The silk curtains of the palace were beautiful, but to Cinderella, they felt increasingly like the bars of a very expensive cage.
The breaking point came during the Harvest Gala. As the nobility toasted to "eternal prosperity," Ella looked out the window and saw the flickering, dim lights of the lower city, where the prosperity hadn't reached. The silk curtains of the palace were beautiful,
Frederick looked at her, truly seeing the callouses on her hands that the palace lotions couldn't quite erase. He realized that the very grit that had allowed her to survive her stepmother was what the kingdom actually needed. but to Cinderella