Fredrick and Myrielle stared at each other for what seemed like minutes, as beastly Bella ran off to expose them and potentially destroy their lives. In reality it was no more than three or four seconds. "We need to get her!" Fredrick cried. "Now!" He grabbed Myrielle's hand and they sprinted down the stairs in hot pursuit.

"Maybe they won't believe her!" she said. "Would you believe that face?"

Fredrick continued to drag her down the stairs. "What you need to understand about the royal family is that even a tiny seed of paranoia will cause them to punish us in horrible ways."

"If you say so..." she said.

"If you don't believe me," he said, "just think back to the bakery the last time you saw it."

Her most recent memory of the bakery was abundantly clear. "The last time I saw it there was a sign in the window; a sign that said 'lemon cakes are out of stock until further notice.'"

"And why do you suppose that sign was really there?" He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and darted his eyes left and right. "She's not here; that means we need to move faster!"

Myrielle groaned as their dash through the castle continued. "But this gown wasn't meant for sprinting! And my legs hurt!"

"Bella's legs don't seem to be hurting!" he called back, forcing her to keep up the pace.

She sneered at the back of his head. "That's because her leg-pain is radiating out of her face!" Despite her protests she kept up the pace as required, because it wasn't that she was incapable of running, it was just that she needed to complain her way through it (as per the official adult handbook of dealing with life). "And I didn't forget your question!" she added. "The lemon cakes are out of stock because of a lemon shortage!"

In-between his brisk athletic sprinting, he found a moment to look back at her and smirk. "Or maybe it's the fact that when the kingdom heard the bakery was earning a reputation as the best lemon cakes in all the land," he said, his breath a little shorter now, "the king became paranoid that their lemon cakes were superior to the ones made in the royal kitchen. So maybe he kidnapped the baker, his son, and his assistant, and anyone else who might know the special recipe. Maybe."

She couldn't believe it. "That's insane!"

He abruptly stopped running and grabbed her shoulders. "It is, and it's exactly the sort of insanity you can expect if Bella gets to them first!"

She pushed him forward. "Then let's go!"

And so they ran once more, past shadowy corridors lit by torches, past the kitchen, and finally past the cast-off table in the corner where Bella had been ordered to dine alone (and where her meal of cubed vegetables and slimy boiled chicken remained untouched).

The door to the dining hall was open, and the prince's reaction came bellowing out from inside.

"They were doing WHAT?!"

Myrielle and Fredrick exchanged a fearful look; it was over.

***

The remaining contestants were sequestered in the dining room now, while in the royal hall the process of getting to the bottom of the scandal was afoot.

Myrielle and Fredrick stood stiffly under the chandelier spotlight, facing the tribunal of royals, Fairy Godmother and Gianni. The lone witness Bella was kept at a distance, foaming at the mouth for the chance to bring down her nemesis, but also foaming at the mouth in general as a side effect of her face.

"Did you see anything else?" said the queen, addressing Bella but refusing to look at her directly. "No detail is too strong in the prosecution of traitors."

Myrielle leapt forward but a pair of guards held her back. "We're not traitors and this is all big mistake!"

"A-ha!" cried the king. "She said the T-word! Now can we quickly proceed with the beheading?"

"I told you they were crazy," Fredrick whispered to Myrielle, though for some strange reason he wasn't yet afraid.

The king rubbed his belly. "If we don't resolve this soon the seven desserts the kitchen prepared won't stay fresh."

Despite the king's command for a beheading in the interests of dessert, the knights made no moves to pull out their words. They must've known something Myrielle didn't, but that didn't stop her gaze from staying locked on their weapons.

The queen patted the king's arm as sympathetically as her humanity would allow. "There, there, "she said, "your dessert will come soon enough, but first let's hear more about the terrible events of the night." The queen turned to Bella with raw anticipation. "Tell us more," she said hungrily, eager to feed off the lurid tale of peasant demise.

Bella grinned despite the pain and contortion it required. "First let me say it was more than just one kiss." She shook her head disappointingly at Myrielle. "In fact...your highness...it was actually a whole lot of this." She proceeded to make a series of 'kissy' sounds, as the foaming drool dribbled down her chin.

The crazier Bella seemed, the more Myrielle hoped it would convince the royals to dismiss her account as the ravings of a madwoman. She watched and waited, but no one seemed to roll their eyes or cringe at the river of drool.

"Did they say anything?" said the queen, trying to round out the live-action soap opera with some dialogue. "If you can't remember it exactly an estimate will be fine."

Myrielle opened her mouth to protest but she noticed Fredrick shaking his head. "It will only make things worse," he whispered.

