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I’m so fucking tired of doing everything .

Fate forbid my stepsisters should break a nail scrubbing the two porcelain tubs in which they soak every night amid rainbow swirls of Madam Lentula’s Seduction Potion or Rejuvenating Foam.

Rejuvenating, my ass. Not like they need it, either. Amisa is twenty and Vashli is twenty-two, while I’ll be twenty-seven on my next birthday. In this kingdom, an unmarried woman this close to thirty is considered a reject. Unwanted goods. People cast sidelong glances at such a woman, wondering why no one has claimed her yet. Of course something must be wrong with her.

I’d be a lot happier if I could persuade myself that I don’t want to be married, have children, or run my own household. The trouble is, I want every single one of those things, and it’s beginning to look as if I will never have them .

I swish the rag around in the bucket again and slop it onto the bathroom floor. My knees hurt from the hard tiles, but I have to clean up all the spilled powders and splattered cosmetics, because if they sit there overnight, they’ll leave stains, and I’ll suffer for it.

If my stepsisters didn’t act like a pair of tornadoes in their huge bathroom, I wouldn’t have to clean it every day. But as it is, this chore has become part of my nightly routine.

My neck aches, so I pause, tilting my head aside until I hear the light pop of my bones realigning. A low headache thrums behind my right eye, threatening to bloom into agony unless I get to bed soon. I still need to go downstairs, close the drapes, turn out the lights, and make sure the doors are locked. If my stepmother Gilda rises in the night and finds anything out of place…

A shudder runs over my whole body, and I scrub more assiduously than ever.

An hour later I’ve finished all my tasks, and I can finally descend into the cellar, to the cot beside the coal bin where I snatch a few hours of sleep each night. I try not to think about the way the coal dust has probably sifted into my lungs, or the way I cough a little more each day. My nightly proximity to the coal bin is one reason why my step-family has taken to calling me “Cinders” instead of Celinda.

To me, the use of coal is yet another symptom of the dysfunction in this house. Electrical power has come to most of the cities, and we use it for lights, but my stepmother refuses to install any type of electrical heating, mostly because of the cost. Keeping my stepsisters outfitted in the latest style uses up most of the money we receive from my late father’s estate each month. Thank Fate it’s doled out to us from a trust, or my stepmother and her daughters would have decimated it by now.

It hurts that most of the vast fortune I was supposed to inherit has been squandered. If I’d been in charge of the money, I would have spent less on clothes and accessories, and more on repairs and modernizations for Eisling House and its grounds. I would have invested some of the monthly stipend in stable businesses, where it could steadily earn interest.

But none of that is a priority for my stepmother. She focuses on immediate control, on the rush that she gets when she exerts power over someone. Her daughters are her sole investment in the future, so she pours money into making them as noticeable and fashionable as possible. Beyond what she spends on them, her own habits must be fueled—her love of gambling and her propensity for drinking too much.

If I could leave now, I would. But the anklet on my right leg ensures that I remain trapped here. It’s the same golden band my stepmother clasped around my father’s ankle on their wedding day. A family heirloom, she said. A token of respect to the ancestors. But it turned out to be much more than that.

Gilda has never told me where she got the anklet, or who made it. Whatever its origin, the anklet has a single purpose—to bind one human being to the will of another. As the object’s master, Gilda can choose someone to wear the anklet, and once it is clasped, no one else can remove it. When she gives commands to the person wearing the anklet, those orders must be obeyed.

She cannot control thoughts, only actions and words, so my inner life remains my own. But everything else that I am belongs to her.

Once, when Gilda was drunk, which is increasingly often these days, she explained that she can only transfer the anklet to someone else on the day of a family death or the night of a family wedding.

I don’t know who wore the anklet before she ensnared my father, but he couldn’t endure it for more than a year or so. He died when I was nine—bled out after cutting off his own foot. He was so desperate to remove the anklet that he was willing to risk death. And death obligingly liberated him .

In finding his freedom, my father sealed my fate. But I don’t blame him for seeking a way out of bondage. Now that I’m older, I can imagine the horror it must have been, working himself to the bone every day for my stepmother and serving her in bed every night.

I try not to think about it. But in my worst nightmares, I watch him suffer, and I see him the way I found him—lying in the garden, pale as the white stone of the fountain, his glassy eyes fixed unseeing on the sky. Blood soaked the soil around his residual limb and glimmered on the anklet, which was still clutched in his stiff fingers.

