Chapter Five

Two days. Three days. Four days. Kiki left Nicole’s side only long enough to ensure the kids were where they were supposed to be throughout the day. Instead of his normal routine, he spent all his time picking apart the spell on Nicole, trying to analyze the various components and understand how the two separate spells had combined.

Five days. Six days. Gabriel and Sean had almost totally taken over watching the kids at this point. They woke the kids up, got them to and from lessons, and oversaw chores. Kiki still organized meals, but he didn’t eat with them. He needed, needed, to be with Nicole.

Kiki was making progress. Since he knew what Gabriel had cast, process of elimination had isolated Nicole’s spell. At its most basic, Nicole had cast a protection spell meant to redirect Gabriel’s spell away from everyone. It had instead morphed into the key to break the spell, but that key was still eluding Kiki.

Day seven dawned without an answer. Kiki couldn’t remember the last time he slept. Had it been two days ago? Maybe. He did remember a vague nightmare where Nicole was begging Kiki for help, screaming from down a dark hole deep underground, but no matter what Kiki did, he couldn’t reach Nicole. Sleeping hadn’t really been an option after that.

A soft knock came from the open door behind Kiki. “Any luck?” Sean asked gently.

“Not since the last time you asked,” Kiki replied and was surprised how much his voice creaked with disuse. “It doesn’t seem to have any correlation with Gabriel’s spell, but we know it must somehow. A spell to put someone permanently to sleep, a protective key to wake them up, and yet they just don’t seem to match.”

Sean frowned. “There must be something. How would you wake someone up normally? I saw you wake the kids. Gentle calling, sunlight, sometimes a push to get them moving.”

“All of which I inadvertently tried about thirty seconds after the spell was cast,” Kiki replied, half scathingly to himself because he had tried them all again not so long ago. “Besides, what do those methods have to do with magic?”

“Magic is always about intent. It’s intent that shapes the spells, and sometimes you can use gestures to help the magic understand your intent. Point to a door to tell the door to open, squint at a tree to tell the magic you want to see far into the distance. What intentional action would you use to wake someone up? Particularly someone you love?”

Kiki didn’t have an answer to that. No one had ever loved him before, even prior to his curse. People had slept with him. Men and women, all of whom were eager for some favor or recognition, but love was out of his reach.

Sean apparently gave up waiting for an answer. “Take a break,” he insisted. “Go get a bath and a change of clothes so you’re presentable when the kids come down to the kitchen for breakfast.”

A bath was probably a good idea, Kiki had to admit, but he was so close to figuring out Nicole’s curse. He didn’t want to leave Nicole’s side until he had the answer, but Sean was right: a break might refocus his thoughts. Kiki forced his aching knees to take his weight, and after one last look at Nicole’s sleeping face, he shuffled out of the room, through the sitting room where Gabriel nodded solemnly to him, and on toward his own room.

Kiki walked into his dressing room where he took off his dirty clothes, dropped them in the hamper for washing day, and pulled out a fresh set to leave on his bed for after his bath. The rose was still glowing in the back of the room, but another petal had fallen down and blackened. The loss of the petal coincided with the increased ache in his joints, and Kiki knew it was a bad sign for him, but it was a worse sign for Nicole. If Kiki didn’t save Nicole before the last petal fell, there was no telling whether Sean and Gabriel would take over where Kiki had left off. Kiki was honestly surprised they had stayed so long, although they seemed comfortable enough in the guest room they had commandeered.

The bathing room was tiled and clean, mostly thanks to magic rather than Kiki actually cleaning it as often as he ought to, but it was almost a relief after all the time spent in Nicole’s darkened room. He turned the taps to hot and gladly sank into the tub as it filled. It was wonderful to feel the grease and grime leave his hair as Kiki soaped it as best he could, then dunked his head under the water to rinse it out. He started cleaning the rest of his body next, and only once he was fully clean did he relax in the hot water and see about soaking some of the aches out.

What action did someone take to gently wake someone they loved? Sean’s question echoed unhappily in Kiki’s thoughts, circling now the distraction of holding onto a bar of soap with fingers that struggled to grip was over. Probably not throwing open the shades to let in sunlight, nor yanking the covers off their bodies to force them to get up. What would Sean and Gabriel do? They seemed like a happy couple, so Kiki wondered how Sean would wake Gabriel in the morning. Sex? No, there might be sex in the morning, but there were things that happened before sex to get the mood going that would certainly wake a person up prior to the act itself.

A gentle caress? But Kiki had done that every time a bit of Nicole’s hair had slipped over his forehead. A hug? No, Kiki had hugged Nicole right after the spell had hit, and that hadn’t worked. So, what then? What else did couples do?

They kissed. A kiss! Of course! Curses loved to have true love’s kiss as their key. Finding someone who truly loved you, despite all odds against you, was nearly impossible. It was why Kiki was slowly dying as his rose died, because there would never be someone who loved him enough to want to kiss him. But Nicole was so easy to love.

Kiki erupted from his bath, barely remembering to grab a towel as he sprinted as fast as his legs could take him out of his room, through the sitting room, and back to Nicole’s side. He sat awkwardly on the edge of Nicole’s bed and stared down at Nicole’s beautiful face.

Could it really be that easy? There was only one way to find out. Hoping Nicole wouldn’t be upset with Kiki for daring to be so forward, Kiki carefully bent so he could press his lips to Nicole’s in a chaste kiss. Kiki tried to fill the kiss with intent, as if he were using magic instead of body contact, pushing his desperate wish for Nicole to wake into the brief moment of lips touching lips.

