Page 4 of This Prince Is Not Charming

I planted my hands on my hips, using my sternest voice. “I’ve told you it’s dangerous for scissors to fly. You’re going to impale someone.”

Luckily the dress shop was currently empty, but I had a customer coming any minute now, and I could not afford for the scissors to terrorize her.

“You almost got them,” a voice said from the painting that hung on the wall. Sometimes I regretted taking this painting from the castle and putting it in my dress shop so that Margaret could visit whenever she wanted.

I turned to stare at her. She stood in front of a woman in an extravagant pale yellow dress, who held an umbrella over her head, blocking out the sun.

“Good morning, Margaret,” I said. I turned to look for the scissors, but they’d disappeared. “Did you see where they went?”

She pointed toward a rack of dresses for sale. “I think they dove behind there—” She gasped.

“What?” I whirled around. “What did you see?”

“Oh, I just love that shade of chartreuse on you. How lovely.”

I groaned. “Margaret. The scissors. I can’t have them going rogue.”

“Oh.” She straightened in the painting, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder. “Right. I’m going to focus.” A sly smile spread across her lips. “Though I did hear some interesting whispers this morning about a certain high prince.”

That stopped me, and I turned to face the painting. “Is that why you came? To gossip?”

“No!” Her brown eyes shifted back and forth. “Well, maybe a little. I’m trying to keep you abreast of the current goings-on in the castle since you so rarely venture out.”

I turned back around, searching for the elusive scissors. I’d give them a good shake when I found them.

“Do you want to hear what I found out?”

“No, I do not,” I said, gaze homing in on a basket filled with balls of yarn. The balls trembled slightly. “Aha!” I ran toward the basket, and the scissors popped out, flying over my head as I crashed to the floor, balls of yarn spilling out everywhere.

“Prince Cillian wasn’t in his chambers last night or this morning!” Margaret burst out. “There. Oh, I feel so much better.”

I slowly rolled over and sat up, shoving a hand through the curly blond hair that I’d actually managed to tame this morning. It was all for nothing, since it was no doubt now a wild mess. “What?” I asked. “Where was he?”

He’d visited to play cards with Father and me last night, something he did every week, even though I always won. I wasn’t sure why he kept coming back, but he did. Although now that I thought about it, he had seemed more somber than usual, but where could he have gone after our card game?

Margaret leaned forward in her painting, eyes gleaming with the glee of a gossip who’d just shared something juicy. “That’s the thing. No one knows. I think he might be missing.”

I shook my head. Cillian was fine. How could one go missing in an invisible kingdom that none of us could leave? Besides, Cillian was a grown man, and I had more important things to worry about this morning, like scissors that were going to snip at anyone who walked through that front door.

Margaret cried out, and I jumped to my feet. “Did you see them? The scissors?”

“No, I just noticed that beautiful veil. Is it Siobhan’s?” She pointed to the sheer sage fabric hanging from a hook on the back wall, delicate roses stitched across it.

“Margaret,” I said, voice stern. “I have scissors to find. If you’re not here to help, then I’m going to need you to return to the castle.”

Her mouth twisted, and she tapped her chin. “I should probably go in case the prince is back. I’ll let you know what I find out!” With that, she dashed out of the painting, traveling to some other painting in the castle that was our next-door neighbor. Margaret was one of the many items our sentient castle had brought to life, and while she was a friend, her fondness for gossip was irksome.

I wandered around the shop, sifting through dresses hanging on a rack, lifting random pieces of folded fabric that sat on the shelves. No scissors in sight. My mind wandered back to what Margaret had said about Cillian, but I shoved the thought from my brain. I didn’t want to know what he got up to, where he’d been last night.

Oh my godwitches. Here I was telling Margaret to focus, and I wasn’t doing the same. Time to shut off my brain and find these damn scissors.

Our statue of the godwitch of embroidery shook on the shelf where it sat, and I tiptoed toward it. If the scissors knocked over the statue, my father would have a fit, and I’d never hear the end of it. He’d claim it was a bad omen, that we no longer had the blessings of the godwitch. These scissors were far more trouble than they were worth.

I stretched out a hand, snatching the little statue from the shelf. “Aha!” I yelled.

But there was nothing there. Damn. I carefully put the godwitch back beside a little bowl of coins and scraps of fabric that we left as offerings, hoping that the godwitch would watch over us from their place in the Otherworld. Books lined the shelf around the godwitch, all showcasing outfits the godwitch had made throughout the eras. They were my ultimate inspiration, and I loved how bold and brave they were with their designs. This statue was a good example: clothed in baggy harem pants and a tight bodice-like corset, with their hair gelled and spiked.

A small rustle sounded from behind me, and I whirled to the right, facing another shelf.