If only I’d taken the anklet and hidden it somewhere—buried it, maybe. But I was a child. I could barely comprehend his death, let alone think about protecting myself.

By sunset, I was wearing the anklet in his place, bound to Gilda until she has the opportunity and the motive to place it on someone else.

It feels as if I’ve barely closed my eyes before my silver pocket watch jangles on the battered nightstand beside my cot. The watch is the only treasure I own, a gift from my father when I was very small. It’s Faerie-made, but simpler than their usual craftsmanship. My father told me he purchased it from a tinker shortly after I was born.

Gilda enjoys taking away everything that brings me joy, but since the watch possesses no magic except the ability to wake me at a specific time, I’ve been allowed to keep it. After all, she wouldn’t want me oversleeping. I’m the one who does all the chores.

I roll over and press the little button on top of the watch to stop the tinny music of the alarm. Flipping it over, I trace my fingertip over the words engraved on the back.

All souls crave it, but none receive more than the measure granted by Fate .

A simple enough riddle. And I suppose most people crave more time, but lately I’ve been wishing for less of it. I’ve been aching for the end of this existence.

When those thoughts surface, I push them down. I don’t want to reach the same pinnacle of agonized despair my father did. I’m still holding onto a frayed cord of hope.

But that cord is beginning to split apart. It’s only a matter of time before it breaks, and I fall into the black chasm that yawns below me.

Inserting my thumb into the slit of the pocket watch, I pop it open and inspect the pearly face. There are barely discernible letters written in a circle along the edge, just beyond the numbers.

Touch a tear on the face, and a kiss grants his grace.

I’ve never been able to figure out what that means.

Closing the watch, I slide its chain around my neck and drop it inside my dress. As always, I arrange my collar to hide the hint of silver, just in case my stepmother might change her mind and decide to confiscate it.

The morning’s work progresses as usual. I take care of the animals first—two cows, some chickens, a pair of horses, a few goats, and a fat pig I’ve named Lord Hogmorton. I dread the day when I’m told to kill him. Knowing my stepmother, she won’t want to pay the butcher to perform the task—she’ll make me do it, partly to save money, and partly because, despite my best efforts, she has figured out that I’m fond of the pig.

Anything I care about is sure to be used against me, so I’ve perfected a bland, apathetic expression. If I pretend I don’t care, she has fewer weapons with which to torture me.

Unfortunately, my stepsister Vashli overheard me talking to Lord Hogmorton a few weeks ago and told her mother. So his days are probably numbered.

After the outdoor animals are taken care of, I must tend to the indoor animals—the kind that walk on two legs. They’re far less pleasant. No matter how carefully I tailor the breakfast to their individual preferences, they’re sure to find something wrong.

This morning is no exception. The moment I set Amisa’s plate in front of her, she wrinkles her nose. “The eggs are too moist, Cinders.”

I stare at the very dry scramble on her plate. If I’d cooked the eggs any longer, they would have been brown.

“Honestly, can’t you ever get anything right?” Amisa pouts as if she’s two, not twenty. “You know I despise runny scrambled eggs.”

“I can cook them a little longer for you,” I offer.

“But the rest of my food will get cold.”

“Then what would you like me to do?”

“Cinders,” says my stepmother warningly. “Mind your tone. Throw that plate of food to the pig, and fix a new one.”

Keeping my tone as even as possible, I reply, “There aren’t enough eggs for another plate, my lady.”

My lady. That’s what she has insisted I call her, ever since she and her daughters came home with my father. I had no warning of his impending marriage. He went to oversee one of his shipyards in a distant town while I stayed with my governess, a woman who had been with me since my mother died when I was three. When my father returned, he was married. My new stepmother and her little girls moved in, and my governess, whom I loved dearly, was dismissed the same day.

I began to hate Gilda then, though I didn’t fully understand how evil she was until months later.

Bound as I am by the various rules my stepmother has laid upon me, there’s little I can do by way of vengeance. But I do take pleasure in giving her bad news. When I mention the lack of eggs, I relish the way her eyes widen slightly with alarm. She knows as well as I do that the house and its property are declining due to poor management and dwindling funds, but until now, she has managed to keep the knowledge from her daughters.

“Not enough eggs?” asks Amisa shrilly. “What is she talking about, Mother?”

I cut in before Gilda can reply. “Instead of buying chickens at the market, we’ve been roasting hens from our own flock. So there are fewer birds to provide eggs.”

