So This is Love (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,101
open, revealing quite possibly the last person Cinderella expected to run into.
The Duchess of Orlanne yanked her through the hidden door, shutting it behind them, and covered Cinderella’s mouth with her hand.
“Quiet, Cindergirl. Louisa, blow out the candle.”
A second surprise: Louisa, standing beside the duchess, her shaking hands clutching a candle that she immediately snuffed. And Bruno!
Her bloodhound looked fiercely proud of himself, and Cinderella knelt to hug him. “Were you the one who found me?” she whispered. “Dear, brave Bruno. Thank you.”
In the darkness the four waited, Cinderella’s heart hammering through the silence.
“Where did she go?” the guards asked each other.
“I saw her disappear around here.”
Outside, leaves rustled.
“Nothing but moss and ivy. She couldn’t have gone missing like that.”
“Why not? The Grand Duke said she was a sorceress, didn’t he? Maybe she’s evaporated into the air, or turned into one of these birds squawking everywhere.”
When the voices faded, Louisa relit the candle and the duchess ushered Cinderella into a dimly lit tunnel.
“What is this place?” Cinderella asked.
“You didn’t think the servants’ tunnels were the only secret passageways in the palace, did you?” Genevieve harrumphed. “I know all the service entrances and exits, most of them so well hidden you wouldn’t think to notice them. These were built during darker times, in case the royal family ever needed to escape. These are the ones Arthur used to help the fairies all those years ago. There are two paths: one back to the palace, and one into Valors.”
Right as she said it, they approached the fork. “The choice is yours, Cindergirl. You’ve seen what dangers come with being a princess, and this is only the beginning. Take the left and it will bring you to Valors. Or the right—”
“I’m going back to Charles,” Cinderella said immediately. There was no hesitation in her tone; she knew her choice.
The duchess smiled, taking the candle to lead the way. “Then right we go.”
Cinderella fell in step with Louisa. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t . . . I didn’t know how.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Louisa said, threading her arm through Cinderella’s. “I understand.”
“Friends?”
“Always,” replied Louisa. She winked. “I got to meet the prince this morning, thanks to you.”
Cinderella’s pulse quickened. “He was looking for me?”
“Yes, and I had no idea where you were. That didn’t sit well with me, so I sent him to find Bruno. But—”
“But he never got a chance to look for you,” Genevieve interrupted. “The king sent for him, and now he’s stuck in a council meeting. Fortunately, Bruno here knew something was amiss. All day the mutt was whimpering, and when I took him on a walk he raced out of the palace—nearly gave me a stroke, I tell you! But he kept running and barking, and I put two and two together and figured that it was because of you. Didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ferdinand, the snake, had you taken away.” Genevieve picked a piece of straw from Cinderella’s hair. “And I was entirely right.”
Louisa pushed open another trapdoor, this one leading into the palace. Once Cinderella was inside, Genevieve started leading them toward the royal audience chamber—to find the prince and stop his betrothal ceremony to the Princess of Lourdes. But halfway down the hall, Cinderella stopped. There was something else she had to do.
“Your Highness, Louisa,” she said, “you must find Charles, and hurry. Interrupt the ceremony if you have to.”
“Where are you going?”
“The Grand Duke . . . I have to stop him. He’s been poisoning the king.”
“What?”
“And lying to him—to engineer his own rise to power. I have to prove that he’s a traitor to Aurelais.”
“You can’t go snooping around the duke’s offices looking like that,” Louisa said, eyeing her torn gown and bruised arms. “Not when the guards are looking for you. Here, take this.”
The seamstress reached into her basket and passed Cinderella a pile of garments. “These are yours. After we found out you were the runaway princess, Aunt Irmina asked me to take them back to the sewing hall. I’m glad I kept them.”
Hurriedly, Cinderella changed into her old work uniform. Then the four parted ways, with Cinderella and Bruno heading for the Grand Duke’s office.
She didn’t know what she was looking for. Her pulse thundering in her ears, she rifled through his drawers. There were maps, charts of the lineages of the noble families of Aurelais, tax reports, and letters from various members of the council, but nothing that suggested he’d been lying