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“What?” In a panic, Deepa covered her face with both hands, but her body felt unchanged. “You said the curse was broken!” she hissed to Roz and Appleton at the same time.

“It is,” Appleton said, though the confusion in his voice somewhat underwrote the confidence of his answer.

“It definitely is,” Roz promised. “Looks like your body’s just holding onto the echoes of it.”

“The magic in you now is entirely your own,” Appleton declared after a moment’s concentration. “Roz is likely correct. Whatever changes you may now experience will be entirely of your own doing.”

In wonderment, Deepa lifted one hand and stretched her fingers out until translucent claws emerged from their tips, wickedly sharp yet as painless as if she’d always had them. At the sight, Phillip swallowed a whimper, his eyes showing the whites all around as he scrambled back to his feet.

The claws made the hit that much more satisfying when she cracked him on the cheek, though she didn’t actually scratch him, with her fingers carefully curled and covered by her thumb. Roz gave a growl of approval at her fist and, reeling away,Phillip’s knees buckled. A terrified mewl escaped him before he realised she hadn't actually maimed him.

“Let this be a warning and a reminder,” Deepa told him, “to leave me and mine alone. Now, get out of my club, and don’t come back.”

Watching Appleton frog-march Phillip out of the club, flanked by Stu the security detail and Gary the manager was one of the better experiences of Deepa’s recent past, but it paled in comparison to having Roz back. They were engaged, they were demonstrably in love, and—

“Oh, I'm going to have to tell my mother about us,” Deepa realised.

“Is that good?” Roz asked, leaning into her.

“She’s going to be beside herself. We might not be able to get legally married, but you can rest assured she'll want to throw us the most lavish wedding you can imagine. Have you ever seen a Gujarati wedding?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“It will put any of your British royal weddings to shame. I wonder if Appleton would lend us a horse or two for the event…?”

“What did we miss?” Aaliyah demanded, barging into the club with the rest of her friends in tow. “You took off after the fight so quickly, we hung back to give you time to work out whatever you needed to do, but now it looks like we’ve missed the show. We just passed the Earl of Hertford marching that Etonborough away like he’d arrested the stupid git. What happened?”

“Phillip isn’t going to be a problem anymore,” Deepa said serenely, “and yes, Roz and I made up.”

“Made up,” Aaliyah repeated, clearly fishing for details.

“Your curse is broken!” Elizabeth exclaimed with a smile. “How did you manage that?”

“Like she said, we made up.” Roz’s smile was the smuggest Deepa had ever seen.

Bouncing up, Aaliyah clapped her hands together with a wicked grin. “Ha! Was it true love’s kiss after all? With your first ever woman, that you met because Jasmine and I took you out to a lesbian club? Where you were so doubtful you’d find anyone?”

“Yes, yes, credit where it's due,” Deepa said with a fond roll of her eyes.

“Congratulations,” Jasmine said warmly. “On the curse-breaking, and the…engagement?”

When Deepa flashed her ring, putting on airs as if it were a real diamond after all, her friends burst out in excited shouts and congratulations, cheering and swarming in to catch her in a group-hug.

“We’ll have to throw a party, obviously,” Aaliyah said, “for the curse and the ring and everything else. God, the one time I stay behind, trying to be polite—”

“You can air your grievances at the wedding,” Deepa told her cheerfully, ducking out of her friends’ embrace.

“I’ll be talking to your mother about helping her put that whole thing together, by the way,” Aaliyah warned. “Don’t think you can keep me out of the planning.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”

“Say,” Roz said with a wince, shifting against Deepa, “would you mind awfully if I sat down and got that ice back on me? It’s just, I’m starting to feel that fight, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to move tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Deepa said quickly. To her friends, she said, “As much as we have to catch up on, right now I would really like to call it a night and enjoy the rest of my evening with my new fiancée, now that I’m no longer at risk of turning into a cat. Roz? Let’s grab that ice and get you upstairs.”

With a pleased hum Deepa could feel in her bones, Roz gave her half her weight as they took their leave of the club. Behind them, The Songbird’s chatter and music and dim, smoky ambience faded away as Deepa gave her full attention to Roz, and the entire night they had ahead of them. Her flat was still smaller and shabbier than she would have liked, but she thought that with Roz in her bed, it might feel cosy more than anything. And with a year of Appleton’s employ to look forward to, she and Roz would easily be able to afford a place of their own, and have enough left over to see that her mother would be well-off, too.

As Deepa turned the key in the lock and stepped inside, Roz pressed herself to Deepa’s back, one cheek against her shoulder and her hands clasped around Deepa’s middle. When Deepa dropped her own hand to meet them, the bands of their rings clinked together. The ruby and blue stones caught the light when Deepa flicked the lamp on, a tiny glimmer of colour blending to dusktime-purple.

“I love you,” Deepa said aloud, just to see if she could. Her heart didn’t stop; her world didn’t end. As far as she could tell, she felt exactly as she had a minute earlier; a week earlier; as the first night she’d met Roz.

“I love you, too,” Roz said against her shoulder, kissing the back of her neck.

Turning to gather Roz into her arms, Deepa smiled and kicked the door shut behind them, blocking out The Songbird and all its patrons. They had no claim to her, and for the rest of the night, she wouldn’t pretend otherwise. She was Roz’s and Roz was hers, with no work or curses to distract or interrupt them. Wrapped around each other, they shed their clothes in a trail of silk and cotton on their way to the bedroom, and so busy were they that when midnight struck, neither one of them gave it the slightest notice.

The End