‘No you don’t. You’re a minion. Where did he have to go?’
‘It’s about Xan,’ Jude said and Mare paid attention. ‘We belong together, Mare.’
Mare frowned. ‘You and Xan?’
‘No. You and me.’ He took a step closer and Py snarled so he took a step back. ‘Xan cast a True Love Spell, Mare.’
Mare nodded. ‘I know. Where’s Crash?’
‘She cast a spell to bring the three of you, the Fortune sisters, your True Loves. That’s how Danny found Dee and Elric found Lizzie. And that’s how I found you, Mare. You can’t argue with a True Love Spell.’
‘I can argue with anything,’ Mare said. ‘As for my True Love, you are not it. Now where the hell is Crash?’
Py hissed again, and this time Mare heard a faint but angry croaking.
‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she said to the cat, and then looked under the table.
A frog sat there, panting hard, or maybe it was pulsating, Mare was not up on her Frog Basics. Py was in front of her, but just as Mare moved to scoop him up and save the frog, she realized that Py was standing between Jude and the frog, growling at Jude.
‘Nice kitty,’ Jude said.
‘Not even close.’ Mare got down on her knees and picked up the frog. ‘We don’t usually get frogs-’
The frog’s eyes were bright blue, like the Italian sky.
Mare surged to her feet, the frog cupped in her hands. ‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed at Jude.
Jude blinked in fake innocence. ‘What are you talking about?’
Mare wheeled and ran for Lizzie’s room, her fingers curled protectively around Crash who croaked his fury.
Lizzie was lying sideways across the tattered bed. She opened one eye very slowly. She could hear the wind outside, and it was so dark she had no idea what time of day it was. Not that she cared.
She started to stretch, then realized one wrist was still tied to the iron bedpost with a purple silk scarf. She sat up, looking for Elric, and she grinned.
He was still on the floor, sound asleep, looking as if he’d been hit by a truck. Not mashed by a truck, fortunately. Very little could tarnish his physical beauty. But something had managed to drain every last vestige of energy from him, and the delightful thing was, it had been her. Them.
And the libido spell had worn off hours before they’d gotten to silk bondage. She looked down at him fondly. They were going to have a really good time in Toledo.
They’d lost his heavy silver earring somewhere in the bed – she needed to find it when she recovered her energy. An overenthusiastic bite on his ear and she’d almost swallowed it. He’d laughed, tried to put it in her ear, and then they’d gotten distracted once more and forgotten all about it.
She could hear her sisters moving around in the living room. Dee would probably think twice about marching in here unannounced – in his current state of happy exhaustion she doubted Elric would have the energy to shield his presence, and she really didn’t like the idea of her sisters seeing Elric at his finest. He was hers, and for the first time in her life she wasn’t going to share.
She untied her wrist and slid off the bed, kneeling down on the floor beside him. He opened his eyes.
‘Not asleep,’ he murmured. ‘Dead.’
She bent to kiss him, but a pounding on the door made her jerk back, Elric catching her in his arms.
‘Lizzie,’ Mare screamed, and pounded again. ‘Lizzie, please, PLEASE!’ And Lizzie grabbed the purple sheet from underneath the bed where it had landed hours earlier, wrapped it around her body, toga-style, and stumbled to the door to face her sister.
Mare heard Jude behind her, but she ignored him to beat on Lizzie’s door with her fist. ‘Lizzie, I need you RIGHT NOW, Please, please, PLEASE-’
Lizzie opened the door wrapped in a purple sheet looking flushed and rumpled and annoyed.
Mare stuck the Crash frog out at her. ‘Turn him back. Please, please turn him back. I love him. Please, please, God, Lizzie, you have to.’
‘I have no idea what she’s talking about,’ Jude said from behind her.
Lizzie looked closer at the frog. ‘Put him on the floor,’ she said, no longer angry.
Mare swallowed and put Crash on the floor. ‘Oh, God, Lizzie.’
‘Step back,’ Lizzie said.
Mare stepped back, hating to leave him so exposed.
Lizzie looked down and took a deep breath and raised her encircled arms.
‘That’s vermin,’ Jude said, and raised his foot just as Lizzie struck.
There was a flash of purple light, a lot more purple smoke than Mare had ever seen before, and then Crash was back, tall and broad and choking and waving his hands through the violet smog.
‘What the fuck happened to me?’ he said.
Mare threw her arms around him and kissed him and then kissed him again. ‘I love you, I really love you, and I will marry you and go to Tuscany because those five minutes you were a frog were the worst five minutes of my life.’
‘They weren’t great for me, either,’ Crash said, holding her close, still sounding annoyed but not as much as before. ‘Hello, Lizzie.’
‘Hello, Crash,’ Lizzie said, but she was looking at the floor.
Mare looked back at her, clutching Crash. ‘What? What’s wrong? He’s okay, isn’t he? There wasn’t any damage?’ She began patting him all over. ‘He’s okay, he feels okay, tell me he’s okay. Baby, are you okay?’
‘Okay?’ Crash said, still holding on to her. ‘I was a fucking frog. Are you going tell me how that happened?’
‘I think Jude…’ Mare’s voice trailed off as she looked around. ‘The little weasel ran for it.’
‘Not a weasel.’ Lizzie nodded to the floor.
A frog sat there, looking stunned.
‘Jude?’ Mare said.
Lizzie shrugged. ‘He was there and then he wasn’t. I’m guessing that’s Jude.’
‘You turned him into a frog?’ Mare thought for a second. ‘Yeah, that’s fair.’