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Wind tugs at Annabeth’s dress and wild curls, brought on by the speed at which her horse, Medusa, cuts through the wooded path. Trees blur in her periphery as she lowers herself closer to the mare’s neck, a blur of grey in a world of green and gold. Sunlight dapples the fallen leaves with the same pattern as Medusa’s coat, and her muscles ripple as though they were carved from stone. In the clearing to their right thunders a hunting party from the palace with loud horns and elaborate sport coats. They hunt a stag, a glorious creature Annabeth happened upon moments before. And so, Annabeth took a risk in running alongside it. Medusa is of similar size and stature to the silver-gold stag, and as long as Annabeth stays low, the two might be easy to confuse. Her dress is a stark enough blue to protect her once the men are within shooting distance, she’s sure. And if she’s wrong? Well, risk is such a rare, treasured thing in Annabeth’s life. Her mother taught her as much. 

They come upon a split: one path disappears into thick brush while the other rounds the clearing. Annabeth spooks the stag into the secluded woods and steers Medusa the other way. 

She spurs Medusa onward as they part the grass with the wind that follows in their wake. In this moment, imbued with purpose, passion, and freedom, Annabeth truly comes alive. Here, the spirit of her mother rides alongside her, her golden curls catching the sunlight which always laid on her with such grace. Annabeth does not feel raggedy or out of place beside her, though she must be dim in comparison. Instead she is emboldened by her mother’s gaze, as all daughters should be. 

Her father was a spineless man who passed his daughter along to a wicked woman with monstrous stepdaughters. Sthenno and Euryale, monsters they may be, exist only to mimic the behavior of their mother, who makes it clear that Annabeth is not a part of the family—as if she wanted to be. Family died with her mother. 

The hunting party follows her, the percussion of hooves and hollers momentarily drowned out by a horn as their sport horses carry them closer. Annabeth goes rigid and grabs wildly at Medusa’s mane, playing the role of frightened maiden that men are so willing to see her in. 

One man splits off from the head of the party toward her. Annabeth can’t see him, but she hears him calling. The rest of the group circles back to the clearing in search of the stag, which Annabeth hopes is long gone. Once they disappear into a shaded glade, Annabeth stops Medusa on a dime, expecting the man to fly past her. 

He immediately halts a few feet away, his horse’s black coat glistening in the sun. Both horse and rider have the same silky dark hair: well-groomed and rich. Or perhaps working for the rich. His sport coat is green with fine gold embroidery, matching the backdrop of the forest behind him. And his eyes, which Annabeth notes are more striking than the fabric and leaves alike. They narrow in concern, then quickly grow amused. It’s a friendly look, one that makes her want to lean in until she spots the saber on his hip. 

His gaze darts to her flexed heels as she expertly nudges Medusa into a walk, and he smiles. “Are you okay, miss?” he asks, sounding entirely certain she is. 

Annabeth squares her shoulders. “I’m fine, but you’ve nearly frightened the life out of the stag. What has he done to you to deserve to be hunted?” 

The man steers his horse alongside her own. His tone is good-natured, easier than his position in the hunting party would indicate. “I must confess, I’ve never met him before. Is he a friend of yours?” 

Annabeth finds herself grinning. “An acquaintance, actually. We’ve only just met.” 

She draws Medusa into a wide arc in the clearing. Something about the way this man looks at her tells her he knows the game she’s playing. He considers her as he guides his horse the opposite way. 

“What do they call you?” 

Annabeth looks at his boots tucked into his shining stirrups and hides her own muddy shoes. “Nevermind that. What do they call you?” 

“You don’t know who I am?” He seems to catch himself then. “They call me Percy, or rather”—his grin grows more earnest—“my father does, when he’s in a good mood.” 

In just one sentence, Percy’s love for his father shines in him. The sunlight reflects differently on his face, the way Annabeth imagines it might catch on her if she had anyone with whom to discuss her mother. 

“And where are you from, Mister Percy?” 

“The palace,” he answers. “My father is teaching me his trade.” 

The palace. Annabeth has always wondered what it looks like, all those tall towers and sculpted arches. Her body longs to get lost in the portrait galleries, the carpeted halls, the buzz of living in the company of so many. It would be okay to go unnoticed there rather than her childhood home. The walls there are built from potential, not the past. There, memories are something you choose to take with you. The rest you leave behind. 

“You’re an apprentice?” 

Percy swallows. “Of sorts.” 

“Do they treat you well?” 

Their horses gravitate closer and stop when they align nose to tail. Percy and Annabeth face in opposite directions, him toward the sun while she’s framed by it. 

He ducks his head. “Better than I deserve, I’m sure. And you?” 

Annabeth stares at the space between Medusa’s ears as the mare steps closer to Percy’s horse. A less honest woman could find something kind to say in response. 

Percy’s horse inches closer as well, until their ankles nearly brush. He shifts in his saddle, leveling with Annabeth. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she can tell he means it. Such kindness is foreign to her. 

“It’s not your doing.” 

“Nor yours either, I’ll bet.” There is a different intensity in his eyes when Annabeth meets them—more fire than distant sun. This is personal, maybe even angry. Righteous. 

“Others have it worse, I’m sure,” she deflects. “You must know that, living in the palace.” 

For a moment, Annabeth sees his reluctance to move on from the subject. She wonders if he is training to be a medic; he has the same desire to act on others’ pain. And the same respect for privacy, it seems, because he grants her deflection. 

Annabeth, however, is made more out of curiosity than respect for privacy. Her eyes travel to his saber once more. It’s polished, but clearly built for use. Between that and the way he holds himself on a horse, she understands. “You’re a soldier.” 

“I’m not one for labels, but I’ve seen battle.” 

“Not one for labels?” Annabeth muses. “Then I suppose you’re unbothered by me forgoing the ‘Mister’ in favor of simply calling you Percy? It’s a pretty name; it rolls much better off the tongue without the extra syllables.” 

“Quite unbothered,” he assures her. His smile turns crooked. “I rather enjoy the way it rolls off your tongue.” 

The hunting horn pierces the air from the far end of the clearing. Annabeth leans over Medusa’s shoulder, nearly close enough to reach for Percy. He’d let her, she thinks. Within mere minutes, he’s become less of a stranger to her than those in her own home. 

Instead she wraps her hands in Medusa’s mane. “You’ll leave him alone, won’t you? The stag.” 

“I will.” Percy looks at her, intense and gentle all at once. Before he can speak again, his head whips around at the sound of a broken branch. Someone has come to collect him for the hunt, but he waves them off before they get close. 

“I hope to see you again, Miss…” 

It could be a title, but the look he gives her indicates it’s an invitation to give her name. Annabeth plays dumb, knowing he’ll see through it. 

Her chest rises with her breath. “And I you, Percy.” 

He grins at the promise and the sound of his name, his eyes darting to her mouth as he turns his horse. Even as he rides away, he casts a glance at Annabeth over his shoulder. Laughter rings in the air as clear as the summer sky. It’s a charming sound, Annabeth thinks. She can’t wait to hear it again. 

