“Um, hello again,” said Agatha, a bit thrown. “I wanted to say sorry. I guess I felt defensive and took it out on—”

“You think I’m a bad person,” Cinderella mumbled. “Everyone thinks I’m a bad person and that I’m bitter and frigid and rude. But no one in this group will ever understand, least of all you.”

“That’s not true,” said Agatha. “People used to think I was pretty rude too. Truth is I was afraid of their judgments, until I learned to—”

“Oh, no one gives a hoot what you learned,” Cinderella grouched. “You got it all wrong anyway. This ain’t about me being scared of stupid judgments or people like you. Forget I said anything. I accept your apology and now you can go away, all right?”

She crossed her arms and looked away, done with this conversation.

Agatha sighed. “All right.”

She started to leave . . . but then she heard it. A quiet voice inside of her.

Don’t go.

Only it wasn’t her voice.

It was Cinderella’s.

Once upon a time, Agatha could hear the wishes of souls in need. Since then, she thought she’d lost her talent.

But perhaps she hadn’t lost it after all.

Perhaps she’d just stopped listening.

Slowly Agatha turned back to the old princess.

“Tell me,” she said.

Cinderella looked at her, startled. “Still here, are you,” she said, trying to sound annoyed.

“Look, Merlin thinks we can help each other,” said Agatha. “And I have a feeling you know why.”

Cinderella shifted her eyes to the ground. “What’s the point?” she muttered softly.

“Please,” said Agatha.

They walked in silence for a long time.

“I never thought in a million years I’d get into the School for Good,” said the old princess. “I grew up with a stepmother who told me I was ugly and stupid and paunchy and wasn’t worthy to scrub her toilet, let alone be an Evergirl. ‘Cinderella,’ she named me: the girl who would be lucky to marry a stableboy. All her attention was focused on her two daughters, who she knew would marry eligible princes after graduating from the School for Good. So when I got a Flowerground ticket to school and my stepsisters didn’t, I felt so ashamed, as if there’d been some great mistake. Surely someone would see it was my sisters who belonged there, not me. But then I got my uniform and schedule and portrait on the wall . . . and there I was, a real student just like the others. Ella. Sweet, cinderless Ella of Charity, Room 24.

“But I wasn’t happy at school. By the end of my first year, I was horribly homesick. Because here’s the thing no one knows about me: I loved my stepsisters. And they loved me! The storybooks never tell you that, because it would mess up everything, wouldn’t it? I mean, sure, they were silly and spoiled and prince-obsessed, but they were also clever and bawdy and sassy like me. Plus, they’d saved my life. When my father died and I was orphaned to my stepmother, she’d wanted to sell me to Bluebeard, who was looking for a new wife at the time. But knowing that Bluebeard had a reputation for hacking up his wives, my stepsisters came up with the idea of making me the housemaid instead. I could tell they felt guilty about having me wash their underpants, but I was happy as a clam, knowing they’d spared me from a terrible end. Besides, they usually were at my side while I did the sweeping and cooking, telling me all about the legendary School for Good and how glorious it would be once they got their Flowerground tickets, along with relaying the latest town gossip and carping about their troll of a mother. The three of us were so close. So to then be whisked off to school without them, especially when I always thought of that school as theirs . . . well, by the second month, I was moping over a bucket of ice cream before bed every night, wishing I could go home.”