The girls chattered sleepily over a breakfast in the nook, stirring their porridge but too thrilled to eat it. Azalea insisted they at least try to eat, before lessons began.
“It’s so…unusual,” said Clover, turning her spoon in her mush, her pretty face almost aglow. “That gentleman…”
“Mmm!” said Delphinium. “That gentleman!”
Warmth rushed to Azalea’s ears as she thought about the gentleman; the way he glided across the floor, the way he blew on the bits of napkin in his hand and how they had swirled into snowflakes, how his dark eyes had taken her in.
“He’s a rogue,” said Azalea firmly. She coaxed a spoonful of porridge into Kale’s little mouth. “I have a mind not to return.”
The girls yelped, horrified.
“Oh, no!” cried the twins.
“You can’t!” said Eve.
“We have to go back,” said Delphinium. “I need to dance so much, my feet hurt.”
“Az,” said Bramble, pulling her chair closer, so they saw eye-to-eye over the cream pitcher and threadbare tablecloth. “Don’t you see how perfect this is? Finally we have a place to dance, one where no one could possibly discover us!”
“Of course I’ve realized it!” said Azalea. Her toes curled in her stiff boots, aching to spring into a dance. “It’s just so—extraordinary!”
It twisted her thoughts, thinking of the Pavilion Keeper living in the walls of their palace, unknown to the royal family. The King knew about that passage—surely he did; hadn’t Lord Bradford said as much? But the Keeper and the magic he couldn’t possibly know of. To him the passage was a storage room, possibly for old trunks and broken furniture. He couldn’t know of the Keeper, with his dark, rakish eyes and sleek ponytail.
No, the King definitely did not know of Mr. Keeper.
What had happened, Azalea wondered, to free the Keeper enough from the walls of the palace—enough to magic a storage room into a fairyland—but not enough to free himself?
“Even if we wanted to dance,” said Eve, who looked crestfallen, “we couldn’t. We don’t have any dance slippers.”
This put a damper on everyone’s excitement. They couldn’t dance barefoot, not with a gentleman there, and they couldn’t dance in their old, heavy boots—their feet would get twisted. As if it could hear them, rain began pattering against the draped windows.
“Actually,” said Azalea, slowly folding her porridge with her spoon. “I think we might.”
She brought them all upstairs to the east attic, and among the dusty broken toys, the dripping roof, and ramshackle furniture, she unlatched a trunk. Before mourning, they had practiced dancing every day, so much that they had worn out the seams of their slippers. They even had a shoemaker who would bring the repaired slippers to the palace each morning. It was a luxury that Mother insisted on and the King reluctantly allowed.
Since mourning, they hadn’t been allowed to dance, but they had the slippers they hadn’t used on Christmas. Azalea pulled out a bundle and unwrapped it, revealing eleven brightly colored pairs of slippers. The girls ooohed.
They tried them on, right there in the dusty attic, and everyone was delighted to find that the slippers still fit. A little tight, but slippers never hurt the feet like boots did. Delphinium turned a graceful spin, sending puffs of dust about them.
“I feel like a princess,” she said.
That night they readied in a flurry of delight. Hair brushed, pinned, and braided; dresses buttoned, tied, poofed, and smoothed. Azalea produced dried flowers from a box underneath her bed, and the younger girls beamed as the older girls pinned the delicate crinkly blossoms in their hair and tied their slippers.
With the handkerchief and another burst of silver, the girls shivered as they passed through the billowing magic waterfall. Tonight the silver forest dripped here and there, though instead of raindrops, it dripped pearls. They reflected the light of the lamp as they fell. Azalea caught one in her hand, and it wetted her glove as a normal raindrop would, but left a pearly white spot.
Just before the bridge, Azalea set down the lamp and pulled the willow branches aside, revealing the glimmering white pavilion. The girls clasped hands and walked forward. Pearls rained into the water with soft ploops.
The Keeper stood at the entrance, cutting a sharp, smooth outline against the white silver. He dipped into a bow, so deep he fell to one knee.
“You came,” he said.
“Of course,” said Azalea, forgetting that she ever had doubts.
“Welcome,” he breathed. “My ladies.”
He extended his arm to the dance floor. With a squeal of delight, the girls bounded up the steps and onto the marble. Azalea smiled and followed after, her slippers so soft she could almost feel the marble veins. They looked about them, taking in the velvet, backless sofas on the sides for resting, the dessert table piled with chocolates and buns, the domed ceiling above them.
Azalea turned to see the Keeper at the entrance, folding his arms, his black eyes on her. She turned her head, feeling a blush rise to the tips of her ears.
“I do hope my ladies will enjoy their night of dancing.” The Keeper backed out of the entrance, onto the first stair. Delphinium gave a cry of protest.
“You’re leaving?” she said.
Mr. Keeper smiled. Even his smiles were sleek.
“I do not dance,” he said. “I am only the Keeper. I leave dancing to those who are more gifted than I.”