At the very top of a silver hill stood Bellflower Castle, where every tower had a different color. The east tower was blue as morning rain, the music tower was violet, the kitchen tower shone buttery yellow, and the tallest tower, where Queen Elsinore kept the royal flag, glimmered red like a polished apple.
The castle was famous for one thing above all: every evening, its windows spilled colors across the valley. Farmers could tell when to bring in their sheep by the green light, owls began their songs when the violet light appeared, and children in the village loved to watch the rainbow glow dance over the roofs.
Maeree the Magnificent loved those colors more than anyone.
Maeree was the castle's young ballerina, though she did not yet call herself a great one. She was small, quick, and serious about every step. Her dark curls were usually pinned beneath a crown of tiny silver bells. When she danced, her pale blue skirts whirled like the edge of a cloud. She could leap farther than most people expected, and she was brave when someone else needed help. But before a performance, her knees often felt as wobbly as jelly on a spoon.
“You are magnificent,” Princess Rosamund told her one bright afternoon.
“I am practicing being magnificent,” Maeree replied, carefully stretching one pointed foot. “There is a difference.”
Princess Rosamund was kneeling beside her, trying to braid ribbons into the mane of her wooden hobby-horse. The princess was clever, cheerful, and never sat still for long. She had a habit of finding secret doors, strange buttons, and questions that made grown-ups look nervous.
“Tonight is the Festival of a Thousand Lanterns,” said Rosamund. “You will dance the Rainbow Waltz in the Moon Court. Everyone will watch.”
“That is exactly why my knees have become jelly,” Maeree said.
“You need a snack, then,” said the princess wisely.
Before Maeree could answer, the castle bells began to clang.
Not their usual happy chime. This was a worried, crooked clang: DONG! DONG! D-d-dong!
The blue tower outside the practice-room window faded to gray.
Then the yellow kitchen tower turned gray.
Then the red royal tower.
A cold hush swept over Bellflower Castle. The garden roses drooped. The bright banners sagged. Even Rosamund’s scarlet ribbons became the color of old dust.
Queen Elsinore hurried into the room, her long robe rustling behind her. Normally, the Queen wore a golden crown and a kind, calm expression. Now her crown looked dull, and her face was tight with concern.
“The colors are vanishing,” she said. “Every one of them.”
From the doorway came a sharp tapping sound. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sorceress Mirabel entered, leaning on a cane carved from pear wood. Her hair was white, her eyebrows were wild, and her cloak contained so many pockets that nobody knew exactly what might be inside. She was the royal sorceress, famous for making excellent remedies, terrible tea, and useful spells that sometimes made a polite popping noise.
“Don’t panic,” said Mirabel.
A teacup in one of her pockets shouted, “PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!”
Mirabel tapped the pocket. “Not you, Crumpet.”
The Queen drew close. “Can you stop this?”
The sorceress peered out of the nearest window. “This is no ordinary fading. The colors are being pulled away. Stolen, I would say.”
“By whom?” whispered Maeree.
At that moment, a thin line of purple smoke curled across the gray sky. It twisted itself into letters above the castle.
THE COLORS BELONG TO THOSE WHO CAN HOLD THEM.
The smoke popped, and a cackling voice rolled through the clouds.
“Wizard Varrick!” cried Sorceress Mirabel.
Everyone in the castle knew of Wizard Varrick, though few had met him. He lived in the old Observatory beyond the Whispering Woods. Once he had been a painter of magical maps. But he wanted his maps to be admired more than he wanted to share them. When people praised someone else’s work, Varrick became sour and jealous. At last he shut himself away with mirrors, bottles, and spells.
“He has taken the colors for his Prism Engine,” Mirabel said grimly. “If he finishes it before moonrise, he will trap every color in the kingdom inside his observatory. The sky, the flowers, our clothes, the festival lanterns—everything will remain gray.”
“No Rainbow Waltz?” said Princess Rosamund.
“No rainbow at all,” said the sorceress.
Maeree looked through the window at the pale courtyard. The dancers’ painted floor had become a blank circle. Her blue skirt looked almost white. A horrible thought slipped into her mind: How could she dance without color? How could anyone celebrate anything in a world turned gray?
Queen Elsinore lifted her chin. “We must go to the observatory.”
“You must remain here, Your Majesty,” said Mirabel. “The castle needs its Queen. The way is guarded by Varrick’s tricky magic.”
“I’ll go,” Princess Rosamund announced, standing so suddenly that her hobby-horse fell over.
