Ella St. James was not your normal girl. First off, she didn’t live in a castle. She lived in an egregiously overpriced downtown Manhattan apartment with her stepmother and two stepsisters, who apparently misinterpreted the phrase “household chores” to refer to anyone but themselves.
The queen’s stepmother, Victoria, had developed rudeness into an art form. She had a doctorate in sarcasm, a black belt in passive aggressive comments, and an almost scientific comprehension of how to destroy anyone’s self-esteem before breakfast.
Ella’s stepsisters, Tiffany and Brittany, were also talented, mostly at Instagramming themselves while Ella scrubbed the apartment floors with Lysol like a hyperactive cleaning ninja.
Like all stories, it began with an event. The city’s annual charity gala. Victoria was not about to let her daughters pass up meeting eligible heirs and influencers.
“Dress right,” she barked at Ella. “And don’t embarrass us.”
Ella raised an eyebrow. The last time she’d “embarrassed” them, Tiffany had knocked over a bottle of sparkling water that Victoria was drinking and blamed it on a ghost. Ella was … all right with ghosts, but she liked them uncalled for.
But this year, Ella had a plan. Not to find a prince. No, she was here to reveal something underhanded about her stepsisters. Something shady about her stepsisters. Word was, they would infiltrate the gala in order to hack into the raffle system for free tickets to a luxury spa weekend. Ella had screenshots and receipts, and enough digital evidence to make any cybersecurity officer blush.
There was just one problem, of course, she didn’t have a dress. Not that it mattered; she wasn’t going to spend her life cleaning floors just so she could look pretty for an evening of surface-level networking.
That’s when her best friend, Max the tech whiz and occasional wizard in the urban jungle, showed up with a 3D printer dress. It was silver, sparkly, and miraculously thwarted wine spills, emotional breakdowns, and awkward dance moves.
“Ella, this is amazing!” Max said. “You’ll resemble a princess, modern, self-rescuing, and mildly terrifying.”
“Good,” Ella said, pulling the dress over her head. “Now let’s go catch my stepsisters being stupid.”
The gala was buzzing. Influencers competed for selfies, financiers attempted to look interesting, and somewhere near the champagne fountain, Tiffany and Brittany were gathered around a tablet, snickering. Ella inched forward, heels as covert weapons.
“Ella! You made it!” someone called.
She turned to the sight of Prince Damien, or at least, Damien Price, 40 billion dollar tech heir who’d been spending the entire week trying and failing not to be weird about cryptocurrency on Twitter. He waved at her and grinned so broadly that he resembled someone who hadn’t seen another human in days.
“I could gate crash your ball,” whispered Ella, “but it won’t be for you. It’s purely investigative.”
Prince Damien blinked.
“Investigative? Cool. I like a girl with a plan.”
Ella smirked the perfect level of smarmy and slipped over to join Tiffany and Brittany. She peered over their shoulders. Sure enough, a live feed of the raffle, a few lines of code, and a suspiciously glowing WINNER button.
“Oh, this is so easy,” she mumbled.
Victoria showed up, glaring like a thundercloud, before she could stop her.
“Hey, Ella! You’re hovering, but why?”
Ella didn’t even bat an eye.
“I’m assisting you with your WiFi, huh?”
Victoria lifted a well-defined eyebrow.
“Don’t tell me lies.”
Ella gave a charming smile.
“I’m not. I was ensuring that my stepsisters wouldn’t tamper with the charity raffle.”
Tiffany gave a snort.
“As if you could hack a raffle system, let alone a toaster.”
Ella rolled her eyes.
“Observe me.”
She tapped her phone a few times, causing the live feed to freeze and displaying the following message.
System error, unauthorised users detected.
Brittany and Tiffany screamed and let go of their tablet. Damien, who had apparently been hired to oversee IT security for the gala, led the security team as they swooped in.
“Who was responsible for this?” Astonished, Victoria demanded.
Ella grinned.
“Detective work. I refer to it as literally and figuratively cleaning up your messes.”
The gala burst into cheers. The loudest clap came from Damien.
“Ella St. James, you may have saved my cryptocurrency investment as well as the day.”
Before Victoria could lecture her about etiquette, cleanliness, or the foolishness of contemporary feminism, Ella made a dramatic bow and slipped out the side door.
Max held a small bag and waited outside.
“So, instead of exposing criminals, how about celebrating with something else?”
Ella smiled.
“I believe I’ll pass. However, I might first take a selfie with Damien.”
Max let out a groan.
“She’s a princess of the modern era…with attitude and WiFi.”
Ella continued, looking at her phone.
“And by tomorrow morning, Victoria will be enraged, the mystery is solved, and my stepsisters are exposed. Excellent.”
Tiffany and Brittany were probably planning their next move somewhere. Ella let out a sigh.
“Give it a shot. Now I have a plan and glass slippers, or rather, glitter shoes that were 3D printed. And that’s essentially the same as magic in the modern world.”