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to talk to the king about—’
    Her sentence was cut off by the thunder of horses’ hooves and the burst of a herald’s horn as the two men in livery clattered into the street. She stared at them. The Royal Crier? The baker’s boy and his terrible fate were forgotten, and even the baker came out to join the throng who hurried to gather and hear the castle news. Royal Criers were rare in this part of the city – not enough noblemen lived here – so whatever the news was, it would be of some great importance.
    Cinderella pushed her way to the front of the growing crowd.
    ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!’ The young man on the white horse was wearing a tunic of red and gold without a speck of dust on it, and his perfectly styled brown hair shone almost as brightly as the leather of his riding boots. ‘His Majesty the King announces his intent to hold two Bride Balls two weeks from Saturday for his royal Highness the Prince. All young ladies of noble birth and their chaperones are invited to attend. The Prince himself will dance with each, and by the end of the two balls he will have selected his bride.’
    A rush of gasps and excited babble ran through the crowd as women and children clapped their hands together excitedly and men smiled and slapped each other on the back. A royal wedding meant extra holidays and feasting and the king could be very generous when he wanted the people to celebrate with him. Pigs would roast on street corners and ale would flow. There were good times ahead.
    Cinderella almost dropped the shopping she carried. The prince was having two Bride Balls and she wouldn’t be invited. She wouldn’t be, but Rose and her step-mother would. It was so awful she couldn’t bear it. Worse still, she was going to have to put up with hearing about it for the next two weeks. As if reading her mood, the sky darkened, and as she reluctantly hurried home an icy rain began to fall.
     
    S teps were hard to manage when you were a mouse and it took him two whole days and nights to reach the top of the castle tower. It was a long, long way up at the end of an already long journey and he was exhausted. At least the forest had been kind and given him a clear path and the leafy canopy had protected him from the cold nights. A hare had carried him part of the way, letting him sleep in the warm fur of its back as it bounded through the night and he wondered once again at magic and nature and fate and how bound together they all were in the forest.
    He had been surprised by the city. The first clues that all was not well had come when he passed the mines. The songs that hummed in the air, as if the mountain itself was singing, were melancholy and ached with tiredness. The hardy dwarves were finding no pleasure in their toil. At the edge of the woods were patches of dead ground as if the bushes and trees which had grown there had simply given up and slumped into a pile of rotting mulch.
    It was winter across all the kingdoms, and those in the East were always gripped harder and for longer than the rest, but he had not expected what he found here. Black ice was slick across the tracks and roads and the sky raged in grey and ragged darkness whatever the hour of the day. Ravens covered the rooftops.
    He had kept close to the buildings as his tiny feet carried him, fast as they could, towards the castle at the city’s core. It grew colder with each step and the wind blew harder. The castle, it soon became clear to him, was the eye of the storm. This was an unhappy city, a bitter sadness spreading like a pool of blood from the wound at its heart.
    It was also a city in mourning. In each house he passed colourful drapes had been removed and replaced with the customary black, and all were pulled shut. Many shops were closed, only those selling the necessities of life allowed to trade, but still their windows had been blackened and there were no cheery greetings or hawking of wares.
    The little mouse paused in his quest and squeezed through