"You've been awfully nice," Ella called. "Thank you for a wonderful evening. I loved it. Every second." Then she ran through the garden, to the terrace, and up the stone steps. She found herself standing in front of the door to the gallery where their walk had begun. Moving through the doors, she disappeared into the darkness of the gallery.

She raced past the portraits and burst into the ballroom a moment later. Ducking and weavingamong the dancers, she safely made her way across the room, but then -- smack!-- she ran right into King Frederick.

Ella ran as fast as her glass slippers would allow. She heard Kit call out to her to wait. Turning to see his bewildered expression, she knew she had to say something.

"I'm… I'm so sorry!" Ella said, starting to rush away. But once again, she got the feeling that she couldn't leave it there. She turned back. "I wanted to say, Your Highness, that your son, Kit, is the most lovely person I ever met. So good and brave. I hope you know how much he loves you." Without another word, she raced off, leaving the king with a bemused expression on his face.

"Oh!" Ella exclaimed. "Your Highness!"

He nodded at the pretty girl in front of him. "Young lady."

One of the footmen leaned against the side of the carriage, trying to catch a fly. As soon as he spotted Ella, he frantically motioned to the coachman, the fly forgotten. With a snap of the reins, the coachman started moving the carriage and Ella slipped inside. Then the carriage was off, the four noble horses racing into the night.

Letting out a deep breath, Ella finally looked back. She could just make out the prince standing on the steps. In one hand, he held her glass slipper. But it wasn't the loss of the shoe that hurt; it was the expression on his face that broke Ella's heart. Kit looked confused and sad. And it was all her fault.

Ella ran faster than she had ever run before. Finally, she found herself at the top of the staircase leading down to the palace courtyard. She spotted her carriage nearby. With a sigh of relief, she ran down the stairs. Suddenly, she felt one of her glass slippers, the one that had flown off on the swing, slide off her foot once more. She was just about to fetch it when she saw a group of guards arrive at the top of the stairs. With one last sad look at her pretty shoe, Ella ran the rest of the way down the stairs.

A short distance behind, unaware of any of these odd changes, the guards continued their pursuit. Among them were the Grand Duke and the Captain. They both wanted to catch the mystery princess but for different reasons. The Grand Duke wanted to expose her for the fake he thought she was, while the Captain simply wanted to make Kit happy.

Inside the carriage, Ella listened to each toll of the bell with a growing sense of dread. They were running out of time and needed to get away from the guards before it was too late.

As the carriage sped out the palace gates, Ella heard the bells tolling the midnight hour. She also heard the sound of hoofbeats and knew that the guards were in pursuit. That meant Kit didn't want her to go. But she couldn't let him find her. Not now, not when the magic was about to end.

The bell tolled again. Ella leaned out the window and saw the horses' tails begin to transform back into mouse tails. Around her, the walls of the carriage started to turn orange. As the persistent bell tolled loudly, the coachman's nose grew back into a beak, and he let out an anxious honk.

As a cloud passed over the moon, Ella's carriage clattered over a bridge, bringing them farther from their pursuers and closer to home. But they still had a ways to go, and as the ninth bell tolled, the carriage began to resemble a pumpkin, its elegant symmetry replaced with a bulbous shape and a stub protruding from the top. At the tenth bell, the horses finally disappeared, replaced by the four mice, who let out frightened squeaks as the pumpkin carriage rolled on. The goose fell to the road, honking loudly before shaking himself off and flying the rest of the way home. And as the eleventh and twelfth bells tolled, the spell was broken.

With the sounds of the last bell fading away, Ella found herself sitting on the ground, the pumpkin cracked beside her. There was a slight whoosh as her jewels transformed back into fireflies, and then, last but not least, her beautiful gown became the torn and ragged dress from before. All that was left of the magic was a single glass slipper. Ella pushed herself to her feet and began to brush herself off.

The horses' ears became round, and their muzzles narrowed into snouts. Then the coachman transformed completely back into a goose, his uniform falling around his webbed feet. The carriage itself began to shake and the footmen became lizards once more.

A light rain began to fall. Ella cupped her hand over the slipper so the mice would not get wet and made her way back to the house. She heard the sound of a carriage approaching. Ducking to the side of the drive, she rushed through the pantry and into the kitchen just as she heard her stepsisters clatter through the front door. There was murmuring as the girls bickered, and then, much to Ella's dismay, she heard their footsteps moving closer.

Now she still had to get back to the house before her stepfamily returned. She ushered the mice into her remaining glass slipper so she could walk them the rest of the way.

Acting quickly, she let her mice friends climb out of the glass slipper before putting the shoe into the hearth and covering it with ashes. Then she lay down beside the hearth and closed her eyes.