Gilda’s eyes flash a rebuke and inwardly I cringe, unsure if I’ve pushed her too far. But she only turns to Amisa and says evenly, “Eat your breakfast.”

“But—”

“Now, Amisa.” When she uses that tone, not even her pampered daughters dare to cross her. I suppress an instinctive shudder and retreat to the kitchen.

There’s one egg left, so I fry it quickly and gobble it down while it’s so hot that the runny yolk burns my tongue. I’ve learned to consume whatever food is leftover, as quickly as possible, or my other stepsister, Vashli, will claim it. She’s the quieter of the two, and finds refuge in sensory pleasures like food and wine.

Once, I thought perhaps Vashli and I could be friends, but she seems to despise me as deeply as Gilda does. When she does speak to me, her words cut far deeper than Amisa’s, because she takes the time to consider and craft phrases that are especially cruel. She always smiles after delivering her vicious comments, as if causing me pain is one of the true joys in her life. She and her mother are identical in that respect.

Within the hour, Worden enters the kitchen and asks me to tell the ladies that their carriage is ready. Worden is an older man who stops by Eisling House to do some of the heavier stable chores and repairs. The way things are going, we won’t be able to pay him much longer. And he’s already the cheapest stablehand and gardener to be had in this area. He moves slowly and jerkily due to injuries sustained in the border wars a few decades past. Not many people are willing to hire him, and I hate to think what will happen to him if we’re forced to let him go.

I hand Worden the rest of my black coffee, and he downs it gratefully before going back outside. I return to the breakfast room and declare, “The carriage is ready.”

As usual, my stepmother and her girls leave the dining room in utter disarray. The breakfast table looks as if a herd of pigs descended to gorge themselves upon the food, rather than three fine ladies. I know they understand table manners; they manage to remain neat and proper when they’re dining out. But when they’re at home, they go out of their way to create the biggest possible mess, just so I have to clean it up.

An outsider might think I’m just tired and bitter, that I’m seeing malicious intent where there is none. But I know these three women all too well. I know they do it on purpose.

Thankfully the three of them will be out of the house for a while, off to Lady Something-or-Other’s sewing party. Precious little sewing will take place, I’ll wager. I’ve served at one or two such parties, and it’s mostly fashion, gossip, and a critique of all the eligible gentlemen in the area, which, with our proximity to the capital, always leads to everyone twittering breathlessly about the young Crown Prince.

Prince Brantley is about twenty-three, and he’s made it clear he wants a wife, sooner rather than later. In this country, kings retire around age fifty and allow their eldest child to take the throne. And since the King is about forty-eight, it’s high time for our one and only prince to find himself a partner.

The King himself is extraordinarily handsome, judging by the portraits I’ve seen of him in the newspapers I scavenge from other houses. His son is also attractive. I swear, every unmarried woman of marriageable age—and even some of the married ones—would melt into submissive puddles at the Prince’s feet if he so much as looked at them .

As for me, I’ve got no time to think about submission, or puddles, unless it’s the puddles of spilled cream under the breakfast table. Sophie, my stepmother’s enormous gray cat, has already discovered the mess and is crouched low on fluffy paws, daintily dipping her little pink tongue into the cream.

“That’s going to make you sick,” I tell her. “You’ll leave a mess somewhere in the house and I’ll have to clean it up.”

She stares at me and continues the dip, dip, dip of her tongue. She is the haughtiest, puffiest, most disdainful of cats, and secretly I love her dearly. I like to think she loves me too. She did bring me a dead mouse once.

Contrary to my stepmother’s wishes, Sophie enjoys being outside, roaming the gardens or inspecting the barn animals like the queen she is. No matter how cold it is, she wants to be free. I’ve been ordered not to let her out, but I perceived a gray area in that command, and sometimes I happen to leave the back door ajar… by accident, of course. Not with any distinct purpose in mind.

Sophie is one creature my stepmother can’t control, and I glory in that fact.

Just when I’ve carefully balanced an entire stack of breakfast dishes and I’m preparing to carry them into the kitchen, someone raps at the front door. After a moment’s dithering, I set the dishes back down as carefully as I can and hurry to answer the knock.

On the doorstep is a tall, scrawny young man in royal livery, with a huge satchel full of letters. He hands one to me.

“An invitation to the palace,” he drones. “By the grace of His Illustrious Highness the Crown Prince. Your speedy response is requested and expected.”