“Me too,” said Maeree, though her jelly knees gave an extra wobble.
Mirabel studied her. “The path through the woods does not open for power alone. It opens for rhythm, balance, and a heart willing to move forward even when afraid. A ballerina may be exactly what we need.”
Maeree swallowed. “Then I will go.”
The Queen placed a hand on Maeree’s shoulder. “Courage does not mean having no tremble in your knees. It means choosing the next step anyway.”
“That sounds difficult,” Maeree admitted.
“It is,” said the Queen. “That is why it is courage.”
Sorceress Mirabel opened three of her many pockets. From the first, she gave Maeree a pair of slippers with satin ribbons the color of moonlight. From the second, she gave Princess Rosamund a small brass compass whose needle spun in a lazy circle. From the third, she took out a blue glass bead.
“This is a Drop of True Blue,” she explained. “It remembers the color of clear skies. Keep it safe. To release the colors from Varrick’s engine, you must awaken the seven Color Keys: red courage, orange laughter, yellow kindness, green patience, blue truth, indigo imagination, and violet hope. The keys are hidden on the way to the observatory.”
“And how do we awaken them?” asked the princess.
“Each key listens only when it sees its color in action,” said Mirabel. “No cheating, no shouting, and no trying to feed them cheese. I have tried all three.”
Crumpet the teacup called from her pocket, “The cheese was excellent!”
The Queen embraced the girls. “Bring our colors home.”
So Maeree, Princess Rosamund, and Sorceress Mirabel slipped out through the small postern gate, while the gray castle watched them go. They crossed the once-green meadow, where sheep stood looking like fluffy rain clouds. Ahead waited the Whispering Woods, its tall trees sighing in dry, colorless leaves.
At the forest entrance stood an arch woven from thorny branches. In its center floated a red crystal shaped like a tiny key.
A voice from the arch said, “ONLY THE COURAGEOUS MAY PASS.”
“That seems straightforward,” said Rosamund.
Then a shadow rustled in the brambles. A small fox cub stumbled out, whimpering. Its paw was caught beneath a fallen branch, and two large gray crows hopped closer, clicking their beaks.
“I don’t like those crows,” Maeree murmured.
“They are only illusion crows,” said Mirabel. “Probably. Mostly.”
The fox cub whimpered again.
Maeree’s heart beat fast. The crows were not huge, exactly, but their eyes gleamed like pins. She picked up a long stick, stepped between them and the cub, and said, “Shoo! This forest has enough trouble without you bothering a little fox.”
The crows swooped toward her. Maeree almost ran. Instead, she remembered the first position her dancing teacher had taught her: heels together, head lifted, arms rounded as if holding a treasure. She stood tall. Then she swept the stick in a bold circle.
“Shoo!” she said again.
The crows burst into black feathers that were not feathers at all, but bits of smoky magic. They drifted away. Rosamund helped lift the branch, and the cub scampered free. Before disappearing into the woods, it touched its nose to Maeree’s slipper.
The red crystal flashed warmly. “Courage recognized,” it declared.
It sprang into Maeree’s palm, now glowing ruby red.
“One key!” said Rosamund. “Only six more, plus a grumpy wizard and a machine that steals rainbows.”
“That is an extremely energetic way to say it,” said Maeree.
They walked deeper into the woods. Soon they reached a clearing filled with orange mushrooms. They were large as stools, and each wore a tiny frown. In the middle stood the orange key, stuck in a mound of moss.
“WELCOME TO THE SERIOUS CLEARING,” droned the mushrooms. “NO SMILING. NO GIGGLING. ABSOLUTELY NO SILLY WALKS.”
Princess Rosamund pressed her lips together. “That seems like a rule made especially to be broken.”
“Perhaps it is a trap,” said Maeree.
A mushroom pointed at the princess. “YOUR LEFT EYEBROW IS THINKING ABOUT A SILLY WALK.”
“It is not!” said Rosamund.
“It very much is,” whispered Mirabel.
The girls tried to walk normally across the clearing. But the moss was bouncy. Every step made their heads bob. Rosamund stepped on a mushroom cap and bounced gently backward into a bush. Maeree caught her, but both of them began to wobble like badly stacked pancakes.
Mirabel tried to keep a straight face. Then Crumpet the teacup sneezed from her pocket, sending out a puff of cinnamon smoke that formed the shape of a mustache on the sorceress’s face.
Maeree saw it. A tiny laugh escaped her.
