Chapter 18
In the Lap of Morpheus
L eopold Tamias Lynister.
It wasn’t a summoning, but Leo heard the name as he walked the woods. Something was still trying to call him back to the palace and the life he lived before.
But that wasn’t who he was anymore.
He was Leo, and he was Tom, and he was determined to follow his dream girl and find his path home.
When the Fae Queen had left, and Tabitha had been banished from her presence, the world around her had gone dark. Like the Queen had carried away all the light with her. Tabitha tightened her grip on her cat in surprise, and he mewed a protest. “It’s all right,” she said, just as much for her own benefit as for the cat. “We’ll be all right.”
Tabitha still didn’t know if her words were true, but she refused to give into fear. She might not be able to find Tom, but Tom was looking for her too, wasn’t he?
And if the Queen had removed her claim, then there had to be a way for Tabitha to invite Tom to come to her instead. She might still have some of her own magic, her own belief. Light creeped into her vision again at the thought. She pictured one of the places where they met in their dreams, where the surreal beauty of the Fae Courts gave way to thorn trees with discolored bark and a variety of mortal imperfections.
“Tom,” she said as she sat on a fallen log, holding a fluffy gray cat and humming a familiar tune to comfort herself. “Please come.”
Then she heard his voice. “Tabitha. You’re here.”
Tom. She wanted to run to him at once, but he seemed so surprised. How much had he forgotten? She released the cat and stood, straightening her simple skirt. “I’ve been out here to see you several times. Do you remember?”
Tom frowned, showing his continued confusion and hesitancy.
The few steps between them could have been a thousand, the air too thick to cross.
She sighed. “I’m not surprised. When I saw you last, I still thought it might have been a dream.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out what was left inside. The missing bead. “But the new marquis, Archie, said I might be able to help you find your way home, and I would like to try. If you would let me . . .”
She reached out her right hand, her left still holding the bead, but Tom recoiled. “Why did you come?”
“Because you are my friend.” Surely he knew that at least.
He shook his head. “That isn’t enough. I can only be released if your love is true, and you could not have fallen in love with a cat.”
She lowered her hand, laughing. The errant sound stood in discord with the somberness of the moment, but with everything else going on, a girl falling in love with a cat seemed rather unremarkable. And a girl falling in love with an enchanted prince? With Tom? That should be the most natural thing in the world. “And why is that? I fall in love with cats quite frequently. They became my family after my human family became lost to me. You know about that.”
Tom frowned, unsure. But then he looked at the fluffy gray cat at her feet, who seemed to blink in confirmation. That seemed to help.
He must remember being with her as a cat at least, and she could build on that.
“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.”
That did it. At least Tom’s 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.” Perhaps not many girls could have fallen in love with someone they only knew as a cat, but it seemed impossible for Tabitha to avoid falling in love with Tom.
Tom 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.”
He took another step. “In our dreams.”
“And in the painted memories of your family.” He had to remember his own family.
But the idea made him frown. “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.”
This might have been an assumption on her part, but the words rang true.
He took another step, and Tabitha couldn’t help but smile over his small efforts. It seemed that they were rebuilding his memories together piece by piece, step by step, like assisting a child learning to walk, but perhaps that was what he needed to restore what he lost. And perhaps she could help him build another name and identity for himself that even the Fae Queen couldn’t touch.
“And when you helped Archie, when you helped me, was that always out of pride?”
“Some of it was . . . with Archie.” But that made Tom smile. And Tabitha loved that smug smirk because she knew it was Tom’s own.
“And with me?”
Tom didn’t answer; the strength of his denial was so great.
She could feel it with the sound of two hearts beating as one.
“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. “You must hold on to me. The magic—it might not want to let me go.”
Tabitha nodded. She knew the Queen would not have made it easy. “Hold on to me, and I will hold on to you.”
Tom 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 the gray cat standing by his feet made him pause.
His grip on her hand shifted, loosening, but Tabitha would not let go. He became a cat—a brown tabby. She scrambled to catch and support his back feet as he started to fall. She knew who he was and was determined to hold him, even if she was now carrying him in her arms.
“That’s the magic, isn’t it?” Tabitha said, reasoning that she should have expected such a thing. They were still under the magical influence of the Fae Realm, and Tom was still a cat in so many ways. “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, trying to believe that it was true. Being a cat would limit their relationship significantly, but Tabitha would still accept it if that was what he wanted.
They made it a few more steps, but even as Tom started to settle into her arms, the magic worked on him again.
He grew, becoming a lion larger than a bear.
Tabitha staggered. She trembled and buckled under his weight. Bandit fled from them. A feral part of her wanted to flee as well. Tom was huge.
After leaving her first home with her mother, Tabitha had taken in dozens of strays that were simpler and weaker than her, loving them the best she could. Trying to love someone who might not need her, risking her heart to someone who could truly break it, was something new.
And in that way, she might have been too much like the Fae Queen, which could have led the Queen to believe Tabitha would fail this final test.
Calling herself unworthy wouldn’t help him. She couldn’t love Tom and flinch from him at the same time. She had known that Tom’s pride made it difficult for him to accept her help. She had not realized that her fear and self-deprecation could be a similar barrier—perhaps even the opposite side of the same coin. But Tabitha wanted Tom to be as strong as he could be, and she had to trust that the same love she wanted to give him was what he wanted to give her in return—another dream she couldn’t grant without granting a few of her own.
A dream that required two dreamers to meet as one.
Tabitha shifted her hold, moving her arms out from under his legs and on to his neck—his mane.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t need you to be small. You can be any size you choose—cat or prince or king of beasts. You will still be my Tom and my Leo. And if I can’t carry you, then you will carry me.” She climbed onto his back, pretending that she had always belonged there.
She did belong there. Tom seemed happy to carry her. He wanted their bond to continue, and so did she. Even Bandit returned to walking at their side.
Tom continued a few more steps, looking at his front paws as they crushed through the forest loam. She giggled when his form shifted again, becoming some kind of ape.
Tom looked like he wanted to laugh too. And it was such a relief to know with sudden certainty that while the love between them might still be new and blindingly difficult, their foundational friendship was still as simple as simple could be.
They could do this. They were getting so close.
The process continued. Tom became cats of every size. He became a bull, a rat, and for one bizarre moment, a waddling bird with black-and-white feathers. Sometimes, he was small, and Tabitha carried him. Sometimes, he was large, and he carried her.
And they left the forest as two humans, a man and a woman, holding hands together.