My prince is the most handsome among men. Much more so was he tonight, adorned in the colors of his kingdom. Bent stalks of silver wheat are embroidered on the cloth of his finery. They trace an elegant path down the plains of his torso. A soft, blue collar wraps around the ivory cord of his throat. His strong legs are like tree trunks, wrapped in pants as white as snow.

It's the night before the ball. I tell him all of these things behind the closed doors of his bedroom. I'm wrapped in his sheets, but he is yet to untie my bodice. He is yet to unravel me.

He leaves the candles unlit, but my magic is a lamp that can light the depths of the ocean. In the darkness, he can see me. And I, him. But others cannot see my light; it shines only for the both of us.

"You describe me as though I am poetry." He does not meet my eyes.

"I can't help it." I really can't. My mother taught me how to sing to the birds. But when she died, my stepmother was the one who taught me how to weave magic into my songs.

Once upon a time, my stepmother was the fairest in the land. Her skin was like fresh milk, and her golden crown never failed to catch the rays of the afternoon sun.

This is how I came to meet my prince: the story starts at springtime. My father, the king, had just passed in the winter. My stepmother, the queen, removes me from my bed, where the birds would sing to me from the canopy. I was a princess, but in the queen's grief, she turns me into her slave.

My stepmother was still the fairest in the land, but the rats in the walls and the spiders in the ceiling of my new room would tell me of her fixation with a mirror. It used to belong to their bedroom, but she had the mirror moved to the dungeons days after my father's funeral.

Every day at sunrise, she would come down to the dungeons. The spiders and rats tell me everything. They were lovely company. The spiders kept the flies at bay in the summer. The rats let me sing to them in the springtime in place of the birds.

Every day, my stepmother, the queen, would sing to the mirror:

"Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"

No voice would reply at first. But then darkness would fall on the glass. A voice would answer with my stepmother's name.

The rats never fail to shudder from head to tail. The spiders would scuttle nervously on my bedpost. The voice never fails to make them afraid.

Seasons pass. The rats and spiders who first told me of my stepmother's obsession with the mirror have passed. They have been replaced by their children, and all of them are as lovely as their parents.

One day, the rats and spiders tell me that the voice has answered differently this time. It answered:

Lips red as blood. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow.

The next day, my stepmother had a huntsman take me to the woods to kill me. I called for his horse to trample him, and for the birds to peck out his eyes.

I ran into the woods. The afternoon light would not filter through the canopy. Darkness turned the trees into monstrous beasts with branches like clawed hands that would grab at my skirt. I sang into the darkness:

"Let there be light."

And there was light.

Not long after, I heard hooves galloping from deeper within the forest. And there rode my prince, the most handsome among men. He followed the light to me. He offered to take me away with him back to his castle, in a kingdom far, far away from my stepmother, the queen.

We arrived at nightfall. He had his servants attend to me; I had them bathe me, rub my hair with oils, and prepare my room to have a mirror--the largest they could afford for me. They brought my dinner there.

At dawn, I summoned my stepmother's servant, the one who lives in the mirror. He was bound to her by magic, but I was as beautiful as the morning. Young blood flowed through my veins. Magic, especially as dark a conjuration as this, never fails to exact a toll on the conjuror. I broke his chains and bade him to do however he pleased with her.

And I lived happily ever after.

Tonight, I sing to my prince: "You are beautiful."

His eyes meet mine. They are blue like the colours of his kingdom--the brightest of sapphires. To the people of this kingdom, I am a faery that the prince found in the forest. Lips red as blood. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow. My beauty is magic in itself, and all who look upon me fall under my spell. To the people, their prince charmed me into becoming his beloved. But my prince is only a man, he is no exception.

When his love for me was young, his eyes looked at me as if I raised the sun for him every day. And every night, in the ocean of his sheets, I would kiss constellations on his lips and down his chest. He'd anchor himself inside me. We'd rock to and fro like waves against the hull of a ship. Most nights would be calm, but some nights would be tempestuous. Either way, I'd drown myself in him every time.

But tonight, even my magic couldn't reach the stars of his eyes. I kiss him again. His eyes close like doors.

"Who is she?" I ask, blinking back tears.

"I have no idea," he answers. He isn't lying. He is no longer just a man. He is a man in love.

He doesn't ask me to sleep with him that night. When I fall asleep, I dream of myself in a gown woven from all of the riches under the earth. My lips are drops of blood on the snow of my skin, and my hair is black like the raven's wing. My train is bedecked with rubies and crystal. Sapphires and topazes adorn my raiment. My crown is the birdsong. In the light of the golden chandeliers, I am the fairest in the land. Everyone loves me.

But in my dream, my prince's eyes are still closed like doors. They open for a women as pale as starlight, hair spun from the dawn, and a gown as blue as the summer sky. It's woven from magic even older than my stepmother's mirror.

My prince loves her. My crown falls from my head.

The Grand Duke is beside me. I ask him: "Who is she?"

"I have no idea," he answers. He isn't lying.

My prince wields the sword, and I, my gilded tongue. I am an enchantress, but my prince has fallen for a goddess with slippers spun from glass.

I am a magician, capable of existing in two places at once. My prince is not. A scarlet letter brands itself upon my breast. The searing pain wakes me up.

Outside my window, the birdsong heralds the arrival of the day of the ball. The dream leaves me feeling hollow. Tears spring to my eyes, and I drain the hollow feeling out of my chest in heaving sobs.

After what feels like an eternity, the hollow feeling in my chest dissipates. Anger replaces it. This is my happily ever after. Mine. My magic demands to be felt, and I take my tears and turn them to crystal.

The ball is only hours away. My happily ever after calls to me, but there is much work left to be done.