The mushroom chorus gasped.
Then the orange mushrooms began to giggle too. Their giggles shook their caps. Rosamund made an enormous serious face, crossed her eyes, and announced, “I am the Royal Inspector of Extremely Important Turnips.”
Maeree laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. Even Mirabel laughed, although she insisted it was only a cough wearing funny boots.
The clearing bloomed with orange light. The key lifted itself from the moss.
“Laughter recognized,” it chimed.
Rosamund caught it. “See? Even gloomy things sometimes need a good laugh.”
Beyond the clearing, they came to a brook that had forgotten how to sing. Its water crawled between stones without a sparkle. On the far bank, a yellow key rested on a nest of reeds. But a family of hedgehogs huddled beside the stream, shivering.
“Our den flooded,” squeaked the mother hedgehog. “We cannot cross. The water is too cold for the little ones.”
“We are in a hurry,” Princess Rosamund said, looking toward the far bank.
“We are,” Maeree agreed. Then she looked at the smallest hedgehog, whose nose was trembling. “But we can help quickly.”
Mirabel handed over her cane. Together, the girls gathered flat stones and fallen bark. Maeree tested each stone with her dancer’s balance, placing her feet lightly so she would not slip. Rosamund used her brass compass to find bits of strong reed growing nearby. Mirabel tied the reeds with a spell that made knots hum sea shanties.
In a little while, they had built a low, sturdy bridge. One by one, the hedgehogs crossed. The smallest one paused in the middle and squeaked, “I am crossing a very big river!”
“It is a brook,” said his sister.
“It is big to me,” he said.
Maeree nodded respectfully. “Then you are very brave.”
When the last hedgehog reached the far bank, the yellow key shone like sunshine. “Kindness recognized,” it sang, and flew into Maeree’s hand.
The next path climbed into a slope of tangled roots. There they met the fox cub again. It was digging furiously beside a huge green door set into the hillside.
“You again!” said Rosamund. “Do you know where we should go?”
The fox gave a sharp yip and began to dig faster.
On the door, green letters appeared: WAIT FOR WHAT GROWS.
“Wait?” Rosamund groaned. “I am terrible at waiting. I waited through an entire royal portrait last Tuesday. It took twelve years.”
“It took forty minutes,” said Mirabel.
“Longest twelve years of my life.”
Maeree knelt by the fox. Beneath the soil, she noticed a single curled seedling. “Maybe the door needs something to grow.”
Mirabel poured one drop of water from a pocket flask onto it. Nothing happened.
Rosamund sang to it. Nothing happened, though the fox tilted its head politely.
Maeree touched the little plant. “It cannot hurry just because we need it to,” she said. “We have to give it time.”
They sat beside it. The minutes felt long. Maeree practiced slow breathing: in for four counts, out for four. Rosamund tried it too, though on the second breath she whispered, “Are we done being patient yet?”
“Not yet,” said Maeree.
They watched a beetle climb a root. They listened to the brook behind them. They saw the fox curl beside the seedling, keeping it warm with its tail. At last, a green shoot pushed upward. It grew leaves, then a twisting vine, then three bright green flowers. The hillside door swung open.
The green key dropped into the waiting vine. “Patience recognized.”
The passage beyond was cool and dark. Blue lights blinked along its walls, but none of them stayed lit for long. At its end stood a blue crystal key behind a curtain of mist.
A whisper filled the passage. “SPEAK A TRUE THING, OR WALK IN CIRCLES FOREVER.”
Rosamund marched forward. The path curled and put her right back where she started.
“I dislike this passage,” she said.
“A true thing,” Mirabel reminded them.
“I am Princess Rosamund, and I have a hobby-horse called Sir Gallop-a-Lot,” said the princess.
The path moved one inch, then stopped.
“True, but perhaps not a truth you need to say,” said the sorceress.
Maeree felt the mist curl around her ankles. She knew what truth waited inside her, because she had been trying not to look at it all day.
“I am afraid,” she said quietly.
The blue lights brightened.
“I am afraid of failing the dance tonight. I am afraid people will see my mistakes. And I am afraid that, if I am not truly magnificent, I will disappoint everyone.”
The passage opened straight before her. The blue key gleamed through the mist.
Princess Rosamund took Maeree’s hand. “You know a true thing about me?” she said. “I am afraid of being useless. Everyone says I am clever, but sometimes I make jokes because I do not know what else to do.”
The blue key floated forward and touched them both. “Truth recognized.”
