Cinder made her way past the trough, tossing bits of food to the chickens. She inhaled a deep breath, trying to remember what good smelled like. It was everything but this dung, rancid smell of animals. The horses snickered at her unfortunate situation and nudged her hand for more food. With a resigned sigh, she obliged. It'd been so long since her time to go to bed and she was aching to go back to bed.

She counted. Sixteen years. For sixteen freakin' years, she'd been here in the castles working with a low chin and downcast eyes and slouched shoulders. Why did it have to be so long? Whoever her parents were, they never came back for her. She'd been told by Cook that she came here as a wee little baby, fists pumping energetically in the air and screaming baby curses and devouring the world supply of sound. And today was her birthday but, of course, only Scarlet would know. And maybe Carswell, if he wasn't in his sullen days.

Four minutes until the next bell rings, Cinder reminded herself. She left the barns happily and shut the heavy doors behind her. She walked over to the small entrance that only servants used and to the kitchen. Immediately, Cinder saw Scarlet's fiery red hair in the mixture of dark haired and brown hair. Cinder offered a smile in Scarlet's direction and Scarlet turned around and saw her. Scarlet glanced over at Cook, spanking a wooden spoon on a servant's head and scolding on the top of her lungs. Slipping away to Cinder in the place behind the walls and up the winding staircase, Scarlet pulled Cinder closer into a hug. " Happy birthday, Cinder," Scarlet laughed as she pulled away.

Cinder felt a silly smile in her lips. Scarlet winked her vibrant green eyes at Cinder as she jerked out a package for her friend. Scarlet handed it to her. Cinder tucked her chin as she unraveled the mystery in the package. She almost squealed with delight. Cinder stuffed the macaroon into her mouth, trying to say, " Thank you."

Scarlet laughed her bright, cheerful laugh as her beautiful locks of velvet hair slipped around the cuffing of the band and to the sides of her face. " I had to sneak it from Prince Kaito's platter before he could notice it."

Cinder's heart almost dropped. Scarlet saw her expression and the girlish, mischievous look appeared in Scarlet's eyes. " You got this from P-prince K-kai's–"

" Yeah, I did. So be happy. Ten years of having a crush can be tiring, Cinder, seriously," Scarlet said indifferently as she crossed her arms and leaned on the wall. Cinder savored the taste of the already melted macaroon.

" Sixteen, actually. Since it's my sixteenth's birthday, I've liked him ever since I was born," Cinder argued. She licked her fingers from the sugar of the macaroon.

" I wish we could spend all day at that one shop," Scarlet sighed. " I wish I could get you something better than just that! Like a dress or something."

Cinder rolled her eyes as she shoved the wrapping into her pocket. " Sure, Scar. I won't know how to fix a dress when it rips."

" You're not fat, Cinder. You barely have any meat in those bones," Scarlet insisted. To make her point clearer, she pinched Cinder's cheek.

Cinder waved Scarlet's hand away. " Agh, whatever. Never in my life will I ever wear a dress, alright? And I wasn't talking about that. I'm so clumsy I might rip it while just walking!"

Scarlet nodded her head in agreement. " You do have a point. Oh, right. I heard Carswell's gonna be visiting us during cleaning hours. He told me that Commander Mira's giving him the day off early because of his, what did he say, outstanding improvement."

Cinder beamed. " That'll be great. Let's hope he comes at the right moment."

Scarlet was about to say something when Cook suddenly shrieked, " SCAR GIRL, WHERE IN THE WRETCHED WORLDS ARE YOU?"

Scarlet winced painfully and said a hasty bye to Cinder. Cinder smacked her lips again as she picked up the leftover crumbs of the macaroon. Cinder shrugged her way over to the staircase and climbed up. She reached the door and opened it to the empty hallway. It was a hallway that only royals used. She had an appointment with Empress Stella. Probably more laundry, Cinder thought to herself as she went to Empress Stella's door. She went to the door and the soldiers immediately halted her. She explained her reason of being present and the soldiers let her inside.

And her heart lurched into her throat.

She saw Prince Kaito talking to his mother. Empress Stella was beautiful and regal. She had a elegant red dress on her light skin. Her arms draped on the support of the chair. A gold crown of rubies rested on the crown on her head with her silky black hair pinned up behind her in beautiful curls. Her slender, almond shaped brown eyes looked at Cinder kindly and her not painted yet pink lips lifted up in maternal love. " Ah, Cinder. Thank you for being here on time."