Annabeth may not have the strongest grasp on the logistics of fairy godmothers and turning mice into horses, but as she races up the palace staircase in glass slippers, she wonders if something could’ve been done about the lateness of her arrival. Not a sound echoes in the courtyard but the clopping hooves of her mice-horses and the rolling wheels of the golden pumpkin they pull. It’s quite a lot to process on top of the fact that she has lost her chance to sneak into the ball under the cover of a crowd. 

There is little time to take in the splendor. Perhaps she and Percy can sneak away to explore the grounds. It’s not as though they’ll miss a soldier at an event meant for royalty. 

By the time she makes it to the final set of doors, the announcer’s voice echoes through the castle with news of the first dance. Whispers from the crowd crescendo into a dull roar of speculation. 

Good, Annabeth thinks. All eyes will be on the prince. 

She opens the door without a guard’s assistance—she can’t allow anyone close enough to ask her name—and steps onto the staircase, jaw dropping at the chandeliers dripping golden light onto the fine fabrics and embroidery of the crowd below. Jewels and eyes shine alike as every person falls silent to look at her. 

So much for sneaking in. 

She searches their faces and finds jealousy, scorn, and admiration in equal amounts. A panicked gut instinct searches for her stepmother and sisters until she catches herself. Tonight is for Annabeth to be her truest self, and she cannot do that with them on her mind. 

Under the cover of candlelight, Annabeth is truly aglow. Her gown shimmers with each step she descends, as do her slippers when they peak out from her skirt. For the first time in forever, she is seen—not as the mistreated country girl, but as a magnificent thing.

The last few stairs are the hardest, putting her on equal footing with the crowd she has only ever looked in on. One more step, and she’s among them. 

Just before her slipper touches the floor, she sees him. 

Percy stands across the ballroom from her, that same grin and glimmer in his eyes from the forest, but almost disbelieving. People part for them like clouds, and the space between is not empty, but rather full of light. They meet in the middle, Percy stopping just before her billowing skirt. Even without touching, his gaze is warm as a caress. 

Annabeth smiles and takes in his lavish white coat and blue collar, the hue of which is identical to her dress. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wonders if the magic had something to do with it, if fate ties them together like the fine but sturdy string that is stitched across his chest. Just off center on his left is a golden rose that catches the light, right above his heart. 

“Percy,” she breathes, because her mind is still parsing through the minor apprentice detail. 

“It’s you,” he says, eyes shining. “Isn’t it?” 

“And here I was thinking myself clever for dismissing your title. Though it does seem risky at an event like this, don’t you think?” 

Percy’s shoulders shake with a barely contained laugh. “Forgive me, Your Highness.” 

“I’m no princess.” 

“And yet the royal ballroom has cleared for you.” 

She can’t tell if he believes her or thinks this is more banter, but it’s sincere. He lets her sit with it for a moment, swelling in the silence. 

“If I may…” He lowers his voice, working to keep up the act of prince but faltering with every glance at her lips. “That is… it would give me the greatest pleasure if you would do me the honor of letting me lead you through this, the first…”

His breath catches in his chest. 

“Dance?” Annabeth offers. 

“Yes, dance.” And he is the boy in the woods again, laughing that charming laugh as he rides away, savoring every second his eyes are on her, like looking away would cost him something. His cheeks dimple and his eyes crinkle, kind and bright as the rest of him. 

And then his face smooths, jaw flexing with delicious intention as his eyes flicker down to Annabeth’s lips. Slowly, devastatingly, his hand wraps around her waist, arching Annabeth closer. 

That hand holds her in place as the music starts, a harmonic pulsing that lilts into a waltz. Percy holds her gaze as they begin to sway and her dress sweeps the floor. He pulls her into a spin, still anchoring her at the waist, and Annabeth looks over his shoulder at a sea of disapproval, jealousy, and wonder. 

She whispers, just a bit breathless, “They’re all looking at you.” 

“Believe me,” he says, “they’re all looking at you.” 

Annabeth wrestles with that as she spins again, this time noticing how the crowd fixates on her. All the covert whispers and narrow eyes are unnerving. A lifetime of being unnoticed to one night of blazing glory. It’s enough to make anyone shy away. 

Then his wrist crosses under hers, guiding their hands in a gentle flutter like butterfly wings, such a fragile kind of beauty. He turns her, trailing his ungloved hand down the length of her arm and pressing their palms together. It is the first loving touch in Annabeth’s adult memory. She is taken back to the drawing room of her early youth where she practiced similar steps with her mother. Athena would slip off her shoes and hum a tune while Annabeth stood on her toes and stared up adoringly. After so long alone, it is a lovely thing to have a partner to support and guide her, even if only through a waltz.

The violins swell when Percy sweeps into Annabeth’s space, drawing them into a closed dance hold. Gone are the judging faces and unnerving whispers—now there is only Percy and the gasp Annabeth tries to hide under her breath. She keeps her neck long with the momentum of the turns, but does so with her eyes closed. He is the only thing in this room of riches that is worth looking at. 

This is so absurd, coming for an apprentice and dancing with a prince; being wanted for all she is not by everyone but the man in front of her, who met her when she was muddy and indignant. So much is different, and yet he looks at her with the same wonder and curiosity. 

They spin and spin, and Annabeth laughs. Percy spins her in such a wide arc that the onlookers scramble to avoid her skirt. When she attempts to glare at him, his face is too smug for it to have been an accident. The smile they share then is secret, and when the clock strikes midnight, it is the one thing she will be able to take with her. 

So this is what it’s like to be wanted. Annabeth has been a source of envy throughout her life, forever the golden girl scorched in cinder by her step-family. Tonight is different. Now envy has no bearing on her life. That is the greatest victory of this night: becoming untouchable. 

The end of the song approaches, but not before Percy wraps his arm around Annabeth and lifts. A gasp ripples through the crowd, this one much more adoring than when Annabeth stepped into the light, and she may never come down to earth again. He quirks an eyebrow at her, a silent request to do it again. She gives the barest nod. 

His hands grip her waist and hoist her above the crowd. Annabeth’s gaze is on the magnificent ceiling, her thoughts on the hands that nearly engulf her corset. When he sets her down, they are nose to nose, so close that Annabeth’s breath brushes over his lips. She lets him dip her low, trusting him to keep her on two feet. Were it proper, she would kiss him right here in front of everyone.

But he is a prince, and Annabeth only has so long. The song is already ending. 

Applause thunders in the hall, underscoring the rush of blood in Annabeth’s ears. She and Percy stand in the middle of the storm, panting and staring at each other. He had the same thought about kissing her; she’s sure of it. 

Another tune strikes up, this time a group number for the crowd. Within moments of the choreography, Percy abandons the steps and opts to spin hand in hand until the two of them dizzy. Leaning in close, he whispers, “Come with me.” 

And, well, who is Annabeth to refuse a prince? 

He leads Annabeth past paintings and statues and suits of armor he doesn’t spare a glance for. All this grandeur is white noise to him. He was raised here; grandeur is his birthright. The only thing to catch his eye all night has been Annabeth.  

The well of emotions from the past hour fills up inside and she lets her breathlessness get the best of her as they stop in a lavish portrait room.