“You are not useless,” said Maeree.
“And you do not have to be perfect to be magnificent,” said Rosamund.
Mirabel cleared her throat. “My true thing is that I make dreadful tea.”
Crumpet shouted, “AT LAST!”
They emerged from the hill onto a high ridge, where the woods ended. Ahead, on a cliff beneath the moon, stood Wizard Varrick’s Observatory. Its round dome was made of dark glass. Inside it, colors spun in great ribbons: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. They were being pulled into a clattering machine at the center.
But between the ridge and the observatory stretched a bridge of floating stone pieces. The pieces moved, spun, and occasionally turned upside down. Above them hovered the indigo key.
“Imagination recognized,” read a plaque beneath it.
“How are we supposed to cross?” asked Rosamund.
Maeree studied the stones. They did not move randomly. The left ones turned slowly, the right ones skipped twice, and the middle ones bobbed in a repeating pattern.
“It is a dance,” she said.
“A bridge is dancing?” asked the princess.
“Everything has a rhythm,” Maeree replied. “Waves. Horses. Clocks. Even your noisy breakfast spoon.”
“That spoon is an artist,” said Rosamund.
Maeree stepped onto the first stone. Turn. Step. Step. Leap. Her moonlit slippers gripped the stone. She turned gracefully as the next piece swung beneath her. “Follow my counts!” she called. “One, two, three, leap!”
Rosamund followed, arms windmilling a little but landing safely. Mirabel came last, using her cane like a conductor’s baton. The fox cub, who had secretly followed them, bounded across with a delighted bark.
At the center, the wind rose. Maeree made a small jump, then a wider one, then spun just as the stones spun. It was not the Rainbow Waltz she had practiced, but it became a dance all its own: daring, uneven, and alive. Rosamund clapped the rhythm. Mirabel added tiny sparks that beat like drums.
The indigo key blazed. “Imagination recognized.”
When they reached the last stone, the fox cub tugged at Maeree’s skirt. Around its neck hung a thin violet thread. It led down through a crack in the cliff, toward a narrow passage beneath the observatory.
“The violet key,” said Maeree. “It must be down there.”
The passage opened into a cave full of sleeping stone statues. Some looked like knights, some like villagers, and some like children holding lanterns. Their faces were sad. At the center lay the violet key inside a circle of dark thorns.
A low voice said, “HOPE IS USELESS. NOTHING CHANGES. TURN BACK.”
The thorns grew higher.
Rosamund’s face lost its smile. “Those are people from the kingdom,” she said. “Varrick must have turned them to stone.”
Mirabel examined the statues. “Not stone. Frozen in discouraged thoughts. They can be awakened, but only if someone believes the ending can be better.”
Maeree looked at the looming observatory. Varrick had already captured nearly all the colors. The great machine roared above them. Maybe they were too late. Maybe she was only a girl in dancing shoes, trying to defeat a wizard with keys and hope.
Then she remembered the little hedgehog calling the brook a very big river. It had been big to him, and he had crossed anyway.
“We are not finished,” Maeree said.
The cave seemed to listen.
“We have six keys. We have each other. We have come farther than we thought we could. I do not know exactly how we will win, but I believe there is a way.”
Princess Rosamund lifted her chin. “And if there is no way, we will invent one.”
Mirabel smiled. “That is an excellent magical principle.”
Violet light slipped through the thorns. The key rose, soft and shining. “Hope recognized.”
The sleeping statues blinked. Their gray surfaces cracked like thin ice, and color returned to their cheeks and clothes. They were not prisoners from the whole kingdom, Maeree saw now, but magical echoes of people Varrick had discouraged long ago. They bowed to her and faded gently into violet sparks.
At the end of the cave, a stair wound upward into the observatory itself.
The great dome above was filled with a storm of stolen color. At its center stood the Prism Engine: a huge wheel of glass tubes, silver gears, and whirling mirrors. Each mirror caught a color and squeezed it into a clear bottle. Hundreds of bottles lined the walls.
Wizard Varrick stood at a control table in a tall purple hat. His beard was neat, his robe was magnificent, and his expression was as sour as a lemon wearing socks.
“So,” he said, without turning around. “The Queen sends a ballerina, a princess, and Mirabel of the Exploding Teapot.”
“My teapot exploded only twice,” said Mirabel.
“Three times,” said Crumpet.
Varrick faced them. His eyes flicked to the seven glowing keys. “Ah. You have awakened the Color Keys. How tiresome. Hand them over.”
