Chapter 9 - THE PRINCE WHO WALKED WHILE SLEEPING
Adrian ordered himself confined. If a creature could wear his face, no command bearing his appearance could be trusted.
Rowan established a challenge phrase for the guard. Adrian chose the private words he had whispered before midnight, then sealed them in an envelope. Even Rowan did not hear them.
The false Adrian struck again that night.
He appeared outside Ella’s room and answered every security question correctly except the sealed phrase. When guards lowered their spears, his body dissolved into black moths.
One moth remained pinned beneath an iron candlestick. Inside its wings was written a message from Queen Aurelia:
Bring the bride and both slippers to the Moon Door before the eclipse. Refuse, and the sleeping girl will wake without a heart.
The eclipse was nine days away.
Ella begged Adrian to surrender her. “If Cinderella is alive, I’m the reason she is trapped.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I remember wanting what she had.”
Adrian studied her face—the exact curve of the mouth, the same eyes that had met his at the ball. Yet Ella’s manner was different. Cinderella had challenged him with quiet humor. Ella watched him as if one wrong expression might make him withdraw love.
“Wanting a life is not proof you stole it,” he said.
Ella answered with painful honesty. “Would you say that if I didn’t look like her?”
May you like
Before he could respond, the imprisoned moth spoke in Cinderella’s voice.
“Adrian,” it pleaded, “don’t trust me.”