“So you’re the prince?” 

Percy closes the doors and turns to her, slightly panicked. “Not the prince. There are a lot of princes in the world, I just happen to be one of them.” 

“But your name isn’t really Percy?” 

“Everything else I’ve told you is true.” 

Annabeth narrows her eyes. “I was under the impression you were an apprentice.” 

“I believe you were the one who suggested that particular word.” His voice gets higher, and Annabeth would think him endearing if she wasn’t preoccupied with a sudden desire to punch his beautiful, royal face. “And I am an apprentice monarch.” 

Monarch. This man is in line to be king, and Annabeth has just stolen him away from a ball meant to help him find his intended. She takes a step toward the door. 

Percy reaches for her. “Please forgive me. I feared you might treat me differently if you knew. It’s tiring, spending your days with people who have made up their mind about who you are. Now I see that you of all people would have understood.” He steps closer. “No more surprises?” 

It does not matter that this man sees her as a royal masquerading as a commoner instead of the opposite. She hears his words about judgment and is helpless to do anything but take his hand. “No more surprises.” 

A portrait catches her eye across the room. “Is that you?” She tugs him toward it, laughing. He’s depicted on horseback with a victorious grin and his saber in the air. It’s his likeness, surely, but it doesn’t capture his nature in the slightest. 

“I hate myself in portraits,” he sighs. “I can’t sit still, and they make war out to be… something it isn’t. And you?”

“No one has ever painted my portrait.” 

“No?” Percy turns to her. “Well they should.” 

Annabeth’s heart takes flight in her chest.

“So this is the glory of war?” she muses, noting the painted smile on portrait-Percy’s face. 

“Not quite.” He leans closer, just enough that Annabeth feels his heat. An air of nervousness sets over him as he eyes the guards in the corner of the room. “Could I interest you in a walk through the garden?” 

Moonlight shines with more transparency than the chandeliers; in it they are both as blue as the fabric of Annabeth’s dress and the trim on Percy’s coat. He looks royal with the shadows under his cheekbones. Perhaps Annabeth looks the same beside him; perhaps that is part of the magic, to appear as if they were cut from the same cloth. 

The sheer width of Annabeth’s skirt keeps Percy an arm’s length away as they walk a stone path through the hedges. Torchlight flickers across the stone and warms Annabeth’s exposed arms. She wants him closer. In every sense, she wants him closer. 

“This is where I played at war as a boy,” Percy says, eyes on the winding path. “It was simpler then—the soldiers always came back to life, in the end. There is glory in that, I suppose, as a child who doesn’t quite understand how a soldier comes to fall, before you have met grief, but now…” He ducks his head with an air of shame. “I know this isn’t what most want from war stories.” 

“Your story is your own, whether people want it from you or not,” Annabeth says firmly. But she sees his discomfort, and she softens. “With whom did you play?” 

“The son of the captain of the guard, Charles. There were a few my age around the palace—children of staff—who were around in my youth. We played, we sparred. They kept me humble. Who were your companions?” 

“Oh, I had so many. The sheep, the geese and all the mice of course.” 

“Of course,” he chuckles, graceful in his good nature. “And did they keep you humble?” 

“They are excellent company, but I fear I remain much too proud.” 

“Not without cause,” Percy says, gazing at her figure. 

“And where did you learn to dance?” 

He shines. “That was my mother. My father allowed me to postpone dancing in favor of other pursuits, but she wrangled me in by my coat before my first ball and taught me all I know. She and my father used to have the first dance at every event.” He looks at her then. “It was magnificent, like they were the only people in the room.” 

Of course, Annabeth is familiar with the fact that the queen fell ill a few years ago. She hears the pain in Percy’s past tense as acutely as when she speaks it herself. 

“These gardens were hers.” He gestures to the rose bushes, whose mighty stems reach for him like desperate hands. “My father can’t bring himself to visit since she died.” 

“But you do.” 

“I do my best.” He clears his throat. “And what of your family?” 

“My mother taught me to dance too. There were no balls in our future, but you could not tell us so.” 

“What does she think of your coming here?” 

It’s Annabeth’s turn to duck her head. “I hope she’d be proud. She passed when I was a girl.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I know.” 

“Did your father escort you then?” 

“I came alone, actually. My stepmother is not fond of me expressing my personal liberties, and my father did little to stop her when he was with us.” 

Footsteps thunder up the cobblestone path, giving Annabeth a cover as anxiety tinges the whites of Percy’s eyes. She takes his outstretched hand and allows him to pull her into an alcove invisible to passersby. Their chests heave with every footsteps that draws nearer, and Annabeth cannot help but note their closeness as he pulls her skirt out of view without dropping her hand. 

The footsteps pass and fade into the distance, but neither of them moves. 

Annabeth eyes him. “You don’t want to go back.” 

Percy’s shoulders drop with a heavy sigh. “If the rest of this ball could continue how it started with you, I would stay until sunrise.” Annabeth is grateful to the dark for hiding her blush. “But the moment I set foot in that ballroom, they will pair me with a lady of their choosing. I am to marry for advantage regardless of my own wishes or the precedent set by my parents.” 

“Precedent?” 

“They were a love match—one that nearly started a war, might I add. My father scorned his betrothed to marry my mother, and yet he insists that I do as he could not. He’d rather I marry someone I met once tonight than...” He doesn’t finish, but Annabeth hears than someone I met once in the woods clear as day. 

“Perhaps he will change his mind.” 

“I fear he hasn’t much time to do so.” 

His grip loosens in hers, and Annabeth gives him a chance to pull away, but he doesn’t. That means something to her. She doesn’t focus on the way his eyes glisten as he looks bitterly toward the torchlit path, only thinking of how best to send her sympathy and strength through their fingers like a lifeline. 

“I am not one to put faith in the good intentions of a parent,” she starts slowly. Percy’s eyes snap to her. “But I see the love you and your father have for each other, and I have faith in that—in love. Both the love between you and your father and the love you will find with someone of your choosing.” She does not dream of inserting herself into this. Percy deserves someone who can give him a life of permanence, not a girl who can only pretend to be what he wants until midnight. 

He raises her hand to his lips and lingers there, his eyes sparkling like the night. It is frightening to be looked at so intensely after talking about love, and perhaps Percy senses it, because he simply asks, “May I show you something?” 

“I think we’ve established my willingness to be whisked away.” 

“I imagine it’s difficult to turn down a prince.” 

“Hardly,” Annabeth laughs. “I came here with the intention to.” 

“You did not put on this gown to see a simple soldier.” 

“An apprentice, actually.” He laughs, and there’s that charm she’s still trying to figure out. It makes her breathless, makes her say, “I’m all yours,” with reckless sincerity. Percy beams bright as the moon. 

He takes her further from the paved path, away from the dishonest glow of torchlight. Every star seems to shine on him as he opens the door to a hidden garden. Ivy creeps up the stone walls as fortification, a beautiful sort of privacy that invites them to breathe. Annabeth takes that invitation, allowing the cool night air to fill her lungs until they press against her corset, and immediately feels Percy in this space. His gaze travels slowly over the flowers with a nostalgic tint. Annabeth has the impression this was once his mother’s. She understands. She’s spent months of her life taking refuge among her mother’s surviving sunflowers. 

