Part One
White Shells
One
Rapunzel
Rapunzel’s neck is too cold.
It’s a silly thing to be hung up on at a ball. Not just any ball—a ball in the royal palace. A ball thrown forher. The hushed grand ballroom looks like a dream she would have painted back in Gothel’s tower only a month ago, with glittering chandeliers swaying above and echoes of candlelight in the gold-flecked marble floor, its smooth tiles pressing through the soles of the satin slippers she’s almost tripped on twice tonight.
It’s just that everyone is watching her cross the mostly empty dance floor, arm in arm with the queen, bound for where the king—no,Father—waits at the heart of an inlaid golden sun.
And it’s just that she’s still not used to hems that skim the floor instead of her calves, or a bodice of barely too stiff brocade, or even a gown she didn’t sew herself.
And it’s just that for eighteen years, birthdays meant hazelnut soup and tiptoeing to the window to watch the lanterns once Mothe—no,notMother; Gothel—fell asleep.
Not ball gowns. Not feasts. Not fireworks. And certainly not a waltz with Father in front of the most important people in the realm.
And to top it all off, every time the short strands of her now-brunette hair tickle the back of her (cold!) neck, she has to hide the shiver zipping down her backbone.
“You’re going to do wonderfully,” her mother whispers, hand snug on Rapunzel’s elbow. Rapunzel doesn’t know how the queen does it, gliding over the floor smoother than paint under a palette knife, as if no one is watching and she does this every day. (Not “the queen.”Mother.) “Madame Frangeline says you have a gift.”
Madame Frangeline was saddled with training Rapunzel to dance like a courtier instead of a feral princess for this ball. After the last two weeks of jabs from the madame’s training baton, Rapunzel suspects her only gift is kicking her partner in the shin.
“I won’t let you down,” Rapunzel promises.
Her mother slows just before they reach the king. Her arm unwinds from Rapunzel’s, but her fingertips graze the side of Rapunzel’s cheek, a faint line digging between her browsdespite the reassuring smile. “Sweetheart, just having you here is a miracle. This is your night. All you need to do is enjoy yourself.”
Over her mother’s shoulder, Rapunzel finds Eugene in the waiting crowd. His tilted smile grows when their eyes meet, his chin dipping in a nod. Somehow he looks even more at ease in this sea of dignitaries than she feels.
Maybe, if they can get a dance later, she’ll ask how he does it.
“Thank you for all of this, Mother,” Rapunzel says, and walks the last few feet to the king.
She’s practiced the formal curtsy nearly as much as her dancing, with marginally the same outcomes. Now, in front of the whole ballroom, it’s halting and ungainly, and her knee wiggles a little as she rises, but at least she manages not to kick the king in the shin. (Rapunzel thinks thatmaybe a hanging offense.) Her father’s mustache wobbles at the ends as he bows in return and offers his hand, and the orchestra finally looses the first notes of the waltz.
Rapunzel takes his hand. She’s learned Father’s mustache wobbles that way when he’s holding something back; she’s still trying to sort out if it means the same thing as when Gothel’s footsteps on the stairs creaked a little too fast. “I’m going to keep practicing my curtsy.”
“You were perfect,” he says as the dance begins, but his mustache wobbles again when she can’t keep the doubt off her face. “It’s just…remarkable,” he tells her. “When I first metyour mother, she had a devil of a time keeping her knee steady in a curtsy, too.”
“Really?” Rapunzel blurts out.
“Really.” Her father’s face softens even more as he glances toward the queen. “And she practiced for—”
He sucks in a breath. Rapunzel realizes she’s stepped directly on his boot toe.
But before she can squeak out an apology, her father shifts his feet and keeps leading them through the waltz.
“Practiced for years,” the king finishes with an astonishing wink. “Remember, tonight isusmaking up for eighteen years of lost birthdays, not you. Now here comes the spin—”
Rapunzel is a little surer in a twirl. It’s only been a month since she left her tower, and some of this whole new life is better, and some of it is harder, and some of it is just—different. She still holds her breath when she wakes up, ready to gauge Gothel’s mood by how she bangs around the kitchen, only to hear birdsong and a bubbling fountain in the garden below her window. She can’t stop tugging on her sleeves, only to remember her dresses actually fit now.
And she knew how to twirl despite seventy feet of hair, but even in a ballroom, in front of her new family and all these important people, it’s so, so much easier to move without that weight.
The ballroom whirls around her almost like the floating lanterns, and when Father catches her hands again, he’s beaming. “Just like that.”
The steps come easier, back, left,closethe box, even as eyesbore into the back of Rapunzel’s neck. “Do you ever get used to the staring?”
