Dancing on Glass

Devil May cry

Lady Rosalia Rose was a lovely person. Cinderella had no doubt about this fact. She was beautiful and kind. She was funny and loving. It was clear she adored her husband and children and she was not the type to see harm done to anyone.

And yet the silence and stillness that rippled around her once Cinderella finished explaining about the poisoning portrayed a very different type of person and that person had Cinderella leaning back in her seat away from Rosalia who just looked at her with a calm, gentle expression – and eyes as dark as night.

Slowly, Rosalia got to her feet and swept to the balcony edge, folding her arms, looking out across the dramatic gardens her rooms looked down on.

"If I offered to take you into the palace and away from that woman, would you accept?" she asked, her voice low and steady.

"I..." Cinderella's brow creased, "I don't think I can, I need to know that the fortune won't fall into her hands, or at least the house. I promised my parents that I'd protect it."

"Your parents would sooner lose the house then you, surely you know that," Rosalia said, turning back to her.

"I know, but I don't believe she'll kill me."

Rosalia leant back against the stone balustrade, folding her arms again.

"I do believe her when she says if she wanted me dead, I'd be dead. But I don't think she'll go that far, how can she explain such a thing away? She wanted to warn me, it's a threat but nothing more."

"The woman is not stable and thus one cannot be so sure of her actions," Rosalia said, her folded arms tightening as she looked to her right, a breeze catching tendrils of her hair as she looked towards the next balcony over. "Trust me, I have met with unstable women, one cannot make assumptions about them."

Cinderella watched as Rosalia's fingers pressed in against her waist as her brow creased but before she could say anything about it, Rosalia looked at her again.

"I'm not your guardian," she said, "I am not you mother, sister, aunt or godmother. I have no authority over you otherwise I would not give you the choice." She swept back again and leant down, gripping Cinderella's hands tightly and locking her staggering green eyes on her. "But I am begging you, my dear, do not tempt fate. She is not one to be toyed with and neither is your stepmother. Some people are not like you or I, they are not predictable."

Cinderella stared up at her, eyes wide. "Do you think she'll let me return to court?" she asked, her voice smaller then she wanted.

Rosalia straightened up, looking down at her, examining her. "I think she will," she finally said, then shrugged. "You have your uses in court."

Cinderella stared at her and Rosalia smiled, gently resting her palm against her cheek.

"Once you return to us, once you come into your inheritance, come away from that place. My home is always open to you. Beldon's home is always open to you. Any one of our siblings or our father would take you in." She smiled. "I'm sure your Jazz would quite happily open his home to you."

Cinderella blushed. "He's not 'my Jazz,'" she said quickly.

"Of course," Rosalia said, stepping back.

Cinderella looked down at her tea, then looked up again, opening her mouth to ask why Lord Kaydy had reacted so strongly to her when she had said 'Jazz'.

However, at the moment, the doors to the parlour burst open and a little girl with streaming black hair, dressed in frills and bows, came racing in, launching herself at Rosalia – who caught her with barely even a glance, swinging her easily up into her arms and looking at the door as two boys came in, followed by a harassed-looking nanny, out of breath and wheezing, clutching her corseted bodice.