Glimmers of Glass (A Glimmers Novel #1: Cinderella)

Chapter 3

My house always felt sort of like a grand old library when I first walked in the door: hushed, well-maintained, and full of words nobody dared speak aloud.

I tried to slip up the stairs without making noise, but Mom stepped out of the kitchen and into the foyer wearing a frilly apron and a smile that looked a little tight around the edges. "Olivia, you're home," she said, as if I hadn't put that together yet. "Good. You can help me make the cream puff swans for tonight's dinner."

I hadn't quite forgotten about tonight's dinner, though I'd tried hard enough. Dad was bringing home some boring colleague from the Council and that meant the Feye family got to spend the evening putting on the aren't-we-just-a-big-happy-family show. I wished Daniel was in the room so we could trade exasperated glances. Daniel and I didn't always get along, but at least we could bond over our shared dislike of our parents' dinners.

"I actually have to go somewhere," I said. "For work. I've got to follow up on that big case."

I'd considered not telling anyone at home about my big assignment. But Lorinda was always trying to suck up to the Council, and she'd sent a memo to my dad with the big news the day I was assigned the case, hours before I'd even gotten home. He'd spent dinner that evening delivering a long lecture about how my work at Wishes Fulfilled reflected on the Feye family name and our heritage of magical excellence—exactly the kind of loving, unconditionally supportive message I'd hoped for.

Mom frowned and fingered the handle of her magic wand, which stuck out of her apron pocket. Faeries had stopped using those cliche wands with stars on the ends decades ago, but Mom was a traditionalist, and the handle of hers was carved with an elaborate tendril of stars.

I smiled at her and waited for judgment: The questionable freedom of getting back out of the house and checking out this Elle person, or the definite captivity of sitting in the kitchen, enchanting swan-shaped cream puffs to preen themselves and stretch their pastry wings until they were eaten.

Finally, she shrugged. "Be back by six," she said. Her mouth turned down a little, like my lack of interest had disappointed her, but what could she expect? I wasn't interested in playing assistant to her domestic goddess trophy wife. She knew that. "Why don't you take your brother with you?"

I tried to picture Daniel and I hanging out together while I stalked my new client. The picture wouldn't even form in my mind. "Yeah, no," I said. I shot a quick smile that was meant to be apologetic but probably wasn't anything like.

I knew why she was asking. But Daniel's recent detentions weren't my problem, and I was not about to ruin this case on the first day by trying to swing double duty as his babysitter.

"Fine," Mom said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Bring my ring when you come back down. I left it in my bathroom and there's no way I'll move fast enough to get this all done without a little help."

I ran up the stairs to dump my backpack in my room. In my parents' pretty sage green bathroom, I splashed my face with water and glanced in the mirror to make sure I looked at least presentable. A usual, my head looked like it was being eaten by a monster made out of dark curls, but there was next to nothing I could do about that. Titania knew I'd tried.

Mom's favorite enchanted ring, an antique gold band with a piece of quartz carved like a rose that seemed to contain every common charm under the sun all rolled into one, sat on the edge of the sink. I tossed it in the air, caught it, and then headed back downstairs with my wand wedged in my hair and Elle's case folder under my arm.

"Back at six!" Mom called after me after I handed her the ring and headed for the door. "Your dad is working till the last minute, because some idiot decided to fill a Humdrum building with poltergeist charms."

"Back at six," I repeated, but my thoughts were already back on the contents of the folder.

I had to find Elle and scope her out. Something about this case and "the romance of a great teen movie" sounded just a little too sugar-coated to be real. Most parents wanted the best for their kids, or at least that was the theory, even if I questioned it sometimes when it came to my own. But most parents didn't arrange romance for their teenager, let alone with "the most popular boy" at her school. Most parents hiring godparents were either trying to use their kids' marriages to create alliances between powerful Glimmer families or, more often, were hoping we could get the most popular guy at high school to stop trying to get into their daughter's pants. But Elle's dad apparently wanted this young Mr. Popular to have a shot.

There was something weird going on with this case. I had two hours to figure out what.