When Anastasia and Drisella entered the kitchen, they found their stepsister sleeping, covered in the ashes that had inspired her nickname.

"Look at that," Anastasia sneered. "She fell asleep in that thing she was wearing."

Anastasia shook her head. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

"She must be dreaming about going to the ball," Drisella added. "Wake her up so we can tell her all about it."

Ella opened her eyes and then stretched, as if she had been asleep for hours.

"I know! That's why I want to wake her." Drisella leaned down and shouted into Ella's ear. "Get up, lazybones!"

"Oh? What happened?" Ella asked.

"You can't even imagine," Anastasia said as her sister ordered Ella to prepare a plate of biscuits and warm some tea.

"You missed it!" Drisella crowed.

As Ella started to prepare the snack, her sisters began to recount the events of the night. They were interrupted by their mother, who entered and immediately demanded that their treats be brought to the parlor. She wasn't going to let them start eating in the kitchen like scullery maids… or Cinderella. Once she and her daughters were settled, the girls continued talking. As usual, they were talking more at Ella than to her.

"The prince was showing me a great deal of favor," Anastasia said.

"I thought his eye was more inclined towards me," Drisella argued.

There was a pause as the sisters looked at each other. "What do you mean, what did he say?" Anastasia finally said.

Drisella had an answer. "Don't be so common, Cinderella," she snapped. "We did not communicate with mere words. Our souls met."

Ella couldn't help herself. "What did he say to you?" she asked, knowing full well he hadn't spoken a word.

Lady Tremaine, who had been silent up until that point, finally seemed to lose her patience. "You didn't speak to him, let alone dance!" she snapped.

"It was not our fault, Mother!" Anastasia whined. "It was that girl…"

"The mystery princess!" Drisella added.

"That was no princess," Lady Tremaine said, her eyes on Ella as she spoke. The girl seemed oddly lighthearted despite having been forced to stay home. It made Lady Tremaine suspicious. "It was a preening interloper who made a spectacle of herself. A vulgar young hussy marched into the ball and threw herself at the prince."

"And he actually danced with the ugly thing," Anastasia added.

"Yes?" she said dreamily.

Ella looked down, trying to hide the smile that threatened to spread across her face. Unaware that her stepmother was watching her, she hummed a few bars of the song she and Kit had danced to, lost in the memory of that perfect moment.

"It's no matter," Lady Tremaine finally said. "The ball was a mere diversion. The prince is promised to Princess Chelina of Zaragosa. The Grand Duke told me as much himself." Then she turned and spoke the next words right to Ella. "He's not allowed to marry for love."

"Yes!" Drisella repeated. "It was pity. He was too polite to send her packing in front of everyone, you see. But not wanting to expose us to the presumptuous wench any further, he took her aside --"

Anastasia jumped in, interrupting her sister. "And told her off! But she refused to leave, and the palace guard had to chase her from the party."

Ella could barely contain the laughter that bubbled up inside her. Glancing at Lady Tremaine, she saw that the woman was watching her with narrowed eyes. Ella quickly looked back at the ground, worried she might have given herself away.

Sighing, Ella stood up and walked to the far corner of the attic. She kneeled down and lifted up a loose floorboard. Inside was the beautiful toy butterfly her father had given to her many years earlier. She gently placed the slipper next to it and then put the board back in place. Noticing that Jacqueline, Gus, and their children were watching from nearby, Ella smiled. She hadn't seen them since the magical transformation.

Ella sat in her drafty attic room, staring at the glass slipper she held in her hand. Her mind kept replaying moments from the ball: seeing Kit for the first time; feeling his hand in hers; swinging in the wild garden. The memories flashed through her mind, each one vivid and perfect. Yet her stepmother had said the prince could not marry for love. If that was true, she and Kit could never have a future. Not that she was sure he would want a future with her, or her with him. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"Thank you for your help," she said. "It really was like a dream. Better than a dream." Then she squared her shoulders. "But now it's done."

And now he was promised to another. It made Ella's heart hurt to think he did not have control over such an important decision. She wished she could do something to help him.

Jacqueline and Gus rose on their hind legs and attempted to imitate dancing. Ella laughed, amused by her friends' efforts. But they had made a point. The ball hadn't been a dream. It had been real. And the way she felt when she was around Kit? That was real, too.

She thought about his spirit, his courage, his kindness. She thought about the way she had felt dancing in his arms. She loved talking to him; she loved being silent with him. He was one of those rare souls who made one feel comfortable no matter what.

Sighing once more, Ella smoothed the front of her apron. At least they would forever have the fond memory of the perfect night at the ball.