Hazel's POV

"Valdez and Zhang, please take Miss La Rue to her room right now. I need to escort Miss Rachel to the hospital wing," Prince Percy says.

Clarisse fights against the two guards, but they manage to subdue her. The taller one gets poked in the eye with a fingernail.

I stand up and walk over to them. The two guards appear to be trying to wrestle her out of the door. They finally achieve and are soon out of sight. I walk into the hallway after them.

"Excuse me," I say quietly.

They don't appear to have heard. I clear my throat and all three of them look at me.

"Do you need help?" I ask.

The two guards stand there with their mouths open. The shorter one is the first to recover.

"I do," he says with a mischievous grin. The taller one elbows him in the gut.

"We're good," he says.

In that time, the girl manages to get away and she runs off. The runty boy curses loudly. I stare at him, eyes wide.

"Sorry, but now we're in trouble," he says.

"Excuse us, miss, but we have to go," the bulkier one says, already moving away. "C'mon, Valdez."

They jog away, feet hitting the ground with a thump.

"She went the other way," I point out.

They stop and turn around. When they reach me again, Valdez gives me a salute.

"Adios, la chica bonita," he says with a flourish of his hand. The taller one elbows him as they continue to run.

I smile to myself as their shadows fade down the hall. I continue to walk, a little bit bored. The girls here are nice, I suppose, but I haven't made any special friends. My group has a girl who has made it clear that she hates us and a distant girl who is a mystery to me. Both haven't tried to connect to me, which is a great disappointment.

I hear another set of footsteps in the hallway. I stop and see that someone is walking towards me. It's the Prince.

He sees me and I'm startled at the fire in his eyes. I hastily curtsy and feel my face go red. I stand back up and see that the fire has subsided.

"Hello, Miss Levesque. Are you lost?" He asks kindly.

"Not this time," I say with a quick smile. "Although it's bound to happen soon."

"The palace is very large. I get lost sometimes," he admits.

I laugh and he relaxes. I see the worry and anger fade from his eyes a bit.

"I'm sorry to say that I haven't spent much time with you, Miss Levesque. That's the problem with the Selection, I don't have much time to get and know everyone."

"It's more than fine, Your Highness. I doubt I'm princess material anyways. I'm just not the type."

"How do you know?" He asks me politely.

"I'm a Six. My whole life I've been living in the shadows, never in the spotlight. I lived to serve those in higher castes. That's not what a princess is, Your Highness," I say boldly.

"It doesn't have to be that way. There's a story that I've heard of before, a very old story. It's about a young girl who was forced to clean for her wicked step-mother. I don't recall every detail. Come with me to the library, and I'll show you the story."

It's the prince. I'm not going to turn him down on what sounds almost like a date. I nod and follow him down the hall.

The library, as it turns out, is a grand room filled with more books than I've ever seen. I turn and realize that the prince is at the other side of the room, taking a book off the shelf.

"Here we are. Have a seat, please," Prince Percy says, gesturing towards the many chairs. I take one and sit down.

"Excuse me if I get any words wrong, I'm a terrible reader."

I smile at him as he opens up the book.

A/N this belongs to the Grimm brothers, but slightly edited to make it shorter. And I took out the more gruesome parts.

"A rich man's wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, "Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you." With this she closed her eyes and died."

"How awful!" I gasp. Prince Percy looks at me and smiles a bit.

"It gets better, don't worry."

When I smile, he resumes.

"The girl went out to her mother's grave every day and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came the snow spread a white cloth over the grave, and when the spring sun had removed it again, the man took himself another wife.

"This wife brought two daughters into the house with her. They were beautiful, with fair faces, but evil and dark hearts. Times soon grew very bad for the poor stepchild.

"Why should that stupid goose sit in the parlor with us?" they said. "If she wants to eat bread, then she will have to earn it. Out with this kitchen maid!"
They took her beautiful clothes away from her, dressed her in an old gray smock, and gave her wooden shoes.

"Just look at the proud princess! How decked out she is!" they shouted and laughed as they led her into the kitchen.

There she had to do hard work from morning until evening, get up before daybreak, carry water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides this, the sisters did everything imaginable to hurt her. They made fun of her, scattered peas and lentils into the ashes for her, so that she had to sit and pick them out again. In the evening when she had worked herself weary, there was no bed for her. Instead she had to sleep by the hearth in the ashes. And because she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.

One day it happened that the father was going to the fair, and he asked his two stepdaughters what he should bring back for them.

"Beautiful dresses," said the one.

"Pearls and jewels," said the other.

"And you, Cinderella," he said, "what do you want?"

"Father, break off for me the first twig that brushes against your hat on your way home."

"So he bought beautiful dresses, pearls, and jewels for his two stepdaughters. On his way home, as he was riding through a green thicket, a hazel twig brushed against him and knocked off his hat. Then he broke off the twig and took it with him. Arriving home, he gave his stepdaughters the things that they had asked for, and he gave Cinderella the twig from the hazel bush. Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother's grave, and planted the branch on it, and she wept so much that her tears fell upon it and watered it. It grew and became a beautiful tree.

Cinderella went to this tree three times every day, and beneath it she wept and prayed. A white bird came to the tree every time, and whenever she expressed a wish, the bird would throw down to her what she had wished for.
Now it happened that the king proclaimed a festival that was to last three days. All the beautiful young girls in the land were invited, so that his son could select a bride for himself. When the two stepsisters heard that they too had been invited, they were in high spirits."

"It sounds almost like the Selection, Your Highness," I interrupt.

"It does, in a way. Perhaps it is the Selection."

He continues while he's smiling.

"They called Cinderella, saying, "Comb our hair for us. Brush our shoes and fasten our buckles. We are going to the festival at the king's castle."
Cinderella obeyed, but wept, because she too would have liked to go to the dance with them. She begged her stepmother to allow her to go.

"You, Cinderella?" she said. "You, all covered with dust and dirt, and you want to go to the festival?. You have neither clothes nor shoes, and yet you want to dance!"

However, because Cinderella kept asking, the stepmother finally said, "I have scattered a bowl of lentils into the ashes for you. If you can pick them out again in two hours, then you may go with us."

The girl went through the back door into the garden, and called out, "You tame pigeons, you turtledoves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to gather. They did the job in under an hour. The girl brought the bowl to her step-mother, thinking she would be allowed to go to the ball.

"No Cinderella, you have no clothes and you cannot dance."

There's a shout in the hallway followed by several thumps. Prince Percy stands up quickly.

"I have to leave. Perhaps we can finish this another time, Miss Levesque."

I nod as he runs outside, leaving me alone in the big room filled with many books. So far, this story does not have a happy ending.