Cinderella is Dead

The morning of the cotillion, Amina uses a magical tree to produce a ball gown for Sophia. Amina also gives her Cinderella’s dagger, the one she was meant to use to kill Prince Charming. Sophia feels conflicted about her affection for Amina, who reminds her of her own grandmother but also helped Prince Charming ascend the throne, thereby ruining countless lives.

Amina produces two horses and a carriage and then transforms herself into a younger man to drive the carriage. Sophia will be entering the cotillion as a guest (using an invitation Amina stole, with a different name on it), whereas Constance will sneak in and try to free the prisoners Sophia heard in the passageway under the palace.

Amina drops Sophia off at the palace, explaining that she’ll meet up with Constance once she arrives. Sophia’s fake invitation works, and she enters the palace. She realizes the invitation’s actual recipient could be in danger for not attending the ball, which is an additional reason she needs to succeed at killing King Manford. At the cotillion, everyone is confused, as many of the girls there were already chosen at the ball, and people wonder if another choosing ceremony will occur.

King Manford addresses the audience, explaining that henceforth, an annual winter cotillion will be required in addition to the regular annual ball and that anyone not chosen immediately will be forfeited. He instructs the girls who were already chosen to leave, and the remaining girls will have another chance to be chosen tonight. The music starts, and the crowd mingles.

King Manford appears in front of Sophia, saying she is either brave or foolish to return. She says she knows what he is; he leaves her and then orders everyone into the courtyard. The king returns and invites Sophia to see the rest of the palace. They continue talking, and she grates his nerves by saying Cinderella didn’t love him and that he felt rejected and thus took out his anger on other women. Manford says he’ll make Sophia the wicked subject of her own story, using her as a cautionary example for other girls and women. Sophia stabs him in the neck with her dagger like Constance showed her, but he doesn’t bleed or seem bothered by it. Instead, he laughs.

King Manford has palace guards take Sophia to a cell in the dungeon. It’s 11 o’ clock, and he says he’ll be back for her at midnight. Sophia reflects that, if Manford can’t be killed by normal means, she doesn’t know how to stop him or if he can be stopped at all. She uses sharp rocks to saw the restraints off her hands.

Sophia then speaks to the same voice she heard during her original escape, who turns out to be Emile, a friend of Constance’s. Emile has been imprisoned for weeks and already knows daggers won’t kill King Manford. People have stabbed, poisoned, and tried to strangle him, to no avail. More curse than human, Manford “drains” his prisoners to restore himself: He wraps them up, produces a mysterious light, and drains something out of them, which feels like dying. This is how he keeps himself young and why Cinderella’s and Liv’s corpses were gray. Emile reveals that the ball is a reaping, its purpose being to control and draw people to the palace for Manford to feast on. The same is true for forfeits.

Sophia uses a hairpin to pick the lock of her own cell. However, it breaks, so she can’t free the other prisoners. She says she’ll come back for them later. It’s now 11:30pm, and Sophia makes her way to a different room, which turns out to be Cinderella’s bedroom from when she lived in the palace. It looks like no one has been inside for a long time.

Sophia searches Cinderella’s bedroom for her diary, hoping to find out what she was trying to tell her stepsister Gabrielle about the land’s supposed curse. She finds the diary behind a table and discovers that Prince Charming was slowly draining Cinderella to punish her for not loving him. Cinderella was still planning to use the special dagger to kill him after the love potion wore off. A guard comes into the room, so Sophia smashes a candlestick on his head to knock him out and then runs off.

In a different dungeon, she passes an old man trying to purchase a child prisoner, but he doesn’t have enough money. King Manford sells some of his prisoners in addition to feeding on them himself. She finds Luke imprisoned there as well, with many others. She knocks out the guard, takes his keys, frees the prisoners in this area, and instructs them to escape the palace. There are at least 40 girls and six boys, some of whom are only 11 or 12 years old.

Sophia returns to the other dungeon to save Emile and the others but is intercepted by King Manford. She again taunts him for trying to fill the void Cinderella left in his heart and says he can’t rule her. He wraps her up and opens his mouth, beginning to drain her. Then, another person comes into the room.

Constance interrupts the draining, and King Manford reminds her that her dagger won’t kill him. Amina enters as well and confesses that she is Manford’s mother—which Constance was partially suspicious about. As per necromancy spells, a conjurer is bound to their chosen corpse until death. Amina resurrected Prince Charming, and he saved her from being burned for necromancy. However, Amina’s spell couldn’t sustain Charming forever, so he began draining people—which Amina genuinely wasn’t aware of.

Amina lunges toward Sophia, holding Cinderella’s dagger. She says this scene is what she saw in her vision and asks Sophia for forgiveness. She then plunges the handle of Cinderella’s dagger into Sophia’s hand as Constance stabs Amina with her own dagger. King Manford shrieks, and Sophia runs off, holding Cinderella’s dagger.

Amina, King Manford’s conjurer, is dead, so Sophia hopes he will be vulnerable. He follows her, now a rotting, moving corpse. He wraps her in his grip, intending to take Sophia with him. Manford starts to drain her, but when she grips Cinderella’s dagger, it glows and severs the connection between them. He is engulfed in light and flame and then crumbles to ash.

However, the flames spread and start to engulf the palace, so Sophia flees to the dungeon where Emile and others are still locked up. She uses the keys she stole to free them and explains that King Manford is dead. As she’s opening the last cell door, Sophia can’t move or breathe because of the smoke. She is about to pass out and takes solace that she will die for a purpose.

Sophia wakes up outside, as Constance saved her. She saw girls coming out of the palace and knew because of her own vision via divination that someone was still lying on the floor inside. The palace is ablaze in the distance.

A crowd gathers, with people asking what’s going on and where King Manford is. Sophia announces that he’s dead and that Cinderella’s story is a lie. Immediately, one man walks up to Sophia, but Constance threatens him with her dagger. Constance, Emile, and others try to corroborate Sophia’s words; they reiterate the dangers of the ball, and people in the crowd nod along.

However, a separate group begins talking amongst themselves, many of them palace guards. They want to know who the rightful successor is and why they should listen to Sophia, who is a girl. Sophia tells the man speaking that she just saw him try to purchase a young prisoner from King Manford. The men retreat because of Constance and Emile’s weapons and strength, but say they’ll be back.

Sophia’s parents arrive, and, finally, her father exhibits sadness instead of anger and relief that she’s alive. Sophia and Constance embrace, and Sophia’s mother smiles. Sophia thinks the future is uncertain, but it’s bright for the first time.

This chapter is “The True Story of Cinderella: People’s Approved Text” (383), authored by Sophia Grimmins. Presumably, this story replaces the old palace-approved version.

Long ago, there lived three sisters who loved and cared for each other: Cinderella, Gabrielle, and Isla. The sisters’ father had been in line to inherit the throne, but Prince Charming took control instead. Prince Charming was a brutal tyrant who had been cursed by black magic.

Prince Charming, in his many disguises, ruled Mersailles for 200 years, until the people stood up for themselves and broke the curse. A new ruler emerged: Constance, the only living kin to Cinderella and the rightful heir to the throne. Constance led Mersailles with a council of six others. They abolished the old laws and made the same privileges available to everyone, regardless of gender.

The angry townspeople and old palace guards rebelled, but Emile led an effort to push them back, driving them to the Forbidden Lands.

Sophia speaks directly to the readers to tell them not to accept oppression or be silent but to let their voices be heard and to “be a light in the dark” (385).