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  Praise for

  THE RELUCTANT GODFATHER

  "The Reluctant Godfather" is a sweet, sparkly little fairy tale with a delightfully snarky main character. Cinderella gets a bit more than she bargained for when this fairy godfather shows up!"

  —Ashley Stangl, author of Out of the Tomb and winner of the Rooglewood Press contest Five Magic Spindles.

  “A short, cute Cinderella retelling from the POV of the (rather reluctant) godfather of both Prince Charming and Cinderella.”

  —Tricia Mingerink, author of Dagger’s Sleep and Blades of Acktar series

  “It’s light and just a bit silly, but completely self-aware and quite clever.”

  —Kellyn Roth, author of The Dressmaker’s Secret

  “Well, that was glorious! Surprisingly weighty for its briefness, yet hilariously light-hearted at the same time. And witty—so witty! Burndee is a gift to mankind.”

  —Katelyn Buxton, author of Warriors of Aralan series

  “Quirky and sarcastic. This fairytale retelling is sure to have you laughing and smiling throughout its not-too-long entirety.”

  —Faith Potts, author of Dandelion Dust

  “The little kid me was waiting for this book to finally fulfill the story of Cinderella! The story was vibrant, hilarious, and deliciously sweet.”

  —Angela Watts, author of Seek

  “Such a delightful, adorable, warm and fuzzy story!”

  —Victoria Lynn, author of London in the Dark

  “Brilliant and ever so satisfying!”

  —Perry Elizabeth, author of The Kitten Files

  “The Reluctant Godfather is a story you could read in one sitting, like a slice of fluffy chocolate cake baked by Burndee himself. It's a light, rollicking adventure seasoned with a generous helping of humor and a sweet dash of heart.”

  —a reviewer

  “There is a deeper wisdom which radiates from this story. More precious than this from original version. But, still, first of all it is really witty and charming love story.”

  —a reviewer

  “I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of fairytales, clean retellings, or simply a fan of sass, reluctant love, or cake. Because there is so much cake.”

  —a reviewer

  A Royal Masquerade

  Copyright © 2018 Allison Tebo

  Paperback edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the copyright author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues bearing any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Front cover decorations courtesy of Freepik and Shutterstock.

  Cover and interior formatting by Victoria Lynn Designs

  Copy Editor: Andrea Cox

  For everyone who wanted more—thank you. Without you, I very much doubt there would have been a Tales of Ambia series.

  And especially for Annabeth Thompson, Lake Dobbs, and Mary Hanna: three special young girls who encouraged me to keep writing even when I didn’t feel like I could. Thank you for inspiring me.

  Table of Contents

  A Note From The Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  An Absolutely, Positively Vital Note from the Author

  When I sat down with The Goose Girl to work out a retelling, I was a little flummoxed. Every fairy tale has its preposterous elements, its gaps of logic. That’s what brings us back to them again and again, to find reason behind the story and its characters.

  But The Goose Girl raises far more questions than Cinderella ever did. Aside from the perplexities of its plot, there were gruesome elements that I knew would have no place in Ambia.

  As I studied the tale, I recognized three main problems that I had to tackle before I could begin to write, so I began to construct a pyramid to defeat the triad of questions.

  The first question was deciding how exactly I wanted to build this story.

  Cue the rustle of velvet curtains. I don’t know about you, but I adore theater.

  I find theater far more immersive than any other form of entertainment. A play requires so much more of a viewer than a book or a film. If you’ve ever sat in rows of seats and looked up at a stage edged in curtains, you will understand exactly what I mean.

  You can’t turn off a play or walk away from it the way you can a film or a book. It is total immersion with no way out and no interruptions.

  There is an interactive quality to a stage play that is missing from a book or a film. You have to give away a great deal more to appreciate the full experience. You must suspend utter disbelief as you accept that the tiny stage before you is a ship at sea, an enchanted castle, or a dark forest. You can’t hold anything back; you have to leave your imagination completely in the hands of the crew, believing that, with music, lights, special effects, and most important of all, fine acting and storytelling, they will evoke all that will be necessary to transport you into the story.

  There is magic in a theater.

  There is no ship, merely a wooden erection, but I can hear the crash of the waves, feel the spray on my face. There is no castle, merely a backdrop, but I can hear the ghostly creaks and feel the chills. There is no dark forest, only shadows and beams of light from the catwalk above, but I cringe with the hero as he makes his way through this treacherous country, and I can hear the wet slap of branches, the murmurings of pine needles underfoot.

  Your imagination gets so much more exercise in a theater, and the smaller the production and more limited the stage, the more fun and immersive it gets.

  Many of the simplest and best plays are basically like watching a long conversation—a series of soliloquies. Characters walk onto the stage, address the air, interact with another, and then leave via a door just as another character emerges. The closed door scenario works beautifully in a play, and the idea of a gaggle of people stumbling around in a confined area and getting in one another’s way (or trying to avoid one another) is vastly entertaining.

