Cinderella is Dead

Sophia panics because Luke said he was avoiding the ball; now, she wonders if everything he told her was a lie and if she’s in further danger. She notices portraits of kings since Cinderella’s time: Prince Charming, King Eustice, King Stephan, and the current King Manford. The crown gets passed to a successor of the king’s choosing; Cinderella and Prince Charming did not have a child, nor did the kings that followed. Instead, a secret city exists beyond the Forbidden Lands, the sole purpose of which is to produce heirs to the throne. Some girls are smitten with King Manford, even though he caused most of their families to go bankrupt.

King Manford scans the crowd, praising them, until he spots Liv, whom he commands to step forward. He asks if she was aware this event was formal, and she says her parents couldn’t afford a fancy gown and that she’d hoped for a fairy godmother. He calls her a disgrace and asks if she found her dress in a gutter; she made the gown herself. The king says her parents should have sold something or worked harder and that she should have been more devoted to the Cinderella story. He cannot allow her to attend the ball dressed like this because people will think his standards have been lowered. Guards take Liv behind a door and the band strikes up, allowing the suitors to mingle with the girls.

Sophia finds Erin, and they fret about Liv’s fate. Luke appears and explains that he plans to claim Sophia, with her consent, so she can be saved from a worse fate. They can then make a plan to escape Lille. Sophia feels like this could work. Erin says they’ll never get away, and if they try, she’s not coming with them. Another man appears and tries to flirt with Sophia and Erin.

The man who tries to flirt with Sophia and Erin is Édouard, the brother of Luke’s bully Morris. Sophia throws a drink in his face and then flees his presence. Luke explains that Morris and Édouard’s father gave up their mother as forfeit so he could take a new wife. Their family is close with the king because they have ties to trading posts beyond the Forbidden Lands.

Sophia and Luke discuss how to escape the borders. Luke says they’re guarded less on the western edge, near the White Wood, which people are afraid to enter. Sophia is willing to try this plan but is still upset about Erin and Liv. Luke goes to tell the registrar he’s putting a claim on Sophia. She looks to the door that Liv entered and sees an elderly woman exit, but not Liv.

Some guards reveal that Luke’s claim to Sophia is void because someone higher ranking also put a claim on her: Morris. The guards take Luke away, and Sophia worries what will happen to him. Morris comes to flirt with Sophia, who continues to insult him, and he threatens her. Sophia runs off in search of an exit. She goes to the bathroom, where there are small windows. She removes most of her excess clothing, leaving her dress on, and is able to partially fit through the window.

A guard notices Sophia climbing out the window and grabs her leg, but she kicks him until he lets go. He can’t fit through the window, and Sophia climbs onto the roof. She falls through and ends up in a passageway under the palace. She hears a prisoner crying behind a door, who tells Sophia to escape. She runs out the back door and into the woods behind the palace.

It’s dark and the estate is vast, so Sophia can’t tell where she’s going. After walking for what seems like hours, she stumbles upon a mausoleum with the word “Cinderella” on it.

Cinderella’s fabled tomb seems to have been abandoned in recent years, but the ground is littered with notes and prayers to her, as well as letters between people planning escapes. Sophia hears someone coming, so she enters the mausoleum. Inside is a marble rendering, not a real corpse.

Sophia reflects on how Cinderella’s story ends with her supposedly happy union with Prince Charming but does not describe the prolonged illness that led to her early death or the suffering of the kingdom’s subjects at the hands of her husband. Sophia sees Cinderella’s legendary glass slippers and says aloud that perhaps the legends are true. Another voice behind her says, “not entirely.” Sophia warns the figure not to touch her, but the young woman says she wouldn’t dare and confirms she would rather die than work for the king.

The two girls size each other up, considering why the other isn’t at the ball. Sophia says she left the ball and is trying to get home because she doesn’t want a husband. The other girl, Constance, gives Sophia some clothes and tells her to stay hidden and meet her at a certain fork in the road tomorrow.

Sophia plans to follow Constance’s instructions but first goes home to see her parents. Two palace guards are already at the house, so Sophia taps on the window to catch her father’s attention. He tells the guards that he spotted her and points them in the wrong direction, giving them a brief chance to talk. Her mother hugs her, but her father is furious that she put them in this position after how hard they worked to prepare her for a good match. He explains that they can’t keep Sophia safe and that she can’t be here when the guards return. Sophia laments Liv, and her father says her family failed her. Sophia’s mother wants to hide her, but her father refuses.

Sophia wonders what happened to Liv and Luke and continues toward the spot where she’s supposed to meet Constance. She comes across a ditch where she discovers Liv’s corpse, with gray skin and white hair. She hears guards coming, so she hides, and the guards take Liv’s body.

Sophia finds Constance, who tries to console her about Liv. The far western side of Lille is largely abandoned, and the girls travel a few miles beyond this area to the decaying house where Cinderella lived with her family. Constance gives Sophia food and reveals that she is Cinderella’s last living relative (specifically, her sixth great-niece, or the sixth great-granddaughter of her stepsister Gabrielle, who was not “evil” as Cinderella’s story dictates). She keeps her family’s stories alive, though she doesn’t know the full truth behind Cinderella herself. She shares what she does know with Sophia: Cinderella’s father, not Prince Charming, was actually next in line for the throne of Mersailles. During a drought and famine, Prince Charming claimed he could save the kingdom. Initially, the people refused his help, but after conditions worsened, they yielded to Charming. Suddenly under his power, crops flourished, and people loved him. Then, he started implementing restrictive and dangerous laws. Cinderella’s parents tried to rally against him, so Charming imprisoned her mother and she eventually disappeared. Cinderella’s father remarried, but Lady Davis was not “evil” as Cinderella’s story dictates. He then disappeared from the palace as well, and at age 18, Cinderella was chosen by Charming at the first ball. Charming’s successor, King Eustice, was worse than he was, and the same happened with each successor after that. Sophia questions why Cinderella would go to the palace willingly, and Constance says this is a mystery to her as well. She thinks the fairy godmother may be responsible somehow. Later, Charming tried to execute Lady Davis, her daughter Gabrielle, and her other daughter using a method similar to crucifixion, but Gabrielle was able to free them all after three days and took to the woods. Their descendants cannot rejoin society but have been training to fight and pass down their stories.

Constance reveals that Cinderella had been trying to tell Gabrielle something about a curse on Prince Charming, or the kingdom itself, but palace guards took her away before she could finish. Sophia finds herself developing a crush on Constance. She proposes that perhaps Cinderella’s fairy godmother could perform a curse to help them. Constance says she disappeared into the White Wood when Cinderella died to live out her days; she thinks anyone who knew her would be dead by now. However, Sophia reasons that the fairy godmother might have passed her stories down to someone else. They plan to journey to the center of the White Wood in search of information on the fairy godmother.

In the morning, Constance says they should go to town to get supplies, but first, they have to dress up as men to avoid detection. They pass the spot where Cinderella’s mother was allegedly buried. Unlike Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters, who were made into villains, her birth mother was simply left out of the palace-sanctioned story.