Glimmers of Glass (A Glimmers Novel #1: Cinderella)

Chapter 29

The theme was "Starry, Starry Night." Most of the girls had taken that to mean "rhinestones, and pile 'em on!" One girl had even found a minidress printed with the Van Gogh painting and then attached a diamond-spangled black chiffon mermaid skirt to the hem. It should have looked tacky but it actually turned out amazing. She was a Humdrum, too. Evidence, I thought, that not all Humdrums "lacked the creativity and follow-through only magic can provide," as my dad had pronounced at dinner the other day.

Imogen had talked me out of the slinky black dress I'd been picturing. "Don't be ridiculous," she'd said. "Your hair is dark. Your skin is super pale. You will look like a chess piece that can't decide which side it's on." Instead, I'd found a deep teal gown with one shoulder strap made of twining gold leaves and a belt in the same pattern. It fell in tiny chiffon pleats down to the floor. I felt odd in the thing—it was about a thousand times fancier even than the dresses my parents made me wear to fancy dinners—but I felt pretty, too. That was an okay change of pace.

Being in this room, however, was not. Prom didn't feel that much different from fundraising dinners, except the crowd was younger and more awkward. "Maybe not more awkward," I said to Kyle, after reflecting a little. "People at fundraising dinners have the whole thing going on where they're trying to discreetly hint at how much they're donating. There's always some woman who corners me and says 'Don't tell your dad, but I donated five thousand gold to this cause tonight! I must be so drunk! Don't tell your dad.'"

"Classy," Kyle said. He high-fived me.

I pulled a paper cup of butter mints off the table and tossed a pink one in my mouth. We'd wandered immediately to the refreshments table, where I was happy to stay the rest of the night. So was Kyle. He wasn't a bad date, all things considered—both of us were interested in the food, and both of us were there for Elle. If I was our faerie godmother, I'd match us immediately.

Prom was being held in a ballroom downtown, and its hardwood floor, warm fairy lights, and elaborately carved white U-shaped balcony looking over the room made it feel like the kind of place that deserved overpriced dresses and the ungainly attempts at romance starting to bloom all over the dance floor. The couple I was most interested in, though, hadn't arrived. I'd texted Elle, asking if she wanted some help from her faerie godmother to get ready for the ball, but said Tyler's friends were getting ready together. She didn't call them her friends, I noticed.

I hoped Kyle was right. Otherwise, this evening was going to get a special kind of uncomfortable.

If it hadn't already. I spotted Lucas across the floor. Aubrey was clinging to him as usual in a slinky dark purple gown that made her hair look even more spectacularly fiery than usual. It was unfair for someone our age to be as pretty as she was. Weren't we all supposed to be stuck in the ungainly "I can't figure out where my elbows are" phase for at least a few more years? She had no trouble figuring out where her elbows were, or in positioning them and every other part of her anatomy in the most attractive form possible.

"You're right; it's disgusting," Kyle said, looking toward her.

"Don't magic me," I said.

"I'm not," he said. "Your face says it all."

It wasn't like he was any more discreet. He jumped whenever a blond girl walked into the room, then sunk back down to pick foil-wrapped chocolates out of a giant crystal bowl.

A few minutes after I actually started counting the number of times Kyle perked up and deflated again, his eager patience was rewarded. Elle swept into the room on Tyler's arm, leading a whole group of his friends.

It took me a second to realize what was different. For the first time in weeks, she looked like herself. And herself was magnificent. She floated in a stunning sleeveless gown with a skirt made of layers and layers of rose-pink tulle. Fabric roses peeked out from under ruffles and cascaded down from a ribbon in her hair. The gown's pink-lace bodice hugged her and made her look like the had the bearing of a queen.