sigh escaped Christian, and he put the slipper on his true love’s foot.
The corner of her mouth quirked up in a wry smile, and she pulled two pieces of broken glass from a fold of her gown. She bent down and fitted the broken pieces to her foot like a jigsaw puzzle.
“Thank you,” she said to Christian. “It’s so vexing to lose a single shoe.”
“Poppy?” The name came to his lips easily.
She laughed and threw her arms around his neck. “It took you long enough,” she said, and planted a kiss on his lips.
“Roger?” The other girl stretched out her arms to the tall young man, tried to stand, and fell.
Roger rushed to gather her in his arms.
“No! No!”
The Corley—Christian’s memories were as clear as glass now—began to scream and stamp her feet. The walls around them began to glow brighter, and Christian drew Poppy in close.
“No! No!”
The old witch seemed to swell and her face was dark purple. She gestured with clawed fingers and servants came running with strange tools and pans of molten glass.
He felt a tug on his arm, and found Marianne there.
“Let’s go,” she whispered. Her other arm was linked in Poppy’s, and she was drawing them both toward the door.
Lady Margaret was beckoning to them silently from the passageway. Lord Richard was helping Roger with Eleanora.
“Where is the Corley?” Marianne’s eyes were wide and her voice sounded strangled. Her grip on Christian’s arm loosened and she grabbed at Dickon. “She was right here …”
“Run, now!” Lord Richard’s voice was low and urgent.
However the Corley traveled through the walls of her palatial glass prison, it was by no means that Christian could detect. They ran down a passageway and found themselves in a round green room that had no other door he could see.
They turned to go back, and the Corley was there, a seething pot of molten glass in her hands.
“This is my realm,” she hissed. “And if I wish to keep you here forever, I will!”
The Corley spilled the pot of molten glass at their feet. The floor began to bubble and melt.
“Keep clear!” Christian wrapped an arm around Poppy, who was closest to the Corley.
“I am not staying here,” Poppy shouted, shaking him off.
She turned to the nearest wall and shot