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“You’re upset because you’re still a cat,” Archie tried, eying the crumpled illustration. “Tabitha’s kiss didn’t work, and it didn’t seem like you expected it to, but you hoped if we defeated the ogre, you would have turned back. That’s what this whole thing has been about, right?”
The princess looked back at them, confused. “Turn back?”
“Ainsley, this is Leo. Prince Leopold, I mean. Your brother.” Archie hadn’t had a lot of time to think about all the implications of the prince’s curse, but a part of him had hoped when he made that pronouncement, it would have been after they had already found some way to reverse Leo’s condition. Doing it now, with Leo still a cat, might have only opened more pain. But if there was no ready cure available, wasn’t it better for her to know the truth? To have her brother as a cat, if nothing else? “I still don’t know exactly how it happened, but you said your brother disappeared after he went searching for a magical cure to the plague—”
“And we just found out that our uncle started the plague after becoming a shapeshifter.” She took another hesitant step toward the cat. “And Leo . . . You really are Leo, aren’t you? Your form was shifted, but you can’t shift back?”
“R-row.” The cat threw the acknowledgment over his shoulder, still focused on his book.
“I guess I can see how they’re both connected,” Ainsley said, still sounding more than a little dazed. “But where did all the magic come from?”
Leo ripped out another page from the book, this one bearing the image of a white stag, but it was unclear if Leo was trying to give them another hint or was just in a mood to destroy faeries.
“I don’t know,” Archie said. “But maybe Leo . . . Do you know what you want to try next? What can I do to help? I mean, I said I would find a way to help you if you helped me gain my fortune, and I don’t think anyone could deny that you’ve done that.”
The cat gave up on the book and looked back at him pointedly.
“Ainsley?” Archie guessed, and the cat blinked at him in encouragement. It might be little consolation now, but they seemed to finally understand each other. “You want me to take care of Ainsley? Of course. You don’t have to ask for that. But shouldn’t we . . .”
Archie stopped; his eyes called by a sudden, impossible movement.
The rat, the Marquis.
He had twitched.
“He isn’t dead?” Archie shook his head, slowly processing what he was seeing. “He isn’t dead. Leo . . .”
The cat had already sprung. Leo abandoned his book and re-caught the rodent in his jaws, darting away in the same manner he had when Archie had first tried to corner him in the wheatfield.
Gone, just like that.
“He left?” Ainsley sputtered. “But I just . . . I wanted . . .”
She would have tried to hold him. Which was probably why Leo was so quick to run off. He didn’t want to be held. He wanted to kill the ogre. “Maybe he has a plan? Something he could only try by himself?”
“Or he’s just being stubborn and reckless again.”
Maybe. “But what can we do? I really don’t think any of us could even find him if he doesn’t want to be found. Maybe not even Tabitha.”
“Tabitha? The stitch-girl from that old dress shop? What does she have to do with anything?”
Archie then realized that he still had a lot more to tell Ainsley.
* * *
Leo carried a crumpled rat in his mouth—the root of all his trouble. But he should have known defeating his uncle would be no easy feat. The ogre could shift his form, and he could heal himself—he must have done it dozens of times. That’s why he was so deformed and looked so much like a monster, even in his human shape.
But the dog had run when the forest gnomes had shown up with iron nails, and the only thing that had ever hurt the ogre in a permanent way was Declan’s axe—that had to have been made of iron too, same as the knife Leo had once carried in his boot. Proper huntsmen always carried at least one small weapon crafted from iron when they went into the forest because of the fae. The magic his uncle had was similar.
But the cat couldn’t waste time to find iron now, and there was a very real possibility that it would hurt Leo too. That only left one sure option if he wanted to kill his uncle and protect his people before the ogre regained his strength. Leo had to leave his sister, the miller boy, and even Tabitha to return to the forest. He wasn’t entirely sure what would happen there, but he knew he couldn’t remain the way he was.
Proper princes always risked themselves for the good of their kingdom, and he had to see this through to the end, even if it caused him more pain.
The tabby cat darted around the thorn trees of the Darkwood until he made it back to the faerie ring, where he knew he would meet the same fae as before. He tossed the struggling rat into the ring. Inside his head, he triumphantly proclaimed Keagan Thornton Valandrian’s full name for the fae to hear. Sure, it meant the fae would be free of his cage, but at least Leo had kept his head enough to make certain that the fae wouldn’t be able to target his kingdom or his family in the same way the ogre had.
The only one who could still be cursed was Leo, and he was already a cat.
Leo didn’t look. He tried not to hear. But whatever happened to his uncle was brief, and when the fae emerged from the ring, his limp was gone. His emerald eyes were bright and seemed far more deadly than he had before.
