Gretta blinked at the strange woman. “Do I know you…?”

Tears were beginning to form in the woman’s eyes, falling on her silk dress. Each tear seemed to blot and stain the embroidered jewels along the dress’s collar. The jewels sparkled enough to look like genuine diamonds. Only the wealthiest nobles in Eris could afford wearing such finery, royalty…

Suddenly, Linh recognized her.

Gretta did too.

“Miss… Ella Nguyen…? Oh!” She smiled and curtsied. “Lady Ella Circlet of the Circled City now, correct? How is the royal husband treating you? Do you need me to turn him into a frog?”

Quickly, Linh and Seymour bowed and curtsied as well. Lady Ella’s story was famous in the country of Eris. Abused and wronged by her stepmother, forced to work as a servant in her own home, only to appear at Prince Stefan’s ball and win his heart... Lady Ella had lived an unfortunate life only to be saved by marriage to a prince. Linh remembered the bizarre proclamations that had been made the next day, that every eligible woman in the kingdom would have to try on a glass slipper for a chance to marry him. She and Marie had joked that Prince Stefan must be half-blind, not to recognize his love if she walked down the street…

Lady Ella’s story was even more unusual because she was a foreigner, an Easterner woman, marrying into Circled royalty. Now that Linh saw her up close, she could see those recognizable Eastern features—silky black hair, almond shaped near-black eyes, and a short stature. She looked like Linh’s mother, when she was young, but dressed like royalty from Eris in a puffy sparkly gown and petticoat.

“No!” Lady Ella’s eyes were blotchy, with bags sagged underneath. “He’s… he’s fine. He’s wonderful… It’s just these shoes! Please, Madame Gretta, get rid of them!”

“…Oh I see,” Gretta’s tone became cold but polite. “Please, come inside my home. Tell me more about what happened. And Miss Page?”

Linh fought the urge to flinch.

“Come join us, you and your cousin. This will be a good learning opportunity for you, to see what proper magic is really like.”

Another breeze rushed into the clearly, scattering glowing petals up into the air. But all Linh could focus on was Gretta’s grim stare, Gretta’s unreadable expression. In that moment, Linh could see the witch in her.

But when she stared down at her flimsy paper hands, she nodded and followed.

::

The inside of Gretta and Hecate’s home was as cluttered as a junk shop. Crystals of different sizes dangled down from the ceiling, along with jarred fireflies. Unlike the fireflies in the clearly, these ones seemed to glow like the sun. Others gleamed the way light dances on water while some fireflies looked like sparks of fire, trying to escape. Linh saw more dragon miniatures of different breeds, book flipped open on mythical creatures. Along the shelves, Seymour and Linh avoided the jars of various eyeballs and fingers.

Gretta kicked off a pile of unwashed clothes from a few chairs and gestured for them to sit. Gracefully, Lady Ella sat by the fire, hunching in on herself as if afraid that one of the eyeballs on the shelf might escape and attack. Seymour decided to lean against the bookshelf and pretend to be nonchalant while Linh had no choice but to sit by Gretta.

No one spoke. Lady Ella’s hands were clenched tightly on her lap. She refused to glance at the shoes on the table, gleaming harmlessly in the firefly light.

Gretta sat back, as relaxed as a cat. “Normally I would offer you tea, but I can see you’re distressed and eager to speak. Tell me, how did you corrupt my special shoes?”

“I didn’t corrupt them!” Lady Ella blurted out. “You gave them to me! You did something to them, didn’t you?!”

Gretta narrowed her eyes. “Magic often has a life of its own, especially when you create something with it. I told you before that if you do not treat these shoes kindly, they will develop a life of their own.”

Linh frowned. She had never heard of creating something with magic before. Manipulating it? Yes. But not creating something entirely new. She glanced at Seymour, but he looked pale…

Lady Ella began to laugh hysterically. “A life of their own?! I hear them walking around the palace, of their own accord, I see another woman  walking in those shoes, and she looks. Like. Me!”