Shot

Cinderella gasped. Vanessa stood before her, a smug triumphant look upon her face, and all around her were her men in their coats as red as blood, her men with their snarling faces who growled but did not speak. Cinderella shrank back as one of them bared his teeth at her.

Vanessa's smile broadened. She gave a tiny nod of her head.

Cinderella shrieked as she grabbed from behind, one of Vanessa's savage men gripping her tightly by the arms as another of them tore Philippe from out of her grasp.

"Stepmother!" Philippe yelled as he was wrenched away.

"Philippe!" Cinderella tried, trying to reach for him but prevented by the painful iron grip of the man restraining her. "Let him go! Please, he's just a boy!"

"A boy of the King's blood," Vanessa said. "Not his fault, I admit, but his consequence nevertheless. I was surprised that you escaped from your tower. I suppose you must have found the secret passages at last. But ultimately it doesn't matter where you hide so long as I know where you're going. If you'd only been able to bring yourself to abandon the boy you might have escaped."

"I could never do that," Cinderella said.

"I know," Vanessa replied. "And because you love, you lose."

Cinderella shook her head. "Because I love I have something to lose; and because I love I know that you haven't won yet."

Vanessa chuckled. "You're thinking of your husband, your friends? Or perhaps you think the people will rise up for you like they did before? Don't worry, I won't make the same mistakes again."

Cinderella's eyes widened. "Grace?" she murmured, because it was impossible and yet...the same mistakes again? What could Vanessa possibly mean...and Cinderella had always thought that her laugh sounded familiar. In fact it wasn't just her laugh but her entire voice. Now that Cinderella thought about it, now that she was looking for it, she sounded just like her former lady-in-waiting.

Vanessa was silent for a moment. "Clever, clever, Cinderella; a little late now, of course, but still...well done. Even if I did give it away at the end there."

"What have you done?" Cinderella asked.

Grace let out a guffaw. "Where would you like me to begin?"

"Whose face is that?" Cinderella demanded. "Where is Philippe's grandmother, where is Eugene and what are you going to do with him, what are you going to do with my friends, what have you done?"

"Whose face is that, an excellent question," Grace said. "It belonged to a nobody, a girl of no account and no importance. A girl like you, before you were plucked out of nothing and so unworthily showered with presents and favours. And so, because she was nothing, I took her face for my own."

Cinderella shivered. "And what...what was left of this poor girl once you were finished?"

Grace's smile was cold as ice and as sharp as a razor. "The body that General Gerard has been trying to identify."

Cinderella swallowed. "You...you killed her."

"As I said, she was of no importance."

"How can you say that?" Cinderella demanded. "Just because she was a poor shepherdess you think that she...you're a monster. I feel like such a fool for not seeing it."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, I'm very good at playing the good girl," Grace said. "Good enough to deceive you, anyway."

"What are you going to do to me?" Cinderella asked.

Grace's smile remained fused in place as though she couldn't have changed her expression if she wanted to. "I'm not going to do anything to you. Princess Cinderella, dowager duchess of Rennes, will live a long and happy life." Grace reached out, and tugged Drizella out from behind one of the rough-faced guards to stand beside her. Drizella looked both nervous - head bowed, hands clasped in front of her - and triumphant, judging by the smirk on her face. It was the same smirk she had always worn when Cinderella was about to get in trouble with her stepmother.

"Drizella Tremaine, on the other hand," Grace said. "Will simply...disappear."

It took Cinderella a moment to realise just what Grace meant. Her eyes widened, she struggled in the unyielding grip of her captor. "No! No, you can't, you can't possibly!"

"Originally I was just going to kill you," Grace said. "But concealing your violent end would have been difficult. This...so much more elegant, don't you think? I give your face, your eyes, your comely form to Drizella, to live out the rest of her life - the rest of your life, I should say - as my best friend. And I never have to worry about what all your knuckling-dragging sycophants on the streets might say."

"No," Cinderella said. "Drizella, please, please don't do this."

"Why shouldn't I?" Drizella demanded. "If you're going to just take everything I want without asking then why shouldn't I take everything you have? Once I become you, then people will want to kiss me, and take my hand and hold me in their arms the way that he holds you. Once I become you my life will finally be perfect."

"But it won't be your life," Cinderella cried. "It will be mine."

"So what if it is your life, I'll still be the one enjoying it!"

Just like you did the last time you stole my life, Cinderella thought. It was an unkind thought, one might even call it venomous, but Drizella was about to murder her and steal her identity so even Cinderella's supply of the milk of human kindness was starting to dry up in regards to her.

"I was kind to you," she said.

"You just wanted to flaunt your good luck in front of me," Drizella replied. "You wanted to make me jealous of all the things you had that I didn't. Do you know...your husband wouldn't even sleep with me! You're pregnant and you're getting fat but he'd still rather share your bed than mine! It's not fair!"