“This is beautiful,” she says, and his eyes flutter from the hydrangeas to her. 

“Far more so with you in it.”

“You flatter me.” 

“That’s the goal, yes.” 

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” A lie.

And Percy knows it. “It’s gotten me this far. Tell me,” he steps closer, “How else does one soften a proud heart?” 

Annabeth reaches for him, giving into the need that has followed her since the moment they stopped dancing. “You keep looking at it.”

They walk the perimeter while the moon shifts the shadows overhead. With the privacy and time to talk freely, Annabeth finds herself saying things she never dared utter out loud, let alone to a witness. The kindness and patience Percy meets her with is intoxicating, especially to someone starved of both. Yet he is not afraid to poke fun at her. Laughter has been a hostile sound until the moment Percy bites back a smile at having won an undignified snort from her.

He matches her every remark with one of his own, candid and witty and thrilling all the same. 

Once their footsteps are worn into the lush grass outlining the garden, Percy points to the swing hanging from a low branch. “You should.” 

“No, I shouldn’t.” 

“You should.” 

“I shouldn’t.” 

“You should.” 

Annabeth lifts her chin. “I will.” 

The space behind her is warm and full of potential as Percy holds the swing steady for her, and it grows warmer still as he places his palm on her back with a low, “May I?” 

“Please.” 

It is a slow rocking weighed down by the volume of her skirt and the inherent gentleness of Percy’s hands. Annabeth’s heart takes flight on that summer breeze, a butterfly viewing a familiar world as a changed creature. She is a child watching her older self from within the old chrysalis. 

After a few pushes, one of her slippers falls to the soft earth, glittering in the grass. She stops the swing. 

Percy kneels in front of her. “It’s glass,” he says, wondered and confused. 

“And surprisingly comfortable,” Annabeth adds. The swing carries her forward into his space, and he asks to lift her dress before doing it, taking her ankle in his hand as he guides her foot. Her supporting leg slips out from under her, and the only thing that stops their crashing is Percy grabbing either side of the swing. 

Her eyes trace the arch of his lips as they part with an exhale, then pull up at the corner. They are inches apart. 

“Dance with me,” he says.

“Now that you can recall the word.”

“Now that I have you without distractions,” he corrects. “Though I may become speechless again if you continue as you are.” 

“And what’s stealing your voice?” she muses, a smile audible in her own. “The dress, the glass slippers, the aura of mystery?” She takes his hand and falls into his gravity with a slow sway.

For all his bold flirting, Percy is quiet now, considering her words and the full weight of them. Perhaps he sees the insecurity in her question, how none of the things she named are her own. Perhaps it’s the simple answer, and he is always this earnest. 

“You are the most familiar person in that room,” he answers. “I have spent my life pandering to the wants and needs of politicians, kings, and countrymen. There are people in that castle who served my grandfather and father before they served me, and still I don’t know them beyond what one of us can do for the other. But you? I recognized you. You are not a mystery. You are the only person here who did not come to see the prince. You came for a ball. You came for an apprentice you told off in the woods. You are intelligent, proud, dangerously witty, stubborn, and kind, and you shiver when I touch you. I don’t think anyone has touched you in a long time.” 

He lets her sit with that for a moment while he traces her knuckles with his thumb. She should be terrified. She isn’t. She is terrified that she isn’t. 

“I have been around people my entire life and known nothing about them but what they want from me. With you, it’s the opposite. That’s the only part I cannot make out.” 

“I wanted to go to a ball,” she answers. “I wanted to sneak away with the apprentice I met in the woods.”

“And what did you want from him?” 

“I wanted him to keep looking at me.”

There is a different intimacy than the ballroom, one that manifests with the absence of stares rather than despite the abundance. Percy wraps his arm firmly around Annabeth’s waist until they are nearly too close to look each other in the eye, and she is grateful for that when he speaks next. 

“How does someone so magnificent come to be so lonely?” His voice is soft in Annabeth’s ear, the resonance of it low beneath her hand on his chest. When she tenses, he smooths his fingertips across her back, skin on skin. She hears the reassurance there, the gentleness. “You don’t have to say it, but I see it here.” He smooths his hand up her back, over her shoulders and neck. Tension seeps out of her muscles at his touch, and she lets herself lean into him. Here he cannot see her shadows. “You walk like you’re waiting to run, and you hold yourself like you have something to prove, even now. Lay it down, Princess.” 

Annabeth’s heart beats out of her body. “Where will I put it?” 

He takes her palm from his chest and flips his hand to hold it. “Here, for now.” 

“I can’t.” 

Annabeth’s hands bear the brunt of her days scrubbing floors and scooping feed; they are not delicate, but they are strong and warm. They are the hands of a girl who has held on her whole life to something she never thought she’d find. And here, in the palm of a prince, she thinks she might be close. 

The stars sway over Percy’s shoulder. “For one night.” 

“One night.” Annabeth leans her cheek against the rose over his heart, as if that golden string can tether her here for a lifetime. “I can do one night.” 

“And if I ask you for another? If, with each midnight, I ask you to stay until the next one?” 

Guilt tightens its grip on her throat.

He must understand, because he holds her tighter. “Won’t you tell me who you are?” 

“If I do,” she says slowly, “I fear things might be different.” 

“Your name, then.” 

“Names are powerful things.” 

“I don’t seek power.” 

“Knowing someone is power.” 

“Then you hold it over me as well.” 

They don’t pull back. They don’t look at each other. They just sway in his mother’s garden, and Annabeth hums a low tune her own mother taught her a decade ago. So this is love, she thinks. Or at least love’s humble beginning. A scared boy and a girl who encourages him to have faith in himself. A lonely woman and a man with hands kind and steady enough to hold her. 

In another life, it’s enough. In another life the minutes never pass and Percy never sees Annabeth as something other than the mystic being she is now. She never finishes the song. They never stop dancing. The clock never strikes twelve. 

“Princess,” he breathes against her temple, and it is the breath before something big, something he cannot take back. Annabeth looks up at him and, in her desperation to prolong this silence, looks at his lips. 

The first bell tolls. 

Suddenly the stone walls press in. Trapped. She is trapped leagues away from her carriage, which will turn back into a pumpkin when the spell breaks. The gown she wears will return to the muddy rags from which it came, and Percy will see the tattered thing she truly is. 

“I have to go.” If she were any closer, she would have confessed it into his mouth, exhaling the truth that is caught in her throat. “Lizards and pumpkins and things.” 

Percy goes slack, confused.

She allows herself one look back at the man she is leaving behind, vowing to commit his beguiled expression to memory. Somewhere, there is a world where the clock does not strike fear into Annabeth’s core, where fear of rejection does not run right to the root of her. In that world, she turns to rags without blinking, and trusts herself to be enough. 

In this world, she says, “It was enchanting to meet you,” and does what she knows:

She runs. 