  There’s not a lot of “plot,” per se, but there’s a great deal of thoughtfulness and an endless amount of highjinks.

  That was my initial piece of inspiration. Theater was to be the bottom, and foundation, of my pyramid. Now I needed the first side, and I soon found it.

  I love black-and-white screwball comedies. They take simple human interaction and turn it into a crisis. The true mastery and fun behind a screwball comedy is the ability of the scriptwriters to stretch out a ridiculously petty scenario far beyond its capacity. Reveling in the irony of human foibles, these ridiculous heroes and heroines spend nearly two hours laboring under gross miscomprehensions. The zany misunderstandings, the comedic mishaps, and the hilarious misfires are run to the very end of the story. Screwball comedies contain some of the most brilliant mockery of human pettiness and silliness I have ever seen.

  Obviously, this belonged in Ambia.

  A story that possesses a rather grim and intense plot at first glance was begging to be massaged into a comedy of errors, so I chose to infuse the scenario with inspiration from my beloved screwball comedies. Instead of struggling to broaden the narrow story, I would work with it and let a stage play’s closed-door scenario and limited set be my inspiration.

  Two pieces down.

  That left the final question, the final piece of my puzzling pyrami
d.

  The tale of The Goose Girl lacks many big moments. How was I to flesh out the story?

  Or . . . should I flesh it out at all?

  I decided to have fun with it. I chose to flip the plot and the subplot, focusing on the subplot while the main plot is skirted around, barely glimpsed. I flirt with the main story line, but we aren’t in a long-term relationship.

  My main characters essentially have a conversation, a series of encounters, and a comedy of errors. A Royal Masquerade focuses on a clash of personalities while the main plot is going on right behind them and they are oblivious to it. We can see it, but our characters are simply too involved in their own petty subplot to recognize it until the last moment.

  And there you have it—my inspiration and my pyramid. A play, a screwball comedy, and a deliberate thumbing of my nose at the proper order of plotting leave me with a tribute to the sort of story that makes me smile every time.

  A fun reminder that people really are quite petty and silly.

  Now, you’ve been ever so patient with me. Do you have your program handy? Please be seated. Shh! I hear the tread of feet on the boards. The conductor is tapping his baton. The orchestra swells like a bird stretching its wings before taking to the sky, ready to sweep us away in its flight. There is a rush of excited rustling, and the curtain draws back with a whisper of anticipation.

  Ladies and gentlemen, the play is about to begin.

  1

  A s his ward and as his prince—though Burndee had even less respect for royals than for godchildren—Prince Colin got away with a great deal more than any bounder deserved to. At least in Burndee’s highly sensitive opinion.

  Burndee eased down from his private coach, and, as his feet hit the pavement, there was a series of sharp bangs. The startling pops would have sent most people leaping back into their carriages, but there had already been so many mishaps in the kitchen that morning that Burndee was too tired to react, especially as he looked around and reassured himself that no one was shooting at him from the bushes. The only one present was Prince Colin, leaning against a pedestal and absently tickling a stone lion with a leaf as he smirked expectantly at Burndee.

  “Well?” he asked complacently. “Did it startle you?”

  Burndee glanced down at the ground and spotted several more of Colin’s dratted bang snaps scattered around the pavement. Colin’s trick firecrackers were just one of many of his infantile amusements.

  Burndee gave a disgusted sniff and made a show of picking a piece of lint from his sleeve. “Get used to failure.”

  “Fiddlesticks,” Colin murmured, trying to cram his hands into his pockets and giving a grunt of dissatisfaction as he remembered his silk doublet was pocketless. “Ella would have squealed like a tea kettle if she had been with you.”

  Colin was always trying to relive the “excitement” of when he had first found out that Burndee was his fairy godfather. The ten-year-old prince had rigged a desk with gunpowder and a trapped, enraged kitten. The resulting debacle had been so spectacular that Burndee had been startled enough to turn the escaping feline into a buttonhook, thus revealing his magical abilities to the delighted Colin. Putting up with Colin’s pranks for another decade had been no easy task.

  Nevertheless, Burndee had come to Windslake Hall armed with a meager resolve to tolerate not only Colin but also a whole gaggle of humans involved in a highly ludicrous affair—Duke Horace Windslow’s arranged marriage to Princess Penelope of Radorria.

  The only reason Burndee and Ella had been roped into this event was because Horace’s father, Sir Richard Windslow, had met them when they had been with Colin and Cynthia at Delameer, attending a ship’s christening. The elder Windslow had known that Burndee and Ella were royal favorites and—ever anxious to ingratiate himself—had invited them to the upcoming wedding. The day after he had invited them, Windslow had hired them to cater his son’s wedding rehearsal, along with the reception after the wedding.

  Burndee knew the only reason the miserly Windslow had sought the Magic Pumpkin Bakery’s services was because Ella and Burndee were also guests. Windslow doubtless thought they would feel generous enough to cut the bill in half as a wedding gift.

