Page 63 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hari waited in a chair outside the library, a scared little smile on his face. She turned to Hector.

“I thought Tinbit would be in your workshop.”

“This is my workshop,” he said somewhat apologetically. “Once I created my staff, I didn’t need a full necomancy suite anymore, and my books migrated here, and so…”

Ida pushed the door open gently.

The fern sat on the stand, curled up into a brown, miserable ball in its pot.

She stared at it sadly, trying not to remember how it had reached for her.

She wanted to ask Hector if it was dead entirely, or if somehow, with enough care and fertilizer, it might come back from the roots.

Then she saw Tinbit. He sat by the fire, naked except for a towel over his shoulders.

It was warm in the room. She could smell him.

She glanced at Hector.

“The scent of decomposition will wear off,” he said. “The first few days are the worst.”

“Hari’s not with you, is he?” Tinbit said in a rusty, disused voice. “If he is, I’m not speaking to either of you.”

“Hari’s not with us,” Ida said.

Tinbit turned.

Ida tried not to gag.

His face looked melted. The skin hung limp and sallow over his cheekbones.

His eyebrows overshadowed most of his eyes, and they weren’t filled with life but shrunken and dried up.

His face slumped as he glared at her. Dismally, he tried to push it back up.

“Yes, I know I look bad,” he said. “Why do you think I didn’t want to see him? ”

Ida glanced at Hector again.

“It…should be better in a few days,” he said. “The longer between death and resurrection, the longer it takes the skin to go back to normal and—”

“You should’ve left me dead,” Tinbit growled.

“I couldn’t do that,” Hector said. “I owed you an explanation—”

“You could’ve explained it to my corpse!” He rubbed his slack face angrily. It oozed raw and red about the mouth and chin, like a scab. “He won’t want this. And I don’t want him to see it.”

Ida set her hand on Tinbit’s rotten one. “But he wants to see you. He has something he needs to say to you.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care anymore. Tell him death ruined my brain. Tell him I can’t remember him. Tell him not to care.”

“But he does care,” Ida said. “He’s waiting outside.”

“I don’t want to see him!”

“Tinbit, he won’t go, not without talking to you first.”

“Please, Tinbit,” Hector said. “I think you should see him. If you don’t want him to stay after that, I know he’ll go, but talk to him, please. I want you to.”

“Why should I do anything for you when you’ve done this to me? Leave, Hector. I only wanted to talk to Ida.”

“Very well.” Hector nodded to Ida before he left Tinbit and stepped out the door.

Tinbit stood and dropped the towel around his waist. She didn’t look down—the rest was surely as bad as his face.

“You have to tell him for me. I want him to understand why I can’t be with him.

This has to end here. And then I want you to take away his memories of me with a potion. Hector says he won’t do it.”

“What makes you think I will?”

“Because you love him. You don’t want him hurt either.”

She closed her eyes. “Tinbit—”

“Look at me!” Tinbit yelled. “Look at this! You don’t want this for him anymore than I do! I’m a rotting corpse—stinking, fallen apart, incapable of being the man he loved. The man he thought he loved.”

“Tinbit, he doesn’t care about that—”

“ I care! I don’t want to talk to him!”

Ida folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll make a deal with you, Tinbit. I’ll do what you ask—but only if you listen to him first and only if he wants the same. But he won’t. He loves you.”

“He can’t love this!” The corner of Tinbit’s mouth cracked and bled, a black stream running over his too-scarlet lip. He reached up and touched it gingerly. “How could anyone love this?”

She turned to the door, open a crack the way Hector had left it. “Hari, will you come in now?”

Tinbit jerked around in the chair. “No, wait—don’t—”

Hari entered, holding his hat in his hands, but he stopped halfway across the room when Tinbit glared at him.

“Well?” he said. “Didn’t they warn you?”

“Hector did. He said you weren’t yourself,” Hari said, sitting beside Tinbit and folding his hands in his lap. “But you’re alive, and that’s what matters. How are you feeling?”

“I’m not alive!” Tinbit yelled. “This is me—a dead man who has nothing to give you. I never should have written you that letter. I never should have loved you. I’m sorry.”

Hari glanced at Ida. “Okay, Tinbit. Maybe you shouldn’t have. And maybe I shouldn’t have done that, either, because if you knew what I really looked like, you’d have run.” He stiffened as Ida gently lifted the charm.

Hari’s handsome face slid away. The scars of his burning showed clearly—white, livid blazes and slashes across the pink-and-brown skin.

His eyelids had no lashes, his brows grew no hair, and his head was covered with bald patches where his hair would no longer grow.

His hands were equally horrible—fused skin between his fingers, missing nails.

He took Tinbit’s hand. “This is me,” he said, “a man who lied to you with a spell, who thought he could hold you because you loved beautiful things. I was scared to death when you said ‘I love you’ because I wasn’t the man you fell in love with.

That’s why I didn’t want to leave Ida. If I did, she couldn’t maintain the illusion, and when the spell was lifted, you’d see. You’d know I wasn’t beautiful.”

Tinbit reached out and touched Hari’s face. “I didn’t love you because you were beautiful. I love you because you said you loved me.”

Hari cupped his hand around Tinbit’s slack jaw. “You said it first.”

“Pretty sure it was you.”

“No, I’d never say that on the first date. I’d save it for the second one.”

Tinbit laughed. It sounded as rough as his voice and almost as angry, but instead of pulling away, he raised Hari’s mishappen hands to his cracked lips and kissed them. “I do love you,” he said. “I love you so much. I can’t ask you to stay.”

“Not a chance,” Hari said. “I kissed you raw trying to wake you from the dead, and now you’re back, I can’t let you go again.”

“Kissed me?”

“Probably about a hundred times. It works in all the stories.”

Tinbit chuckled. “When will you ever stop believing in happily-ever-after?”

“Never,” Hari said, leaning forward. He brushed the hair out of Tinbit’s face. “After all, I work for a good witch.” He glanced at Ida again as if asking for her permission.

Ida smiled encouragingly, although Hector’s heart felt tight and pained in her chest. She’d miss him. Oh, she’d miss him so much.

Hari’s mouth firmed. He dropped down on one knee in front of Tinbit. “Marry me.”

“Wha—”

“You heard me,” Hari said. “Marry me. And I want Ida, and Hector, and the dragons, and everyone to come to our wedding, because you are the most amazing man in the world, and I’m so lucky you love me.”

“Hari, I’m dead.”

“Well, we can hold the funeral and a wedding at the same time. Twice the food and twice the tears.”

Tinbit laughed so hard he cried. He hugged Hari, pressing his nose against Hari’s cheek. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, to eternity.”