The slippers truly are a work of magic to allow her to race across the palace without so much as a blister. As it is, she barrels through the garden, paying no mind to the torches that flicker as she passes. Better for the fire to flicker out. Percy calls from behind her, but she doesn’t listen lest he convince her to stay. 

Chatter and music leads her through the corridors to the ballroom, which is lively even without the guest of honor. Annabeth hears his footsteps closing in behind her and wills her feet to move faster. 

One of her stepsisters intercepts Percy as he crosses the dance floor, and though Annabeth never thought she would be so grateful to see one of them, it gives her time to flee up the staircase. Nearly there. Just a few more corridors and she’s set. 

Her momentum carries her into a solid chest covered in a boldly embroidered blue and gold coat. It’s much like Percy’s, down to the rose over the heart. 

The king. She body slammed the king. 

“Your Highness,” she gasps, curtseying low. “I am so sorry.” 

He laughs a hearty chuckle. “Think nothing of it, my dear.” 

She starts to go, but something holds her back. This man is dying, it’s clear up close. His face, though handsome, is sallow where it used to be full. There is a rasp to his voice that doesn’t belong, though he tries to hide it. A golden band glitters on his left hand where he steadies Annabeth. They have all lost someone. 

“I wanted to say, Your Majesty… Your son Percy is the most lovely person I’ve ever met. He is good, and kind, and brave, and holds so much love for you. For the kingdom. For your people. I have never seen someone speak so highly of another person until he spoke of you tonight. He shines with it.” 

Another low curtsey, and she takes off into the night.

The victory of cool air billows against her face as she races down the palace steps. Gold gleams at the end of her path, the carriage that was a vessel to freedom now set to take her back to captivity. A winged creature must feel so heavy on the ground. Here she is, a butterfly in a rainstorm, hurtling toward the dirt with her bent wing. 

The slipper falls, and as she turns to grab it, he’s there, at the top of the staircase. 

“Wait!” 

The choice between a lifetime of exposure and a lifetime of invisibility glimmers before Annabeth in the form of one magic slipper. Take it, and be caught as a mystery princess, look Percy in the eye as he reckons with the gap between who she is and who he believes her to be. Take it, and run, run like the scared, poor girl she has always been, toward the uncomfortable but familiar life of being forgotten. 

And in the time it takes Annabeth to look at Percy’s face: a choice, made. 

“Where are you going?” 

Because he is there, laughter in his voice and on his face as he follows her. And what is a runaway if not someone who desperately wants to be followed? 

She leaves the slipper. 

A decision made by not deciding. A game, a puzzle, a reckless hope. He will find her as a peasant girl, or he will not find her at all. She doesn’t have to watch the reckoning. She simply has to wait for him to appear at her door.

And if he does not come, if he will not venture to a country house, if he prefers the mystery princess to the tattered maiden, Annabeth will keep his smile, his kindness, and one glorious night of freedom, all untainted in her memory. 

Through the carriage window, she sees him pick up the slipper, holding it the way he held her. Annabeth is not made of glass, but she understands the value of a delicate thing. Each of them smiles, hopes, holds a slipper in their hands. Hope is a delicate thing. 

The clock strikes midnight, the final bell tolling as the pumpkin shatters in the dirt miles away, leaving Annabeth barefoot on the trodden path home. 

Hope is all she has. 

The earliest memory Percy has is a trip to the harbor. Most days it comes to him in pieces, the way a dream flirts with the edges of consciousness: the stroke of his mother’s hand on his child-soft cheek, a booming laugh from his father, and the rock of a boat beneath his feet before his legs were sea-strong. Blue sky stretches down, down, down into the ocean, the sun scattered across the surface like the memory scattered in Percy’s mind, fragments of the blinding brightness of youth.

Years ago, Percy stood in this very tower and looked out at the harbor with a sunless pit in his chest, an eternal midnight at the very core of him. And just like the night, the sun was not gone, simply somewhere he could not reach. His mother was dying. His love for her did not go anywhere. 

Fear has made him a child again, staring out at the tumultuous sea, staring at a sunless sky, staring at the orphanage haunting the hillside. 

His father is dying. 

The door to the royal chambers groans and scrapes against the floor, revealing Charles. Percy doesn’t want to look at his friend’s face, where he will find only honesty. Doctors, servants, and the King himself have smiled their way through kind lies and promises they cannot keep, but it is one thing to know a beautiful thing is a lie, and entirely another to witness the wicked truth. 

Charles nods once, solemn. “It’s time.” 

Percy walks through the doors, feels Charles put a hand on his shoulder as he passes, but he is adrift in the current of his pain. Each rickety step reminds him of the boy he once was, whose knobby knees were helpless to hold him upright against the riptide. His father put out a calloused hand and anchored him. 

“You can’t fight the sea,” he said, “only learn to move with it. The will of a thing this big doesn’t bend.”  A brown hand, stretched to the horizon; the world, suddenly steady. “You have that same will inside of you, Percy. Bend where you must, but when you can’t… You owe it to yourself to be like the sea. Unrestrained.” 

His father’s skin is a far cry from the radiance in Percy’s memory. Sweat shines on his brow and stains the neckline of his white shirt. Percy thought watching his father die for months might ease the blow of his final day, that it may be merciful in a way, but this is not mercy. Illness has worn at him like water on stone: gradual, but cutting just the same. 

The king looks at Percy, and he is not the king. He is Po: a father, a husband, a tired man. His eyes brighten at the sight of his son, like Percy is just a boy begging to leave the castle walls for a sail rather than a man swallowing each sentence for fear his last words will come out wrong. 

All Percy can say is, “Don’t go.” Petulant, pathetic. Still hoping the bad thing is not set in stone, like the universe will wash it away if Percy promises to feel all the pain. Water can will away even the strongest of stone, but it must bend to fate. 

Po extends a hand. “I must, my boy. I’ve been away from your mother for far too long.”

Percy’s mother inhabited the left side of that same bed. Po has never strayed from the right. Never ventured too far into the garden. Never looked at the sea quite the same. 

Percy sits to his right and takes his hand. 

“But you,” Po says. “You needn’t be alone. Take a bride. The princess from Ogygia.” Then, at Percy’s reaction. “What if I commanded you to do so?” 

And so Percy’s fear of disappointing his parents follows him to their deathbed. Here he can only hope to put it to rest. 

A lump lodges in the back of his throat. “I love and respect you, but I will not.” He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he speaks, though the tears don’t fall. “I do not want to marry out of fear of what might be. I do not want a what if. There is someone out there who saw me, Father, for all that I am except my role as Prince. And she let me see her, too. When we spoke of royalty, we spoke only of the loneliness and pain. No glory. No power. No politics. The princess of Ogygia does not know me. I have given up my entire life to the role I am expected to fill, and I have done it well. But I cannot give this up. I won’t. You have spent your life strengthening our kingdom. I will do the same. But you nearly went to war to marry the woman you loved, and I am my father’s son.” 

“You are not.” 

Dread runs through Percy’s veins like ice. 

