Prologue

Every woman she had met in the past was all eventually swept off of their feet by their princes. Every single one of them, without fail. It was no coincidence that this happened – it was all because of her. Whether it was intentional or not depended from situation to situation, from woman to woman, but most of the time, it had been done so on purpose.

Euphemia and the apple had been a bet with another witch. The poisoned princess and her knight-in-shining-armor had no idea that it was she who had countered the apple's curse and made it so that death was replaced by its much gentler cousin. Nor did Cornelia, with the spindle, realize that it was only through her intervention and manipulation that allowed Gilbert to transgress social rank and fulfill Cornelia's dream of being happily wed to the man she loved. Kallen and Gino – what if she hadn't helped the girl make her way to the royal ball? What if she hadn't whispered an incantation so that one of her delicate glass slippers were left behind for Prince Gino to find? Nunnally and Rolo – if she hadn't granted Nunnally the ability to walk on land, would Rolo have ever fallen in love with her? If she hadn't led Xingke to the hidden tower where the Nine Eunuchs, a notorious clan of malicious warlocks, had trapped Lihua Jiang, would the princess have ever escaped her prison and kidnappers and seen the outside world?

And those couples, those princesses, were only the tip of the iceberg. There were so many royal matches, so many she had paired up, that she no longer remembered the names and faces of those she had acted as fairy godmother for, and could no longer recall the stories of those she had masked herself as a witch. But that was alright. It really was, because C.C. no longer cared about their romances, their happily-ever-afters, and their rides-off-into-the-glorious-sunsets. She only cared about her own, because as much as she hated to admit it, C.C. was starting to feel cold and longed for the warmth that love was so infamous for.

But who would love a witch? A woman with supernatural abilities, who carried the stereotype of being a cold-hearted, bloodthirsty, selfish monster, who carried the stigma of a cursed soul with a sinister agenda? No one, that was who. The closest she had ever gotten was respect, and that in itself had still held traces of ace and fragments of fear.

Oh, there had been those in the past who had fallen in love with her, infatuated with her soft, green hair and clever, golden eyes. But that was it. It was just infatuation. It wasn't what she wanted, wasn't the true love that she sought. She knew true love would make him stay, even after he found out the truth, even after she revealed to him her true nature. In the past, they had always run off when she finally pulled back the curtain, screaming that she had slipped them a love potion in their tea. She wasn't even that sort of witch – she hated brewing potions. They took far too long and required far too much work, only to yield too little satisfaction. But did the humans listen to her? No, of course they didn't.

So always, without avail, C.C. found herself watching from the sidelines and creating others' fairy tales from the shadows, all the while wondering if she would ever get her own. Hell, she hadn't even gotten her once-upon-a-time yet. Who knew when she'd get that? Not that she ever would. With the way things looked… She simply resigned herself to her fate, a fate of growing old, alone and unloved. It was the curse of being born a witch, she'd tell herself, and everyone knew that a witch's curse was a curse that could never be broken.

Or that was what she tried to believe. Hope was a strange, stubborn creature, one that refused to die no matter how many times she reminded herself that she was destined to live her life alone. And no matter the amount of scolding, a glimmer of hope remained underneath the layers and layers of resentment, resignation, and loneliness. So she continued to hope that maybe, just maybe, one day, she would get her own once-upon-a-time and her own happy ending, where the prince would bend down one knee and ask her for her hand, where the whole kingdom would cheer as they kissed at the altar after he'd promise to always make her smile. Just like all of those other women had.

But those kinds of thoughts only entered her mind when she was free and safe, unlike now. As she ran from the mob of frightened cowards, with their torches, pitchforks, and hatred, all C.C. could think of was a way to get out of the situation she had been thrown into. She knew that witches (or fairy godmothers, as the more nicer, milder witches were mistaken as) had a love-hate relationship with ordinary men and women, but honestly. Sometimes these alcohol-induced witch hunts were ridiculous. But at least she knew that she had overstayed her welcome and that it was time to move on to the next kingdom, which was what she was doing as she stood on the precipice of the abyss. The waterfall fell into sheer darkness as if a hole had opened up in the earth that led straight to the center of the earth, and her stomach dropped to her knees as she realized that there was nowhere to go but down.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the incoming mob was too close for her comfort and tried to swallow her fear. The water nymphs owed her a favor, especially after she had saved their princess and had successfully married her off to a prince, albeit a human one. Favors were as binding as blood promises for her kind – there was no way they weren't going to catch her. They'd catch her and be gentle with her. They had to. It was the law – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a favor for a favor.

So, muttering to herself over the stupidity and impatience of humans, C.C. tightly tied her sash around her waist before squeezing her eyes shut and plunging into the frigid water and surrendered herself to Fate.