Page 57 of Cinder
For a heartbeat, Cin wanted the happy couple to be him with his prince so badly he thought he might trade the whole world for it. Reality pulled him from the dream, though, as the back of his neck prickled with a tense, anxious sensation unlike anything he’d felt in town before. It was so akin to what he’d felt stepping into a monster’s lair that it took him a moment to recognize it as the feeling of being watched.
But when he glanced behind him, no one was there.
Twenty-Four
When Cin reached home, Floy had already returned, the family’s other horse resting in the barn, and from what Cin could tell, it seemed everyone was preparing for the ball. He should have been preparing as well—prepping the carriage, setting up the hearths for his quick return, finishing the midday meal—but he was distracted, mind and body, by visions of Olinda. There was a yearning behind the thoughts, not sexual or romantic or even platonic, but deep and terrible and beautiful. She ran through his thoughts again and again: the way she’d pulled back from her sister’s clutches and the determination in her voice when she’d denied their grip on her, not simply the physical hold her sister had taken, but the nails she’d dug into Olinda’s very life and love. The sight of her walking away, hand in hand with her husband.
Free.
Not free from turmoil, not free from work—there was plenty of that at their own home, Cin knew, and Theobold was notperfect, despite his obvious love for his wife—but free to take on those tasks with dignity and joy. Life was difficult outside Prince Lorenz’s beautiful castle, more than ever amidst the hardships of their seemingly endless famine; Cin hadn’t lied to him about that when he’d stood in this same place, staring down his home. But there had still been a lie in there somewhere… He could feel it now, deep in his soul.
He just didn’t know what to do with it yet.
Slowly, thoughtfully, he set to work in the kitchen, letting himself linger in the freedom he did have: the lack of pain between his ribs. Already he felt he was forgetting what it had been like to live around that tension, his body quickly sliding back into rhythms he thought he’d forgotten now that he’d had time to adjust. Louise seemed not to notice in the slightest when she bustled into the kitchen, snapping for Cin to help with her hair.
As he slid in the final pin, she dusted herself off, like Cin’s nearness might have left her ashen. “You’ll have the hearths lit upon our arrival this time?” she said, more accusation than question.
It would be easy to say yes. To wait for his family to leave, and race past them. Spend his little allotment of time with the prince while still pretending to be the good and pious child.
But Cin wanted to be Olinda. He wanted to hold the hand of the man he loved and walk away from everything else, every cruel word and responsibility. That wasn’t an option for him, not so long as he would be juggling caring for Emma, upholding the commitment his mother had placed on him, with his affection for Lorenz. He could still take something of Olinda’s courage, though. Possibly, he could takeenough.
“I thought Father could stay in my place,” Cin said, feeling every muscle in his body tighten for the fight. “He has no interest in the ball, and might appreciate an evening by the fire.”
Louise’s expression wrinkled like she’d tasted something sour. “You father has been on the road making the coin we need to eat, not flouncing off in the woods. He deserves to enjoy this ball far more than someone who abandoned their responsibilities and family fordays.”
“Aday,” Cin corrected, his heart slamming into his ribs even as the dagger of a rebuttal snapped out of him. “I was goneoneday. This estate should be able to survive without me for far longer.”
As Cin spoke, Floy slipped into the room, leaning against the wall with their eyes half-closed, watching Cin and Louise coolly. They must have inferred the context of the argument, because they interjected a scoff. “What wouldyoudo at a ball, Cinder?”
Cin tipped his chin up and looked them dead in the eye. “Dance with the prince.”
Floy looked unamused. They lifted an eyebrow. “You? You can’t dance.”
“You’re right, I couldn’t,” Cin admitted, heat growing inside his chest, “because I’m the one always here, always caring for the house while you and Manfred and Emma run off to live your lives.” He could feel his lips curl in an expression so unlike him. “But Icandance now. Prince Lorenz taught me.”
Floy stared at Cin, blinking as though putting together a series of facts in their head, but Louise merely barged back into the conversation. “Don’t lie to us—”
“You take long enough in your carriage that it has been easy to slip around you.” He’d thought confessing it would mean giving something up, but instead it felt like taking something that was rightfully his. Louise may have thought she was successfully lying to Cin’s face, telling him that the ball wasn’t worth it, that he could never possibly do the housework and still enjoy the night out, yet here he’d been the one keeping secretsfrom her, stealing back all that she’d tried to hide away from him.
“You really danced with the prince?” Floy asked, softly, the jealousy clear on their face, and their mind seemed to be tearing through the possibilities, landing on the truth they’d nearly stumbled upon time and again.
Cin leaned toward them, lowering his voice to a whisper, and he could feel the smirk spreading across his face. This face the prince had kissed. “I danced with him in the ballroom, and I fucked him in the dovecote.”
The resentful fury that took over Floy’s expression was priceless.
Louise spun around in a frantic flurry, charging into the hall with her skirt in one hand. “Penrod! Tell your child how preposterous he is being!” She continued shouting as she rushed down the hall to where Cin’s father sat in the first parlor, Cin following sharp on her heels. “All the times I told you the house was being cared for by Cinder, he has been lying, sneaking about, willfully abandoning his responsibilities—”
“Don’t you see, I can tend the house and still go to the ball—I’ve done it most nights already!” If anyone could understand, make Louise see sense, surely—
But Cin’s father didn’t even look up from the newspaper he’d borrowed from Floy. “Listen to your mother, Szule.”
“See,” Louise snapped, looking like that was enough to win the argument. It always would have been before, the flat distance of Penrod’s tone pulling up Cin’s grief, his birth mother’s words echoing in his mind behind every one of his stepmother’s:be good, be pious.
But goodness was more complicated than Cin had assumed, and piety ineffectual. He scowled, meeting Louise’s gaze with barely a flinch before his spine turned steely. “I am not yours to command. I am going to that ball tonight, and if you’d like all ofyour personal hearths lit when I return, you’d best not try to stop me.”
Louise gasped. “You are most certainly not!” she sputtered, lunging toward Cin like she was going to grab him. She was larger than Cin—though certainly not stronger—and Cin stepped back quicker than she could adjust, slipping out of her way to grab the doorknob of the front door.
Floy leaned in the doorway to the parlor, their arms crossed, glaring daggers. Manfred peered curiously over their shoulder. Cin ignored them both, opening the door and walking out into the yard. A shiver ran through him, his limbs light and his heart pounding, pounding like it always had been, only he could finally feel it. His flock swarmed around him, scooping him up from below and carrying him forward, toward his prince.