Po’s other hand cover’s Percy’s. “You are your mother’s son. I’ve been hard on you without her here to soften me, and I apologise for that. You may have my face, but she gave you her heart. Not backing down in the face of love… that’s all her. It’s easy to incite war. It took her grace to save us from it.” A quiet memory settles over him, and he purses his lips at the taste of it. Percy can only pray he holds half as much of his mother in him as his father sees.

 “You are the best of us, Percy. The best of our love. Let it live on in you. Let it lead you, unrestrained. Find her, the one they’re all talking about. The forgetful girl who loses her shoes.” 

They finish the last sentence together, laughing in spite of the blanket of grief that binds them to this bed. 

“I met her.” His father grins. “She barreled into me as she fled. It was a matter of seconds, but she was the most honest person I’d spoken to all night, and I didn’t even know her name. And then she ran.” 

“And then she ran,” Percy sighs. 

“But not before calling you the loveliest person she’s ever met.” Po laughs as Percy ducks his head, still able to make his son blush even now. The laughter fades, and he grows serious. “She’s afraid of something, my boy.” 

“We all are.” 

“Do you know her fear?” 

“Not explicitly.” 

“Fear is the full picture of a person. It will tell you why she ran. It may tell you where she is.” 

Percy squeezes his father’s hand. “I’m glad you met her.” 

Po softens. “As am I. Your mother would have loved her.” 

The tears that have lingered in the corners of Percy’s eyes spill at last. His mother will never meet the woman he marries. Neither of his parents will be at his wedding. His father is dying.

“I love you,” he manages, bringing his father’s knuckles to his lips. 

Po’s voice is fading. “And I love you, my beautiful boy. My shining son.” It’s unclear if he meant sun or son, and Percy doesn’t want to know. He lays on his father’s stomach, small as a boy, counting each breath until childhood is over. 

A stuttering lung. 

A still stomach. 

And then he is alone. 

The king is dead, the prince has mourned, and now he is looking for a bride. 

The news stops Annabeth in the middle of the town square, the crier’s harsh voice echoing off the cobblestone street. 

Declares his love for… mysterious princess… glass slippers… marry her…

Marry her. 

With all due ceremony. 

The royal crier is here, in the town square, rather than a neighboring kingdom. Percy knows. Or he suspects. What matters is he doesn’t care. 

Annabeth drops her basket and abandons her errands, leaving the goods to the mercy of the square. She will never be forced to work again. The glimpse she catches of her stepsisters as she untethers Medusa will be her last. A lifetime of love and luxury, a lifetime of freedom, is just one ride away. 

They gallop through the meadow that divides the town, returning to her childhood home one last time. The slipper. She needs to present the other slipper. No one would dream of letting her through the palace doors without it. 

Wind caresses Annabeth’s face with the whisper of a promise: you have suffered so long. Breathe with me. You will suffer no longer. The sun joins her in her glee. Laughter fills the space between the trees as Medusa charges forward, and Annabeth is a magnificent thing again. If she lets the world go out of focus, she can almost see Percy charging out of the treeline on his black horse. This meadow has been kind to her, even when the world has not. It’s one of the few things she’ll miss. After all, it brought her Percy. 

She’ll miss the house as well. While she won’t miss the tower she was forced into, she’ll miss the piano, the front room where her mother taught her to dance, and the windows that let in so much light before her stepmother covered them with heavy curtains. She will miss the grounds, the stage upon which her childhood was set. It’s not just the house she’s leaving, but the memory of it. It’s a gamble to risk her few happy memories for the mere chance of creating new ones, but risk is such a rare, treasured thing in Annabeth’s life. Breathlessly, she pries up the wooden floorboard that conceals her few belongings. A picture of her mother, a black ribbon, a baby shoe, paper butterflies she folded as a child. 

No slipper. 

“Looking for this?” 

Annabeth’s stepmother sits on the edge of her tattered bed, the slipper glittering in her right hand. Her voice cuts through the room like glass: shocking, sharp, shattered. It’s all Annabeth can do to rise, heart pounding, chest heaving, and look her in the eye. 

“There must be quite a story to go with it. Won’t you tell me? No? Alright then. I shall tell you a story.” 

Shadow cloaks much of Annabeth’s stepmother, but it cannot hide the glimmer in her eye. She enjoys this, sitting above Annabeth as she has her whole life, punishing her for crimes she never bothers to name. Her dark hair is done up neatly at the nape of her neck, making way for the extravagance of her green dress. 

Once, a snake slithered out of the forest and took residence on the grounds, terrorizing the chickens Annabeth cared for before it was her duty, before her labors of love became just labor. She chased it with a stick and screamed with all her feral youth, wielding her weapon in her chubby hands. This was her home. It was her job to protect it. Just before the snake could strike, Annabeth’s mother scooped her into her arms. She stomped at the ground once, far taller and more formidable than Annabeth could dream of being, and the snake was gone. 

Her stepmother sits across the room, fangs glinting, and there is no one here to save Annabeth now. 

“Once upon a time,” her stepmother begins, “there was a beautiful young girl who married for love, and she had two loving daughters. All was well. But then, her husband, the light of her life, died. The next time, she married for the sake of her daughters, but found herself caring for the man she wed in her desperation. A scholar of history, too caught up in his own past to see the future she could promise him, living in a house haunted by the ghost of the woman before her. All of his misfortune wrapped up in one loud-mouthed child. And then he, too, was taken from her. She was doomed everyday to look upon this ghost, this open mouth demanding to be fed with money she doesn’t have. But there was still hope. She could marry one of her beautiful, stupid daughters off to the Prince. If only his head wasn’t turned by a girl with glass slippers. And so,” she hisses, “I lived unhappily ever after. My story would appear to be ended. Now, tell me yours. Did you steal it?” 

Annabeth has lost her voice. “No. It was given to me.” How easily she is made small again. How easy it is to become a ghost. 

“Given to you? Given to you?” A harsh laugh. “Nothing is ever given. For everything we must pay and pay.” 

“That’s not true. Kindness is free. Love is free.” 

“Love is not free.” Her stepmother stalks toward Annabeth with languid, confident steps. Poised to strike. “And here is how you will pay for yours. Alone, no slipper in hand, the guards wouldn’t let a dirty servant girl like you past the front gate. But with me to put you forward, they will not ignore you. When you are married, you will make me the head of the royal household. Sthenno and Euryale, we will pair off with wealthy lords, and I will manage that boy. 

“He’s not a boy.” 

“And who are you? A child, a ghost, a servant? How would you rule a kingdom?” 

And Annabeth, in all her glorious pride, has had this thought before. 

Her stepmother mistakes the set of Annabeth’s jaw for her holding her tongue and clicks, “Of course not. Best to leave it to me.” 

There is a choice here, as her stepmother walks to the door—a choice Annabeth had hoped she’d never have to make again after today. A loud-mouthed child, she thinks. A ghost. A servant girl. 

A queen. 

“No.” 

Her stepmother’s hand hovers above the doorknob. “No?” 

“No.” Annabeth raises her chin. “Nobody has protected me from you, but I will protect the Prince and the kingdom. No matter what becomes of me.”

