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Tabitha kept nearly a dozen cats, and at one point, Leo had known all of their names.
“But I do understand that most of my cats are . . . simple,” Tabitha continued. “They stay with me for simple reasons, and we share a simple sort of bond. It was the only sort of bond I thought I could manage for a time. But you were never so simple, and you stayed with me anyway.”
Of course he had stayed. She was an anchoring presence he had wanted to latch onto, even if all the details on how that feeling came into being were lost to him now.
Maybe she could explain those feelings to him?
His foot took another step toward her, a halting but involuntary force, and she smiled encouragingly. “So no, I did not know you as a prince or love you as a man when first we met, but I held some affection for you that grew in stages as I came to understand how magical and complex you are.”
Leo paused. “You learned who I was when Archie told you.”
“Yes, though you might recall that it did not take me long to accept his words, and I have seen you in this form several times since then.”
Leo took another step. “In our dreams.”
“And in the painted memories of your family.”
His family? Another flash of memory came with that thought. “So you know . . . I was a prince, but I wasn’t always very good or noble. Even when I wanted to heal our kingdom, I did it out of pride.”
She shook her head. “Only pride? You loved your mother and others who were lost.”
Was that true?
Yes, it was. He took another step, Tabitha smiling over his small efforts like he was a young child learning to walk. “And when you helped Archie, when you helped me, was that always out of pride?”
“Some of it was . . . with Archie.” But the thought made Leo smile.
There was nothing wrong with keeping a portion of his pride. He might not be himself without it.
“And with me?”
Never with her.
“You are magical and complex,” she said, rippling with satisfaction. “You were never only one thing, and the man I see now, I desire. I understand we still have a lot to learn about each other, and it could be that my love isn’t strong enough, but it’s more than strong enough for me to want to try.”
He closed the distance between them with a final, eager step. “You are brave. You are strong. You always help things become more beautiful than they are, and in my dreams . . . even with all the magic here . . . I always wanted to return and stay with you.”
She reached out her hand, now only a few inches from his. “Will you let me take you home?”
His fingers fluttered in agreement, but he resisted for another moment. This was important. “You must hold on to me. The magic—it might not want to let me go.”
The Fae Queen had explained to him that the latent magic given to him by her errant grandson still made Leo a shifter and partly under the fae prince’s control—Pan’dryn had placed him within the queen’s court and continued to use this bond to spy on her over the past few years. The queen promised she could hold Pan’dryn off and prevent him from directly retaliating, but if Leo tried to leave, the latent magic would resurface, and he would be lost without another strong bond to counteract it and lead him home.
Tabitha nodded. “Hold on to me, and I will hold on to you.”
Leo took her offered hand. She gave him a gentle squeeze before walking back toward the forest path and Castletown. He followed her step for step, picking around the forest underbrush, but then he noticed the gray cat at her feet, and his stomach dropped.
The colors blurred.
“You are a cat,” came the familiar voice inside his mind. He couldn’t fight it.
The old panic resurfaced, tempting him to flee.
But Tabitha was still holding his hand—his paw. She scrambled to catch and support his back feet as he started to fall. She knew who he was and seemed determined to hold him, even if she was now carrying him in her arms.
“That’s the magic, isn’t it?” Tabitha said, like it was only natural. “It doesn’t matter. If you want to be a cat, you can be a cat. I will take you home, regardless,” she told him, and he believed it was true.
Being a cat would limit their relationship significantly, but Tabitha would still accept it if that was what he wanted.