Then Prince Kaito turned around. But Cinder couldn't look at him. She knew that he was handsome and good-looking, from the eyes and the witnesses of his looks. All of the girls in the castle had a crush on the prince, except for Scarlet. Scarlet had absolute no interest in anything here except for Cinder's well being and Carswell's graduating into a captain. She felt red forming on her neck. But she'd never actually seen his face. Never once.

She immediately looked down and smoothed her skirt. But they were rags. Obviously. She bowed to both royals and murmured, " Your Majesties, forgive me for interrupting you."

Prince Kaito answered, " It's quite fine, servant. I'll leave now, Mother. See you at lunch."

As Prince Kaito walked by Cinder, she smelled his rich smell and she thought she was going to faint. He left the door shut and clipped. Cinder looked up but didn't meet the empress's eye. The empress said, " My son was talking to me about his sister. Levana's been in her . . . tempered days lately." The empress had tired wrinkles around her eyes as she attempted to give a light smile. Cinder managed a closed lip smile back, too. " If you could, I have these dirty clothes I'd to get washed for the ball. I believe it's coming up in two days. Please wash them carefully, however."

Cinder nodded her head respectfully and took the clothes from the basket the empress had lain on the side. Before closing the door, Cinder bowed to the queen once more.

Carswell said, " Boo."

Scarlet smacked Carswell's bare chest with a wet rag. " You almost made me scream!"

Carswell laughed. He had come from his unexpected training. It was running, Cinder knew, when he ran towards them with no shirt and sweat barely dripping down his forehead. But Scarlet left a bright red mark on Carswell's sculptured chest. It almost made Cinder laugh.

Carswell laid an elbow on Cinder's shoulder and said, " Well, happy birthday, Cinder."

" Well, thank you, Carswell. And you stink so come back when you're smelling better," Cinder added, taking the wet rag in her hand and wringing it. Water leaked back into the dirty bucket of water and scrubbed the marble floor.

" I don't smell that bad," he argued.

Scarlet tossed him a playful glare. " Your nose must've retired then."

Carswell rolled his eyes as he squatted next to them and whistled under his breath. " You know what I just remembered?"

" That you stink?" offered Cinder.

" Good one, Cinder. No, I'm talking about the ball coming up in two days. I heard that the king and queen from Western Commonwealth and their daughter are coming to the ball as well."

Scarlet and Cinder halted and faced Carswell with their whole bodies. Then, Cinder scoffed loudly and flicked water in Carswell's face. " Shut up, Thorne. That's stupid."

" I'm serious!" Carswell raised his hands in protest. " I heard Commander Mira telling Commander Park about the report from the emperor. Himself."

" Lower your hands 'cause your pits are exposed," scolded Scarlet under her breath as she went back to scrubbing the floor. " I think your words could either be false or true. Whatever it is, Carswell, people pick up word fast and could spread rumors."

" Rumors?"

" About you repeating words that aren't meant to be heard," Cinder explained with a sigh, " and that your stench is worse than the manure I clean everyday."

" Actually, your odor stinks even more, Cinder. Just because you can't smell it doesn't you don't stink."

" Back to you as well, Sir Thorne," Scarlet muttered with sarcasm in her voice when she said his name.

Cinder chuckled quietly as she went back to scrubbing. Carswell stayed quiet. She knew what he was thinking. Whenever he got quiet out of nowhere, he was thinking of his parents. Parents that abandoned him for Commander Mira to take care of. Cinder remembered him as a little boy, lost and scared. He stayed silent for two years and only said, " Yes, Commander." Then, he approached Cinder and Scarlet and asked them if he could play with them. Now with him being the same age the prince, he was such a chatterbox. On the good days, though.

" I might be stationed next to Prince Kaito, if you're interested," Carswell added.

Cinder tossed her head up and looked at him. Then, she narrowed her eyes and looked away and continued to work. " Stop joking around. Not in a million years would you be stationed to watch over Prince Kaito."

" Would you like to ask Commander Mira?"

" No, she scares me," Scarlet interrupted. Scarlet did her best impression of Commander Mira. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her brow high into the sky as she asked her in rough voice, " Would you like to help those slave scum clean the stables, soldier?"

Carswell and Cinder laughed. " I don't think you're scared, Scar," Carswell said.

Scarlet laughed, too. " No, I don't think I am."

Cinder sat on the chair behind the rusty table. She jerked out gears of the clock and inspected inside. Yup, she knew it. It snapped in half–the second gear. Cinder exhaled sharply in a scoff and fished out the gear that was snapped in half and looked at it closely. It looked as if someone had purposely broken it and came to Cinder to ask her to of fix it.

In her spare time, and on the weekends, Cinder was a clock smith. She came here and fixed clocks while she could. And she liked hearing the gentle, rhythmic tapping of the clocks. It settled her nerves and her heartbeat went along with the clocks. She knew precisely what time to leave and what time she got here because of the twenty different clocks on the wall showing different times.