The snake, coiled, undeterred by the weapon in Annabeth’s small hands. “You want to be great. I can give that to you. You could be a queen, if only you do as I say.” 

“I would only ever be the servant girl you wanted to keep small. That’s not greatness. That is not earned. I won’t have it.”

And then, the bite. 

Fury floods her stepmother’s eyes, contorting her lovely features into something wicked. “Then I will save them from the embarrassment of you, a graceless commoner who cannot keep her mouth shut. An indignant, ungrateful girl with delusions of her own worth.” 

She smashes the slipper against the wall, leaving only the heel in her hand. 

“Why are you so cruel?” Annabeth demands. A broken butterfly wing hits the edge of her boot. “I’ve tried to be kind to you.” 

“You, kind to me?” 

Annabeth straightens her spine, curls her hands into fists, and lets the hurt little girl inside her out into the light. She holds that girl in her arms, boot set to strike the ground, just as her mother once did. “Yes. I ran away because I felt your hatred at the age of seven. Seven! I was a child and you made me so unwelcome that I risked my life to grant you peace. And no one looked for me! The worst could’ve happened and you’d never have known had the neighbors not brought me back kicking and screaming. All I wanted was a mother.” 

“You wanted your mother.” 

“I was a child,” Annabeth snarls. “Did you not know loss? Did you not have daughters of your own? I would’ve taken anything you gave me, yet you gave me only hurt. That was not mine to hold. I won’t hold it any longer. Why do you do it?” There is a tense silence, a reckoning. “Why?!” 

Her stepmother does not even deign to give her an answer. With one last disgusted look at Annabeth, she tears out of the room, slipper and key in hand. 

“Wait!” Annabeth crashes into the door shoulder-first, then pulls desperately at the handle as the lock clicks. Despite herself, she keeps pulling, like she can break iron if she wills it. 

The door doesn’t budge, and Annabeth is a ghost once more. 

Days fade into weeks until Annabeth no longer knows how long she’s been locked in her tower. She still does her chores—supervised now, lest she run—makes the meals, and even eats some of them. Her stepmother would never dream of doing the labor herself, and her stepsisters would sooner burn the house down than successfully cook a meal. And perhaps it would serve her to track the moon’s phases or count the passing days by tally, but what good is the passage of time to Annabeth now? This is her life, chosen for and now by her. 

Yet her spirit has not broken. It aches, tugs her toward open windows and patches of sunlight, but Annabeth is not fragile. She knows loss. There is a comfort in knowing that her memories of Percy will one day live alongside her memories of her mother—her golden night, her golden childhood. 

Someone struggles downstairs, knocking over a lamp and landing with a thud. Absently, Annabeth wonders what would happen if something befell the house, for surely none of her stepfamily would risk their lives to let her down in the event of a fire. 

The struggle stops and is replaced by a shrill yell. The girls are getting new dresses, she assumes. Likely for the royal wedding, if it’s already been announced. By now, Percy must have been promised to the princess from Ogygia. They are different people living different lives. She sacrificed her security for him, but he cannot risk the country’s security for her. He hardly has reason to believe her security is at stake. 

Still, she thinks, please don’t be in love with someone else. 

Warmth reaches through her window as the trees outside rustle with a light breeze. It beckons her to the windowsill. This is the closest she will ever get to riding in the meadow on the day she thought she’d gained her freedom. The mice scuttle around her feet as she presses her cheek to the cool glass, singing the tune from her last dance with Percy. So this is love. It’s melancholy without anyone to hold her. But it is love. It is something to wake up thinking about, even when it hurts. 

When the mice open the window, Annabeth thinks little of it. 

People are talking out in the garden, her stepmother and two other men. Strange. The tailor who makes their dresses is a woman living a few estates over. Annabeth keeps singing and doesn’t catch their conversation; it brings her a joy to imagine her stepmother going pale and trying to explain that the wretched cat has learned to sing. 

A commotion breaks out in the garden. Countless nervous hooves hitting the ground. Too many voices hushed with shock. Still, Annabeth sings, hoping to be heard. She only sings as loud as she dares risk punishment for if whoever’s outside won’t help. 

Footsteps echo up the staircase, heavier than any she’s heard before. Her stepmother is outside the door, her voice a synthetic sort of airy, and the key slides into the lock. 

She enters with the captain of the Royal Guard, who Annabeth remembers to be Percy’s friend, Charles. His royal blue coat is emblazoned with gold thread that matches the saber at his hip and the plumed hat in his hand. He walks with a command in his step, but a humble manner about his voice when he addresses Annabeth. 

“Miss, you are requested and required to present yourself to your king.” 

Her stepmother rushes forward. “I forbid you to do this.” 

Charles’s eyes follow her with disdain. “And I forbid you to forbid her. Who are you to stop an officer of the king? Are you an empress? A saint? A deity?” 

She affixes Annabeth with a piercing gaze. “I am her mother.” 

What do a child, a ghost, and a servant all have in common? 

Anger. 

It blazes in Annabeth’s chest as every version of her steps forward with one shared truth: “You have never been, and you never will be my mother.” 

The fire catches in her stepmother’s eyes, fanned by the fact that she cannot cough out smoke in front of Charles, who lets the women have their moment. Perhaps he saw how much Annabeth needed to say those words. 

When he does interrupt, it is a gentle, “Come now, miss,” to Annabeth. Not a word to her stepmother as he turns to go. 

Annabeth follows with her head high. 

The moment Charles is through the door, her stepmother grabs her arm. “Just remember who you are, you wretch. Unwanted. Unloved. A ghost, no matter the house.” 

Charles offers Annabeth his arm to escort her from the room, but the damage is done. She’s shaken. 

“You are the last maiden in the entire kingdom to try on this slipper,” he tells her on their way down. “I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager that you’re the one he’s been looking for.” 

“And what makes you sure?” 

They reach the bottom of the first staircase. Charles turns to her, smiling. “Before the mystery princess, he was enamored with a good, honest country girl.” He glares up to where they left her stepmother. “Take a moment before coming down, if you need. Don’t worry about making him wait.” His smile turns crooked. “It’s good to keep him on his toes.” 

Annabeth watches the light reflect off the gold embroidery of his jacket as he descends. It’s much finer than her raggedy dress. His boots echo down the staircase, thick-soled and freshly shined. The only shoes Annabeth owns are her work boots and a pair of worn-away flats that are one misstep from falling apart. 

Could she ever get used to a lifetime of finery? How many enemies will she make with her loud mouth and stubborn pride? 

At the root of it all, her deepest fear: what if she is not enough? 

There is no magic to help her this time. This is not a chance meeting in the woods or a ball that ends at midnight. This is her past, her present, and her future laid out in front of someone she loves. It is perhaps the greatest risk anyone will ever take: to be seen as they truly are. 

Annabeth stops at the mirror just before the first step. Who does she see? 

A set jaw and blazing eyes, defiant in the face of rejection. Square shoulders, limbs held like a dancer. Calloused hands. A strong will. Blonde curls and grey eyes. 

Her mother. 

She takes the first step. 