“No,” said Maeree.
The wizard laughed. “No? Little dancer, do you know why I took the colors? Because people do not deserve them. They applaud a princess, cheer a queen, praise a sorceress. But when I showed them my maps, they said, ‘Lovely, Varrick.’ Lovely! Not magnificent. Not astonishing. Lovely.”
Maeree understood a small part of that sting. She knew how badly it hurt to worry that she was not enough. But she also saw the bottles trembling around the room, the grayness spreading beyond the dome, and the tired anger in Varrick’s face.
“So you took everyone’s colors?” she asked.
“I made something no one can ignore,” Varrick snapped. “When the Prism Engine is complete, every person will look at my work.”
Princess Rosamund stepped forward. “They will look because they have to. That is not the same as being admired.”
Varrick struck the control table with his wand. Mirrors sprang from the floor, forming a maze. In each mirror, Maeree saw herself stumble, fall, forget the dance, and hear a crowd whispering.
“You are not magnificent,” the mirrors told her. “You are only pretending.”
Her knees turned to jelly again. The keys dimmed.
Then Maeree heard the Queen’s voice in her memory: Choose the next step anyway.
She breathed in for four counts. Out for four.
“I am practicing being magnificent,” she told the mirrors. “And practicing means I may make mistakes.”
She lifted her arms and began to dance.
Not to impress Varrick. Not to prove she was perfect. She danced to find the rhythm of the room. The Prism Engine clanked: turn, clank, hiss, turn. The mirrors glided: slide, pause, slide. The colors in their bottles pulsed: bright, bright, bright.
Maeree made a careful step between two mirrors. Then another. She pirouetted past a reflection of her own fear. Rosamund followed the rhythm, using her compass to point toward the weakest mirror. Mirabel tossed a pinch of sparkling powder that made the false reflections sneeze.
“Ah-ah-ah-CHOO!” cried a mirror, and vanished.
The fox cub darted beneath Varrick’s table and tugged loose a golden cord. A hatch opened, revealing the engine’s seven empty keyholes.
“The keys!” shouted Mirabel.
Varrick raised his wand. A wall of wind shoved them back. “You will not ruin my masterpiece!”
Maeree nearly lost her balance. But she saw Varrick’s face. He looked less like a monster than a lonely person guarding a pile of bottles.
“Wizard Varrick!” she called over the storm. “Your maps were probably lovely because someone meant they were beautiful.”
“They did not understand!” he roared.
“Maybe not enough people said so. But stealing beauty will not make you feel seen.”
For one moment, his wand lowered.
That moment was enough. Rosamund raced forward and placed the red key in its hole. The engine shuddered.
Maeree leaped, turning through the wind, and placed orange and yellow. Mirabel set green and blue with a flick of her cane. The fox cub jumped onto a lever, and with an undignified yip, dropped indigo into place.
Only violet remained.
Varrick seized it with a spell before Maeree could reach it. The key hovered beside his hand.
“Hope,” he said bitterly. “The silliest color of all.”
Maeree stood before him. “It is not silly. It is why we came. It is why your maps mattered too. You hoped people would love them.”
The wizard’s fingers trembled.
“I did,” he whispered.
“Then let them see them,” said Maeree. “Not because you trapped the whole kingdom in gray, but because you choose to share them.”
Outside, the moon rose above the dome. Its pale light touched Varrick’s face. Slowly, he looked at the color bottles lined along the walls. For the first time, he seemed to see how frightened the kingdom must be.
“I thought if I collected every color,” he said, “I would finally have something no one else had.”
Princess Rosamund spoke gently. “But colors are happier when they are everywhere.”
Crumpet called, “LIKE JAM!”
Varrick gave a surprised snort. It was almost a laugh.
Then he placed the violet key into Maeree’s hand.
“Show me what to do, ballerina,” he said.
Maeree set the final key into the Prism Engine. All seven keys spun together. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet poured through the glass tubes in a dazzling spiral. But the engine groaned louder. One enormous gear had cracked.
“It will burst!” cried Mirabel.
“If it bursts, the colors may scatter into the storm forever,” said Varrick.
Maeree looked at the wobbling gear. Its movement was uneven: clank, clank, scrape. It needed a steady rhythm to settle.
“I need everyone to follow my dance,” she said.
“Dance?” Varrick asked.
“Trust me.”