Great.

Cinder slammed the clock on the table and heard the insides jolt. She peered inside, satisfied with its outcome, and placed back the other parts. She waited–exactly two minutes–as she looked at the other clocks on the wall, and the clock in her hands began to work.

Cinder had changed out of her rag dress and wore the plain tunic and pants that she'd bought with her money. She got paid little as a clock smith. But she liked it. Rather than always being kept inside of the castle walls, she was out and being able to do a small business she enjoyed.

She liked to work with metal. Why, she didn't know. It made her happy and it was the best thing she could do. She wasn't good working with cosmetics or fancy dresses or food. She was good at cleaning and fixing.

She propped her chin in her palm with her elbow on the table. She toyed with a loose spring on the side of her. Then, suddenly, a clock on the wall began to spiral out of control. She startled, looking at it mesmerized. She quickly got up and dragged the medium sized clock off of the wall right when it burst into nothing but spirals and gears exploding. She groaned loudly. This clock had been in her workshop for almost two weeks and it still doesn't cooperate.

She lugged the clock over to her work table and started to take apart the clock. She dropped a spiral on the ground and muttered loudly, " Dang it." She crouched down low to pick it up as the doorbell rang.

She rarely got any customers and mostly fixed her own scavenged clocks. She tried to get up too quickly and ended up banging her head against the table. Pain exploded in her brain and she rubbed her messy hair really hard and began to hiss as she got up. She said, " Hello, how can I help you?"

She saw who it was.

It was a young man wearing a gray cloak with black tunic and black vest and pants. His polished black boots expensive. But his face . . . It looked like was carved by an angel.

An angel who did too good of a job.

He had the softest copper brown eyes with soft arches of brows. His black hair was messily disheveled and let down. She could see he combs his hair every morning but today decided not to. Was he trying to hide from people? If so, why?

Cinder furrowed her brow at what he carried. " Oh, yeah, sorry," the man said, clearing his throat. He reluctantly dropped the object on the table. " I didn't mean to startle you. Did you hit your head hard?"

Cinder stared. Why was a rich man like him here? Then, she realized she was staring and she stammered out, " Right, sorry. Yeah, my head's not broken. What did you bring me here today?"

" Well, no. I was looking for a clock smith named . . . Cinder?"

" Well, you're looking at her."

The man startled. " Oh, I see. I thought women didn't . . . run businesses."

Cinder felt herself get a little irritated. " I can assure you, sir, that I'm capable of running a business. And, also, it's a small business."

The man looked around on the clocks on the wall. " Which one tells the correct time?"

Cinder jerked to the pocket watch on the gold chain on his black vest. " Yours. None of these tell the correct time."

" Why keep junk?"

Cinder ignored him. She gestured to the object he laid. " So what's wrong with this?"

" Oh, this is a gift, actually. But when I bought it, it was broken. Made of pure gold and studded with diamonds," he said.

Cinder was peering closely at the object and realized the clock was on a bracelet. It was made of a thin chain of gold and was studded by large diamonds. The gold was soft, the clock looked like it was made from diamonds itself. But when he described it, she glared up at him and said, " I'm not blind."

" Just letting you know," the man said sheepishly.

Cinder said after turning it in her hands, " I don't think it's broken. It just needs a new battery."

" Yeah, and I asked my roy-I mean, ahem, regular clock smith to find the battery because he said the same thing. But he said that someone named Cinder had them and told me the directions here."

" Wow, you could've just said that in the beginning instead of calling my collection junk."

" When did I–" He stopped as if remembering what he said. " When can I come back for it?"

Cinder looked at it once more. " I can obtain the battery in a week . . . or so."

" What takes so long to place in battery? Sorry to rush you, but I need my clock by three days time."

" One, it doesn't take long to place in battery. It's getting the battery. And two, I won't be here on the third day you need it. I'll be occupied with other business."

" A small businesswoman doing other business?'

Cinder glared at him. " I don't know who you are, but if you're going to continue to provoke me then you can take your clock to some other clock smith."

Cinder was turning around, trying to find the missing spring she never retrieved from the ground, when the man said, " I'll pay. In gold."

Cinder halted. She turned around again and saw the man shoving his hands in his pockets in his vest. He fished out the pocket watch and watched the hand tick. He snapped it shut and said to her, who was standing still, " I'll come back in three days. If you don't come, no money."

He walked out with the ringing of the doorbell. Cinder muttered some curses as she ripped out a receipt and began to mail it to Linh Garan, asking for the batteries.