"What are you going to do to Eugene?" Cinderella asked, turning her attention back to Grace. "Where is he? I can't believe you're going to let him live out his life with Drizella."

Grace chuckled. "Something tells me that it wouldn't take him long to work out that something was amiss," she said dryly. "And my own son's path to the succession runs through him."

"Your son," Cinderella murmured. "Are you...?"

Grace's smile became less cruel for a moment. In fact it almost seemed sincere as she looked down and placed a hand upon her stomach. "It's too early to be sure, but my blood should have come by now and it has not." She looked back up at Cinderella. "Are you going to congratulate me."

"I'm going to beg you for the life of my child," Cinderella said softly. "From one expectant mother to another."

Grace laughed. "That would be very convenient, I'm sure. You'd have...how far along are you now?"

"Seven weeks."

"And you'd have seven months to hope for some kind of rescue. I'm not inclined to give you that chance. In fact I think it's probably best for everyone - best for me, anyway - if we, make the switch as it were, right now. Are you ready, Drizella?"

"Definitely," Drizella declared, with a vicious smile upon her face.

"Then I see no reason to delay," Grace said. "After all, I do need a bridesmaid for my wedding."

"Wait!" Cinderella cried, as the guards started to drag her away. "What are you going to do with Philippe?"

"Don't worry," Grace said. "He'll be joining you in heaven soon enough."

"No!" Cinderella shrieked as she was pulled, almost carried in the direction of the staircase. "Please, Grace, please. I'm begging you, please, have mercy, he's a child! Grace, please!"

Grace said nothing, and her face gave no sign of yielding to the claims of pity.

Cinderella was borne towards the stairs, where Etienne Gerard and Jean Taurillion were waiting with pistols drawn and pointed upwards at Grace.

"Let them go," Etienne demanded. "Both of them."

Grace stared down at the two men aiming their weapons at her. "How long have the two of you been skulking down there?"

"Long enough to hear everything, Lady Grace," Etienne replied.

"Not very gallant of you," Grace observed. "To eavesdrop while your princess is in peril."

"I have enough sense to balance out the young man's gallantry," Etienne said.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to your rescue at once, your highness," Jean said.

"You see what I mean?" said Etienne. "Now, let them go."

"Or what?" Grace asked. With one hand gestured languidly at the men around her, aiming their weapons right back at Jean and Etienne below. "If you shoot me my hounds will tear all of you, including your precious princess, to pieces."

"Perhaps," Etienne said. "But you'll still be dead. As dead as Anatole du Montcalm."

Grace stared down at him, and her expression softened for a moment. "You killed him."

"I did," Etienne replied, his voice cold and without remorse. "Though it was you who turned him into a bear first."

Grace snorted. "Once I decided that I could only gain power by seducing the King, poor Anatole became largely superfluous to my requirements. And yet...a part of me regrets that I got him involved in all of this. For the past few weeks no one has seen me at all. No one has looked upon Grace du Villeroi, but only upon Vanessa. My triumphs, my enmities, my cruelties...they all belong to someone else, to another woman. Even in the midst of the most fabulous ball, when I was the centre of attention...nobody saw me. But he did, if only for a little while. You might not believe it...but I cared about him."

"Then how could you use him like that?" Cinderella asked. "You...you transformed him? You sent the bear?"

"Of course I did, did you think this whole thing was just coincidence?" Grace asked. "Everything has unfolded according...actually no, I can't claim that I planned every step of this with a straight face, but I've been able to keep up with the surprises - like your sudden knowledge of the secret tunnels - along the way."

"You will not adapt to this surprise unless you let them go at once," Etienne growled.

"And what will you do if I let them go?" Grace demanded. "Where will you go? This palace is mine now, the King is mine and I will be his queen; there is nothing you can do to-"

Grace's words were cut off by the sharp crack of Etienne's pistol as he fired. Smoke burst from the end of the gun as Grace was tossed backwards onto the floor of the landing.

"If you are beyond the reach of the justice of men," Etienne said coldly, as he threw his discharged pistol down upon the floor in front of him. "Then you will face the justice of the Lord instead."

For a moment the whole world seemed to freeze. Cinderella's breath caught in her throat. I'm going to die, she thought, for she could not see any way for Jean to save her now. Surely Grace's men, so abruptly deprived of their leader, would kill them all in retribution. She was going to die. She was going to die before she had ever held her child in her arms - though she had tried not to think about it, in Cinderella's imagination it was a baby girl she held, a beautiful daughter whom she rocked to sleep - or comfort them when they were crying or...or anything. She was going to die. They were all going to die. She could see no other way.

Judging by the horror on Jean's face he seemed to feel the same way. Drizella looked stunned, as though she might faint at any moment.