  Maybe if Ella handled the accounts, Windslow would get a bargain, but she didn’t—Burndee did. Burndee patted the bill in his pocket and smiled inwardly as he imagined Windslow’s unpleasant surprise. Chump.

  The hired coachman that had brought Burndee to Windslake Hall had finished unstrapping the cake boxes marked with the Magic Pumpkin Bakery’s emblem and began to sort the bundles. He clambered down from the carriage with a perilously balanced armful.

  “Just take them around to the kitchen entrance and don’t drop them,” Burndee ordered, resisting the urge to carry the boxes himself or give his creations a proprietary pat. He felt sorry for his baked goods, to have to be eaten by mental grasshoppers like the Windslows, who couldn’t distinguish good cooking from hogs’ swill.

  Despite his resolution to control himself today, Burndee still found the whole event not only ridiculous but also aggravating to his sense of fair play. He didn’t appreciate being moved around like a chess piece on a board—and he doubted anyone else did either. He glanced at Colin and noted the subtle cloud of giddiness that surrounded the prince. Colin was probably thinking of his own narrow squeak with an arranged marriage and feeling very, very fortunate.

  He watched uncomfortably as Colin removed his watch from his fob and started swinging it around his finger. The moment Burndee had clapped eyes on the prince, he had felt his shoulders stiffen. Colin had that bored and eager look on his face again, as if he were planning to blow up Windslake Hall and then laugh about it afterwards. Burndee himself didn’t feel particularly disinclined to an explosion. It would be a welcome relief from all the polite posturing he would be forced to endure today. But he had promised Ella he would behave.

  He must have murmured her name under his breath—he found himself forever doing it when he thought of her—for Colin glanced up at him.

  “Where is Ella?” the prince asked with the fondness of a brother.

  “She’s undergoing her own torture at Thornwild,” Burndee muttered. “Special training with Fey.”

  Colin eyed him curiously. “You mean special training that you can’t give her?”

  A flurry of irrational fears suddenly scattered through Burndee’s brain like a handful of dropped beads. What if Ella became so interested in her studies she spent less time at home—with him? What if Ella began to realize that he really wasn’t such an accomplished fairy? What if Ella actually surpassed his skills? Now that she was magical herself, why would Ella even need him?

  He pushed the terrifying thoughts away, fortified by a surge of temper—at himself for doubting Ella, and more specifically at Colin for daring to comment on Burndee, Ella, or their marriage. He ought to turn the smug, interfering gollylump into a toad.

  Burndee took a long breath. The fury that had frothed up in the pit of his stomach eased slightly and turned into a dull stomach ache as he reminded himself to tolerate the simpletons. It was only for two days.

  Two days . . . he fought down a wave of panic. Today the guests of honor would arrive, along with the magistrate and the princess. The afternoon’s social requirements would begin with a light tea—unfortunately, not catered by the Magic Pumpkin; they were only catering the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception. He hoped he wasn’t poisoned by Windslow’s inferior culinary offerings. After tea, there would be some entertainment and, finally, the wedding rehearsal. Ella and he, Colin and Cynthia, and the magistrate would spend the night at the Hall, and tomorrow the other guests would pour in to attend the afternoon wedding.

  Burndee turned towards the carriage and reached up to lift down one of his cake boxes and clutched it to himself, extracting comfort from his baked goods. Today would be bad enough, but the thought of all those humans crammed into one place tomorrow, surrounding him, was almost more than he could stand. His observa
tions taught him that people were at their very worst when attending things like weddings. He would be submerged in an ocean of mood swings, sentimental breakdowns, and a lot of unnecessary hugging and crying.

  He attempted to swallow his growing agitation. The entreaty of his wife to “be nice” as she kissed him good-bye that morning didn’t leave him entirely defenseless against this horde of ninnies. Her fond request gave him the resolve needed for a day like today . . . although, Burndee was more likely to remember his wife’s kiss than her instructions.

  The coachman had returned from the servant’s entrance, and Burndee reluctantly handed over the cake box he had been holding and loaded the man’s arms up with several more.

  “I was up all night making what’s in that top box!” Burndee bellowed after the coachman as he staggered away. “Watch where you’re going with them.”

  “All night?” Colin questioned. “What on earth were you making?”

  Burndee shifted his eyes towards the prince, who had no more idea of manual labor than any other nobleman. The breadth of Colin’s artistic sensibilities couldn’t fill a thimble. “Radorrian cream puffs. An extremely complex recipe, especially since the oven blew up.”

  Colin burst out laughing, and Burndee glowered at him, wishing he had omitted the last bit. He held his tongue with difficulty; it would have been so much easier for him to tolerate this social outing if Ella were at his side and pinching his arm.

  “Was it you that blew up the oven?” Colin asked merrily, his eyes dancing with a challenge.

  Burndee stiffened. It had been Ella who had nearly destroyed the Magic Pumpkin’s kitchen, but loyalty forbade him from telling this whippersnapper that Ella had made a mistake. Then again, he wasn’t going to claim responsibility for that accident either.