For the first long moment nothing happened, and Kiki began to despair. Except, Nicole suddenly gasped. Kiki quickly drew back and let out his own happy gasp to see Nicole’s eyes open and aware.

“You kissed me?” Nicole asked softly. His voice didn’t sound like it had been a week since he had spoken, but he didn’t sit up, so he must be feeling some aftereffects.

“I’m sorry. It was the only way to wake you up,” Kiki admitted. He was prepared for Nicole to tell him off, to yell at him or force him to leave, but instead, Nicole smiled.

“You taught me intent shapes the magic. When I dove in front of that spell, I wanted to save you from the spell, and also from your curse. I knew intent would make it so when you found the solution to my curse, you would also find the solution to yours.”

“True love’s kiss is not so easy a solution for me,” Kiki replied automatically, ready to explain that no one could ever love someone like him. Yet, something in Nicole’s smile kept those words from being said out loud.

Nicole slowly sat up until they were face-to-face. “It really is,” Nicole murmured.

Suddenly, Nicole’s lips were pressed against Kiki’s in a reverse of just a few minutes ago. Nicole was kissing Kiki! Kiki wanted to savor the press of lips on lips, wanted to push forward to beg for more, but his chest abruptly started burning.

It felt like his lungs were on fire. Kiki fell back from Nicole with a desperate gasp for air, but the burning sensation only spread. His arms and legs were tingling with it, the muscles contracting wildly, and he fell off the bed onto the floor where he could curl up into a ball around the flames trying to burst out of his chest.

It seared through his throat like he was about to spit fire, and then down his spine like a hot poker, and then his face started pulling like it was melting. Someone was yelling something nearby, and Kiki could feel multiple people kneeling at his side, but thankfully, no one tried to touch. He didn’t want them hurt as the spell that had turned him into a beast completed by apparently killing him.

Kiki didn’t know how long it took the burning sensation to ebb, nor when his muscles stopped making his limbs flail, just that one moment he was writhing in pain, and the next he was lying on the ground, panting for breath.

“Kiki!” Nicole’s voice seemed to come from a long way off, as if Kiki’s ears were down a long tunnel. “Kiki?” he repeated, and this time Kiki’s ears worked because Nicole sounded like he was sitting right next to Kiki on the floor.

“Nic—” he stuttered, unable to get the full name out through a throat parched from screaming and fire.

“I’m right here, Kiki. You’re going to be okay.”

He was using Kiki’s name. How many decades had it been “Master” instead?

“Wha—happ—” Kiki’s throat closed up and he started coughing.

Someone scrambled away and then back. A cup full of water was thrust into view a second later. Kiki reached out to take it, his hands still shaking with the aftereffects of whatever the hell that episode was. His fingers gripped the cup, and he somehow managed to get it up to his mouth for a sip without spilling it. Kiki brought the cup back down, setting it onto the floor, and his fingers uncurled.

It took a minute for Kiki’s frazzled brain to realize what he had just done. His mangled fingers had just gripped a cup without any issues! He brought his hand closer to his face, and this time it was shaking for an entirely different reason.

His fingers were straight, and Kiki made a fist and his knuckles closed all the way. The knobbles on each knuckle, the scars that had pulled the skin taut—they were gone! Kiki let out a sobbing breath, and his beautiful, perfect hand lifted slowly, hesitantly, as if he didn’t quite dare, and yet Kiki had to know. His fingers brushed down a smooth cheekbone, then up over his nose and across his forehead where the largest scar had pulled the skin on his face sideways, but nothing except a bit of morning stubble stopped his fingers’ progress.

Kiki looked frantically up at Nicole, knowing his own eyes were wide with shock and his mouth hung helplessly open. Nicole’s eyes were shining with happiness and unshed tears, and he was smiling so widely his jaw had to hurt, but he was so amazingly beautiful.

“You—” Kiki began, but the words still wouldn’t come. “I’m—”

Nicole reached out and gently gripped Kiki’s still-trailing hand in his own. Nicole kissed the back, his lips soft against skin that actually had the sensitivity to feel the feathery brush.

“True love’s kiss, Kiki.”

“You love me?” Kiki finally got words out, and he hated that he sounded so incredulous when Nicole looked so happy. Yet, there was no denying that before all this happened, Nicole had been pulling away. A distance that had seemed unsurmountable had appeared between them and had only kept growing.

Nicole let out a tear-shuddery laugh. “I was so disappointed in myself, you see. I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you my feelings, so I had to distance myself from you to keep from doing something that would hurt you. That’s why I started calling you ‘Master.’ I swore I would break your curse, because only then would you be able to look beyond your cage and see me waiting for you.”

Kiki let out his own broken laugh. “I believed you were worth more than a broken, defeated man. One day, I knew you would find someone better for you than me. I hated the distance, but I understood why.”

“But that wasn’t why!” Nicole cut in. “It was because I couldn’t hurt you, not until I knew you would believe me. Do you believe me now?”

Kiki looked at his hand, still clasped in Nicole’s. The smooth, youthful flesh unmarred by the scars of his curse, a curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss. The evidence was clear; Kiki had to believe Nicole.

“You love me?” Kiki repeated.

“I do,” Nicole answered without pause. “Do— Do you love me?”

Kiki grinned at Nicole, and the feel of his mouth stretching like it was supposed to was almost as wonderful as Nicole’s own smile.

“I do,” Kiki replied softly.

This time when their lips met, there wasn’t any pressure of ending a terrible curse. No one woke up suddenly; Kiki’s body didn’t burst into flames. Instead it was just the press of flesh against flesh, heated by the wonder of the knowledge that Nicole loved him.