The guards, though...Cinderella expected anger, fury, wrath, but Grace's men in their coats of red looked so confused. More than surprised, they looked as though they could no longer remember what they were doing or why they were here. Cinderella felt the hands holding her arms loosen their grip and so she pulled herself free, snatched Philippe out of the unresisting arms of his own captor - she pressed his face against her shoulder, so that he did not have to see the body that Cinderella herself wished she had not seen - and ran down the stairs to where Jean was waiting.

Jean moved to shield her with his body. "Your highness, we should-" he stopped, his mouth hanging agape. Cinderella followed his astonished gaze, and she felt her own mouth open in amazement.

The men, Grace's men, the redcoats of the Queen's Regiment, were changing before her eyes. They sniffled and whined and snuffled as they were transformed from men in red coats to a pack of mongrel dogs, sniffing around on the landing above them in a disorganised mass, with no more apparent thought of avenging Grace than of punishing Cinderella or Etienne or anyone.

"Dogs," Cinderella murmured. "They were...dogs." It made a degree of sense, at least in the way that it explained their behaviour, the way they never spoke but only growled and snarled. Poor things, they must have been so confused, no wonder they had been angry. Had Grace been controlling them somehow? Was their loyalty just more magic? The current behaviour of the mongrels seemed to suggest so.

"You can't possibly have known that would happen!" Jean snapped. "The princess could have been killed."

"And Grace was absolutely right; we had no good choices available to us."

"A choice that put her highness at risk is no choice at all!"

Etienne's sword clattered to the ground beside his pistol. "I am prepared to answer for my actions, of course. But I do not regret them."

Drizella stared at all these dogs at her feet with eyes so wide they were in danger of falling out of their sockets. Her mouth was moving, but Cinderella could hear no words.

Cinderella would have been more sympathetic to her plight if Drizella hadn't been about to murder her. But there were limits to her patience and Drizella had not so much crossed them as danced gleefully over them and away into the night.

"Jean," Cinderella said, and though her voice was quiet it was also sharp. "Where are Angelique and the others?"

"Waiting at the entrance to the passage, your highness."

"I see," Cinderella said. "Please take Mademoiselle Tremaine into custody and secure her in the dungeon until...until further notice."

Jean hesitated for a moment before he bowed his head. "As you command, your highness." He waded through dogs that were milling around on the landing and beginning to descend the stairs - what were they going to do about them, there must be more all over the palace - as though he were stomping through a bog, raising his legs high and putting his feet down with great care. He thrust both his pistols into his sash as he took Drizella by the arms and began to lead her down the stairs and away.

It was his touch that seemed to reawaken Drizella to her new predicament, because she began to squirm in Jean's grasp as Cinderella had struggled in the grip of her captor, and to just as little effect. "What are you doing? Get your hands off me! Let go! Are you deaf, let me go at once! Cinderella! Cinderella you can't do this to me! Please!"

Cinderella turned away and closed her eyes. Not because she regretted the command that she was given - although she did regret, even now, the fact that she and Drizella would never have the opportunity to possess the sisterly bond that Cinderella's father had hoped they would have - but because she was afraid that if she didn't turn away from Drizella she might do something unseemly. Cinderella trembled with rage. She had never felt so angry in her entire life before. She wanted to scream in Drizella's face, she wanted to rail at her, to throw everything that she had done at her, she wanted to list all the ways that Drizella deserved this. She wanted to and yet she didn't want to. She didn't want to be that sort of person, and so Cinderella said nothing as Jean led her stepsister away.

She was going to kill me, so that she could become me, Cinderella thought. She was willing to see Eugene die, and Philippe, and my unborn child and maybe my friends too. She betrayed me. She deserves this.

But it saddened her, all the same, to know that all hope of a reconciliation with the only family she had was gone, had never in fact been a possibility beyond her naive hopes. It saddened her more than she could admit to anyone.

She glanced at Etienne, and then looked away again. She said nothing. Cinderella didn't know what to say in the face of what he had done.

"She had killed two innocent people to get to you," Etienne said softly. "You heard her admit that."

"Yes," Cinderella whispered.

"She was right to say she would never have faced justice for that while the King protected her," Etienne continued. "What I did...justice has been done, I believe."

Cinderella didn't reply, she had no idea what to say.

"Come with me, please," she said softly. "I think we have a lot of work to do."

Author's Note: This isn't how I originally was going to have this go down, but as I thought about it, having written myself to this point, I began to feel more and more that my original plan (in which Grace has Cinderella at her mercy and then…locks her up for a bit while she goes to marry the King) did an incredible disservice to the character by having her act like a cheap Bond villain. And I just couldn't think of any way in which both characters left the scene alive.

Nevertheless, though Grace is no more her shadow will endure, and I hope that the aftershocks of what she did will be as interesting as the deeds themselves.