Maeree stepped onto the circular platform around the engine. She began with the simplest beat: step, step, turn. Her slippers rang their silver bells. Rosamund joined her, clapping the counts. Mirabel tapped her cane to make a gentle drumbeat. The fox cub barked on every fourth beat, which was not perfectly musical but was very enthusiastic.
Varrick hesitated.
“Come on!” said Rosamund. “It is a royal emergency dance.”
The wizard awkwardly stepped onto the platform. “I have not danced since wizard school.”
“Then you have been missing out,” said Maeree.
She showed him a turn. He nearly tripped over his robe. He tried again. This time he managed a small, stiff spin. The gear answered with a less wobbly clank.
“Again!” Maeree called.
They danced faster. Step, step, turn. Step, step, leap. The engine’s rhythm steadied. The cracked gear glowed. Every bottle around the room began to shine.
With one final grand leap, Maeree landed in the center of the platform. The Prism Engine opened like a flower.
Color rushed out.
It streamed through the dome in seven glowing rivers. Red swept across the royal tower. Orange warmed the mushroom clearing. Yellow poured over the hedgehogs’ bridge. Green clothed the hill in grass. Blue filled the brook with singing water. Indigo sparkled across the floating bridge. Violet kissed the evening sky.
Bellflower Castle blazed brighter than ever before.
The Prism Engine did not explode. Instead, it shrank with a polite pop into a small glass music box. On its lid was a painted rainbow and a tiny dancer in blue skirts.
Varrick stared at it. “It is much smaller than I expected.”
“Most dangerous things are,” said Mirabel. “That is why we keep them on high shelves.”
Back at the castle, the Festival of a Thousand Lanterns began late, but nobody minded. The villagers cheered when they saw Maeree, Rosamund, Mirabel, the fox cub, and—after a nervous pause—Wizard Varrick walk through the gate together.
Queen Elsinore listened to the whole story. Then she looked at Varrick.
“You have done harm,” she said. “You will help repair what your magic damaged.”
Varrick bowed. “I will.”
“And,” continued the Queen, “you will display your magical maps in the Great Gallery, where everyone may see them.”
Varrick blinked. “Really?”
“Really. But you must also teach any child who wishes to learn map-making.”
His sour expression softened. “I can do that.”
The Queen turned to Maeree. “And you, Maeree the Magnificent, have saved the colors of Bellflower Castle.”
The crowd began to chant her name. Maeree felt her knees tremble, but this time they did not feel like jelly. They felt ready.
A servant carried forward a velvet cushion. On it rested a pair of new ballet slippers, sewn with seven tiny jewels: ruby, amber, citrine, emerald, sapphire, indigo stone, and amethyst. Each jewel glowed with the light of one Color Key.
“These are the Rainbow Slippers,” said the Queen. “They will shine whenever you dance with a brave and generous heart.”
Maeree touched them in wonder. “They are beautiful.”
“And there is one more reward,” said Princess Rosamund, grinning. She pointed to the Moon Court, where the gray dance floor had become a swirling rainbow mosaic. “The festival still needs its Rainbow Waltz.”
Maeree looked at the crowd. She looked at the Queen, the Princess, Sorceress Mirabel, the fox cub curled near the musicians, and even Varrick, who stood at the edge of the court with an uncertain but hopeful smile.
Then Maeree put on the Rainbow Slippers.
When the music began, she stepped into the moonlight. Her first turn sent a ribbon of blue floating through the air. Her leap scattered golden sparks. With every careful step, the seven jewels shone, and the colors answered her dance.
Soon Princess Rosamund joined her, laughing as she spun. Sorceress Mirabel danced a surprisingly nimble jig. Even Queen Elsinore swayed in time. After a long moment, Wizard Varrick offered a formal bow and performed his stiff little wizard-school turn. Everyone applauded, and he laughed for real.
Maeree danced until the lanterns looked like stars that had come down to celebrate. She still was not perfect. Once, her foot slipped a little. Once, she turned the wrong way and had to make it part of the dance. But she did not stop. She smiled, found the next beat, and carried on.
And that was why everyone called her Maeree the Magnificent: not because she never felt afraid, and not because every step was flawless, but because she used courage, kindness, laughter, patience, truth, imagination, and hope to make even a difficult path into a dance.
From then on, the windows of Bellflower Castle shone with brighter colors than ever. And in the Great Gallery, beside Wizard Varrick’s marvelous maps, hung a small glass music box. Whenever its lid was opened, it played the rhythm of a brave ballerina’s steps: step, step, turn; step, step, leap.