Delphie looked down at her ballet shoes, expecting them to sparkle as they usually did when things had all worked out in Enchantia. But they didn’t. “The shoes aren’t taking me home,” she said.

“Maybe the magic is going to let you stay so that you can see the Prince find Cinderella tomorrow,” Sugar said. “In which case, why don’t I take us to my home so we can get some rest? We can come back to Cinderella’s house tomorrow morning to watch her trying on the glass slipper and see the Prince asking her to marry him.”

“Oh yes!” Delphie breathed. She’d love to see that.

Sugar waved her wand. Lilac sparkles flew out and swirled round them. They started to spin round. As they did, Delphie glanced back at where the glass slipper was lying. Would she see the Prince running out to pick it up?

To her surprise she saw someone, but it wasn’t the Prince. It was a figure covered in a hooded cloak. They hurried out from behind a rose bush and bent over the slipper but before Delphie could see what they did, she was whisked away in a sparkling cloud.

As she spun through the air to Sugar’s house she felt a flicker of unease. Who was that in the cloak? Why had they been looking at the slipper?

It’s probably just one of the servants, she thought. Maybe it was just someone who wasn’t mentioned in the fairytale. Everything’s going to be all right, she told herself, pushing the strange sighting from her mind. It has to be!

6
Foiled Again!

Delphie stayed the night in a beautiful rose-pink bedroom at Sugar’s house. She and the fairy had breakfast and then Sugar whisked them both back to Cinderella’s street.

“The Prince’s manservant should be there by now with the glass slipper,” Sugar said. “He’ll have been going around all the houses this morning seeing who the glass slipper fits.”

They landed opposite Cinderella’s house. The street was crowded with lots of the townspeople watching what was going on and Cinderella’s front door was open. The manservant was outside with a glass slipper on a purple cushion. Augusta, June and Cinderella were standing in the street.

“It fits me best!” Augusta was saying, glaring at June.

“No, it fits me!” snapped June, grabbing the shoe. “I’m going to marry the Prince!”

“No, I am!” said Augusta, trying to pull the shoe off her.

“Ladies, ladies!” said the manservant hastily, trying to take hold of the slipper.

“Shove off!” Augusta said, pushing him hard and sending him sprawling into the gutter.

“I don’t understand! It should fit me!” said Cinderella, bursting into tears.

“Something must have gone wrong!” exclaimed Sugar. “That’s not even Cinderella’s slipper. Look! It’s like the one in the clock!”