Gone is the mysterious princess, the magnificent thing that defied definition. It is humbling to wear your labels and show them to your lover. There is no audience full of jealousy and admiration, only the open gaze of the front door. Freedom has its eyes on her, waiting to see if she will be strong enough to take it by the hand. One way or another, she is walking out of this house for the last time. 

She rounds one more corner, and then she’s there. 

The curtains are drawn back, bathing the room in the honest truth of sunlight. Percy stands with his back to Annabeth, but she feels his gaze in the mirror mounted over the fireplace he faces. A green and gold jacket hugs his shoulders, like the one he wore that day in the woods, but finer. Worthy of a king. 

He turns, revealing her other slipper held carefully in his hands. He did it, she thinks. He found her. And what is a runaway if not someone who desperately wants to be followed? What are children and ghosts, if not people longing to be found? 

It would be proper to curtsey before the king, but Annabeth is done bending her neck. If she must humble herself for salvation, then it is not salvation worth having. And for someone who wears royalty so well, Percy cannot hide the joy her refusal brings him. At every turn, they prove to be equals. 

Even now, as he asks, “Who are you?” it is the quiet curiosity of a lover, not the command of a ruler. 

“I once told you knowing someone is power,” Annabeth says. “I have not had much power in my life. Not much love, either, and I have had my fill of begging for both. You have seen my pain, my grace, and now my fear. All that remains is my name.” 

She knows by looking at Percy that nothing she says will change his mind about her, but he still lets her say it. 

“I am Annabeth Chase.” His lips trace the name gently, Annabeth, and she craves his lips against hers with that same reverence. “I am no princess. I have no carriage, no parents, and no dowry. I do not know if that beautiful slipper will fit, but.” And perhaps this is what separates Annabeth from every other maiden in the kingdom, the admission that she may not be who Percy wants, who he is looking for. It is not a victory in its own right, but it is the truth, and truth is a victory. “If it does, will you take me as I am? An honest country girl who loves you.” 

“Of course I will.” No hesitation, only warm resolve. “But only if you will take me as I am: an apprentice still learning his trade.” The loss of his father is fresh in his voice. Annabeth wishes she could’ve been there for him through it, and is stabbed with guilt for leaving. She couldn’t have changed anything, but she could’ve been there. 

But there’s an understanding in his eyes as he holds out the slipper. You did what you had to do. We’re here now. We have time. He gestures to one of the chairs. “Please.” 

He kneels in front of Annabeth just like he did in the garden, only this time he lifts the hem of a tattered skirt and removes her muddy flat. Yet his eyes never stray from her face, wide and open as the ocean, welcoming as the horizon. Annabeth could drown in him, were it not for the buoyancy in her chest. 

Has she ever been as brave as she is with Percy’s hands on her? His palm is calloused as it trails down her calf, reminding her that he is not a soft-handed king. He holds on tightly to that which he doesn’t want to lose. 

Yet his touch is so gentle. There is something in the way he looks up at her when the slipper slides on effortlessly—Annabeth doesn’t know what to do with all that intention. 

She beams. Perhaps it’s all she can give him, her joy. Perhaps joy is enough. 

He beams back. 

And then, just as the scene played out at the ball: Annabeth’s chest swells with anticipation, and Percy’s face sets with purpose as he touches her. He pulls her to her feet, close to him, as if they’re dancing once more, and closer, closer, closer… 

“Annabeth!” 

Sthenno and Euryale topple into the room in a tangle of gaudy gowns and flailing limbs. Percy freezes, but doesn’t retreat. His nose trails down the length of Annabeth’s as he hides a laugh, but he’s still looking at her as she turns to address the issue. It takes several more seconds for his hand to fall from her neck. 

“My dear sister,” Sthenno starts, her voice wavering. “I’m sorry.” 

“So very sorry,” Euryale echoes. 

They curtsey low. A bit overkill, in Annabeth’s opinion, but they always were that way. 

For a moment, she pities them. They were simply mirroring the behavior of their mother, lest her wretched temper turn their way. Tough as she is, Annabeth was best suited to survive it. Even without the venom her stepmother holds, Annabeth’s stare makes them wither. 

There was still no reason to be cruel. They are all adults now, these supposed sisters. Even if the girls had no choice but to side against Annabeth, they didn’t have to do it so gleefully. 

Annabeth leans on Percy to remove her sole slipper. There is a strength and sureness to his grip: it’s that of a dancer, leading her through the steps, keeping her on her feet when she falters. 

He nods his head to the door and looks at her without a trace of pity in his eyes. Only understanding, and through understanding, more love. “Shall we?” 

They walk out of the room hand in hand, side by side, a saber on his hip and a glass slipper in her hand. A soldier and a princess. An orphan boy and girl. 

Though the memory of this house was once a golden thing, it has been tainted by years of neglect and abuse. Difficult as it is to leave, it’s what Annabeth’s mother would want. More importantly, it’s what she wants. At the palace, memories are something you choose to take with you. Annabeth has plenty to leave behind.

Just before the door is her stepmother suspended on the staircase. Her magnificence is diminished by the distance, Annabeth realizes. People are more beautiful at the bottom of the steps. The joy comes from watching them descend. Statuesque, still and unmoved as carved stone, her stepmother watches from her high ground, never deigning to be on even footing with Annabeth even now. 

Annabeth squeezes her hands, one around Percy’s and one around the imaginary fist of her younger self. She has protected them both, as they have protected her. Today, the three of them leave for good. 

You, kind to me? 

She says, “I forgive you,” and hopes that it cuts. 

She is not there to see her stepmother crumble, and she doesn’t need to be. It is a victory not to be there. Her stepmother doesn’t deserve a witness. 

 Annabeth is already free.

A new painting adorns the wall of the royal hall. Beside Percy’s mother and father in a lavish golden frame lives Annabeth’s mother, finally free from the ruined grounds of her death, a ghost become saint, more icon than portrait in this hallowed hall. 

Annabeth stands adorned in white beneath her, crown jewels holding her veil atop her head. Yards of silk trail behind her, a meadow of flowers embroidered along the hem: roses, hydrangeas, sunflowers. And among them, resilient blue butterflies. 

“Are you ready?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy takes her hand, his eyes still on the portraits of his parents. Their crossed veins pulse with a shared desire: I miss you. I have never tasted a joy this strong. I wish you were here to witness it. 

The cheers of thousands overpower the quietness of the moment. Outside, their citizens look to them for strength and guidance, but Annabeth finds herself unafraid. She escaped her stepmother to forge a family of her own. There is nothing she can’t do without this man at her side. 

He kisses the back of her hand and meets her with the same unwavering confidence. “I’m ready for anything,” he promises, “so long as it’s with you.” 

They marry under the morning sun with honesty smiling down on them from a cloudless sky. Two orphans. Two lovers. King and Queen. Every truth of theirs is laid bare, every moment witnessed and every feeling felt. What a comfort to have a witness. What an honor to witness someone else. So many golden years lay ahead of them. 

The world gets brighter when Percy kisses her. This is courage, kindness, magic. This is love. Every wish her heart ever made comes true with a single kiss. 

The clock strikes twelve, and Percy is looking at Annabeth.