"The words were many," Bella confirmed, "and unfortunately they all spoke of treason." She paused for a moment to gesture to the prince. "To think, after everything you've done for them..."

The prince's face reddened as a second round of rage took hold. He stood from his throne and stepped forward. "What exactly did they say?"

"It was all about their evil plan!" she cried. "She'd leave the contest, he'd leave the servant life...and then they'd scandalously run away together and ruin this important contest!" She inched towards the prince just enough so the knights wouldn't notice. "Forget about them now..." she cooed, "it was always meant to be you and I from the start."

While the prince wasn't a fan of treason, he was all out intolerant when it came to infected faces. "You're encroaching on the radius of preventing my disgust," he said coldly. He gestured to the knights. "Keep her in the corner, would you?"

As the knights held her back, Fredrick took his one shot at saving the day. "Your highness...you can't possibly believe someone so desperate, can you? It's nothing more than her final attempt to extend her life in the contest."

A low groan and evil stare was the prince's only response.

In the silence that followed Gianni considered Fredrick's adamant denial; he'd never liked the lowly servant as a worker or a human, but he wasn't keen on writing a book of scandal if the scandal itself was fiction. Fake magical powers he could do, chalking it up to some flourish and added color; but slander? Slander was the last thing he wanted to be known for. "Are you truly saying nothing went on between the two of you?" he pressed. "No secret plan? No heavily-described smooching?"

These intimate questions had Fredrick glistening with sweat. "That is indeed what I mean to say," he said shakily.

Before Gianni could extend the inquiry the king noticed something very odd. "What is that there?" he said, pointing at Fredrick and narrowing his eyes into focus. "That shiny residue on your hands?"

Fredrick glanced at his hands and in a split second, became aware of a tiny detail he'd forgotten. He gulped hard. "Oh that? It's just...grease from placing the turkey legs on the tray before we served you dinner." He mimicked his best attempt at a casual shrug. "I haven't had the chance to wash them."

The king shook his head. "No no no. Turkey grease I could recognize from a mile away. What you have on your hand is not that, but the sort of shine that's identical to what's displayed on the peasant's hair."

Myrielle instinctively rubbed her hair, remembering the honey-tar solution she'd so liberally applied. Who could've guessed that volumized hair would prove to be her ultimate demise?

The queen's thin lips spread into a merciless smile. "I believe what we have here is evidence of fingers running madly through the peasant's hair." She sighed happily. "An act that was committed in treasonous ecstasy no doubt."

Gianni feverishly recorded every detail; this was exactly the second act twist he'd been dreaming of for his second book, with just the right amount of shock value and drama to outsell the first.

As the queen and Gianni reveled in the scandal for vastly different reasons, the prince was ramping up for his third round of rage. He stomped towards Fredrick, stopping short of barreling into him. "Did you really think you'd be able to make a fool of me and get away with it?" His second dose of fury was directed at Myrielle. "Do you even know how lucky you are to breathe my royal air? And still you get cozy with a servant?!" He pointed to the knights who were guarding Bella. "Banish these traitors to the dungeon! AND OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

The queen shrugged. "I'm fine with that."

The king rubbed his belly. "Now for the matter of the seven desserts..."

Myrielle's eyes widened as the reality set in; was the beheading she'd feared after stealing the food finally coming back to haunt her? She longed to hold Fredrick's hand for comfort but feared that it would make things worse, in the form of having her hand cut off before the actual beheading.

As Fairy Godmother observed all the drama unfolding, it caused her to sober up instantly. The prospect of her bonus coin was fading away, but it was somehow about more than the coin. Something inside her felt unsettled as she watched the peasant across from her prepare to meet her doom. Something very unsettling that for once wasn't alcohol poisoning.

She rushed over to Gianni. "Can we even let this happen?" she whispered. "Or does it conflict with the latest...results?"

Gianni found himself stunned by Fairy Godmother's sudden lucidity. "I hadn't even thought about the current tally, but yes...we need to reveal it before any decision is made." He patted Fairy Godmother on the shoulder and smiled. "Thank you for finally taking the contest seriously."

"Yes, yes," she said rolling her eyes. "Now stop them before it's too late!"

Gianni pulled a scroll out of his velvet jacket and cleared his throat. "Guards, please escort the beast-girl back to the others."

The knights dragged Bella away and she was foamier than ever. "At least bring me back to witness the beheading!" she cried. "It's all I have!"

Once she was gone and the doors were firmly shut, Gianni shifted his focus to the royals. "The time has come for us to share the true nature of the contest..."

[WRITER COMMENTARY: It seems like Myrielle is safe from a beheading, but where does that leave her and Fredrick? Are they still completely screwed? Find out soon, and thanks for reading! :-)]