The young seamstress lent Cinderella her arm, yanking her to her feet. “You’re lucky I was running late to work. Otherwise, who knows who might have found you!”
“Thank you,” said Cinderella, staggering back.
The seamstress’s eyebrows suddenly flew up, and she pulled Cinderella off the street and onto the sidewalk before a carriage rushed past, its wheels spinning alarmingly fast.
“I guess I spoke too fast,” Cinderella said, catching her breath. “I didn’t even know I was on the street.”
“You need to be more aware of your surroundings,” the seamstress chided. “You could have gotten trampled!” She furrowed her brow. “What’s a girl like you doing sleeping out here anyway?”
“It’s a long story,” replied Cinderella, managing a smile. “Thank you again for your help. I don’t want to keep you if you have somewhere to go.”
The seamstress’s expression softened, and she glanced at the clock over one of the shops. “Guess I’m going to be late no matter what. Besides, you look like you need my help more than some silly lords and ladies.” She pushed a lock of auburn hair out of her face. She was tall, and a dimple emerged on the right corner of her mouth when she smiled.
“I get nervous when I’m running late, so I’m sorry if I was rude. Let’s start again. I’m Louisa.”
“Cinderella.”
“Cinderella?” Louisa’s eyebrow arched. “That’s a name I’ve never heard before, and I know about most of the girls in town.”
Cinderella pursed her lips and twisted the ends of her apron, unsure how to explain she’d been her stepmother’s servant for years and practically a prisoner in her own home.
“I don’t go out much,” was all she said.
“I was beginning to wonder,” said Louisa dryly. “You don’t seem to even know where you are.” Her hand jumped to her mouth. “That came out ruder than I meant it to. Mother always says I need to keep my thoughts to myself. Aunt Irmina does, too, but it’s hard when my thoughts are so loud.” Louisa made a face. “How’d you get a name like Cinderella?”
“My birth name is Ella, after my mother, Gabrielle. But no one’s called me that for years.”
“I like Cinderella,” Louisa declared. “I don’t understand the ‘Cinder’ in front of Ella, but it’s different, I’ll say.”
“I used to curl up by the fire in the kitchen waiting for my papa to come home from his travels,” Cinderella explained. “Sometimes I’d fall asleep and have soot all over my clothes. One time he cleaned it off, and ever since he called me Cinderella.”
“Cinderella” had been her father’s term of endearment for her. Only after he died did her stepmother and stepsisters use her name as a way of mocking her.
“Is he traveling now?” Louisa asked. “He must be worried about you.”
“No.” Cinderella’s voice faltered. “He’s not traveling, he’s . . . he passed away. Years ago.”
Louisa smacked her mouth. “I’m sorry. There I go, saying the wrong things again.”
“It was a long time ago. You couldn’t have known.”
“Do you at least have a place to go? Any home or family?”
Cinderella was silent. What could she say? That she’d been trapped in her father’s house for the past decade, forced to wait on a cruel stepmother and two stepsisters?
Even if she wanted to go back to her father’s house, she couldn’t. Not after what had happened the night before.
“No,” she said quietly. “Don’t worry about me. You should get to work. I’ve kept you long enough.”
Louisa eyed her face, gesturing at her forehead. “You have a bruise.”
“It’s nothing. Just from last night. I hit my head on a carriage.”
“A carriage?” Louisa repeated, alarmed. “What were you—”
In the background, a clock chimed, cutting over Louisa’s question. She shot up, picking up her basket so quickly it swung in her arms. “Heavens, it’s seven o’clock already!”
They were the same bells from the palace watchtower that used to rouse Cinderella every morning. “Old Killjoy,” she used to call the clock. But for the first time, she wasn’t hearing it ring in bed; she wasn’t in her tiny room in the attic, watching the city come alive. She was in the heart of Valors.
Something about that realization made a lump rise in her throat; she’d missed being in the city. She just hadn’t expected this—being forced out of her home and sold by Lady Tremaine—to be the way she found herself there.
“Go on,” Cinderella said over the clock’s chimes. She inhaled a shaky breath. “I’ll be fine. I have Bruno with me.”
“I hate to leave you, but I really—oh, no!” Louisa suddenly exclaimed. Bruno was gnawing on a scrap of fabric from her dress. “My uniform!”
“Bruno,” Cinderella scolded. She tsked at him, then turned to Louisa. “It’s torn in the back. I’m so sorry. But I can help you mend it if you have a needle and thread handy.”
“It’s all right,” said Louisa, already trying to assess the damage. “He was trying to get my attention so I could find you. I can manage. I wasn’t raised a dressmaker’s daughter for nothing!”
“Even a dressmaker’s daughter would have to have eyes in the back of her head to mend that rip,” Cinderella pointed out, laughing. “Can you even see it, behind you?”
Louisa craned her neck to look. “You’re right.” The seamstress made a worried face. “I’ll be sent home if I show up at the palace with a tear in my skirt.”
The comment startled Cinderella. “The palace?”
“I work there.”
Cinderella’s heart skipped a beat. Quickly looking down at Louisa’s skirt to hide her emotions, she took the needle and thread her new friend offered. “You must be very skilled.”
“Hah.” Louisa held up her skirt so Cinderella could begin working. “My mother owns a small dress shop in the Garment District. I’ve been sewing for her since I was little, but I’m still the slowest in the palace.”
Cinderella didn’t speak until she was nearly done mending Louisa’s skirt. “Is this good enough?”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. You’re a fine seamstress yourself.”
I used to sew for my stepsisters, Cinderella almost said, but she stopped herself. The memory of Mr. Laverre and her stepmother trying to indenture her as a servant were too fresh. Best not to speak of them, not only because she was worried they might find her, but also because her stepmother’s cruelty still stung.
“Very neat,” Louisa said admiringly. Then she hesitated before observing, “Your hands are shaking.”
“Are they?” Cinderella stuffed them into her pockets. “Just a little chilly, I guess.”
“Goodness, you don’t even have a coat?” Louisa frowned, then took one of the sheaths of cloth from her basket and wrapped it around Cinderella’s shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me how you ended up on the street, but . . . tell me the truth. You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”