‘What did I tell you about how I feel about liars? I don’t even know where you really live.’

‘The person you know is the real me,’ he said, sincerity radiating from every pore. ‘No pretense.’

‘Where do you live? Is it really Seattle, like the book jackets say?’

He had a great line in chagrined. ‘Actually, Detroit.’ She flinched. ‘I hate Detroit. We spent three very bad years there.’

‘We’ll move.’

She shook her head. ‘You really think it’s that easy?’

‘We really can travel. You can paint whatever or wherever you want. I’ll hold your paint box. And think about it. I’m the perfect person to show you how to share your art without paying for it.’ He leaned so close she could almost taste the perspiration that beaded on his upper lip. ‘Dee, I can take care of your sisters. You never have to worry about them again.’

She just shook her head, beyond words. ‘You said you loved me,’ he said.

Oh, why did he have to sound so uncertain? He didn’t deserve to be forgiven yet. But she couldn’t bear to hear that vulnerability.

‘I love you so much that for the first time in my life I made love to a man as me,’ she said. ‘Then it shouldn’t matter.’

That brought Dee’s eyes open again. ‘It does.’ It was all she could do to stay strong. ‘I can’t be in a relationship without honesty. I can’t give everything and then get my lover in considered bits and pieces.’

‘Your husband’s.’

‘You’re not paying attention. I think you should leave now, and think about what you want from us. I know what I want. I want it all. I want all of you. I won’t settle for less.’

‘You’ll have it!’

‘Don’t make promises you haven’t figured out how to keep.’ This time when she pulled, he let her go. ‘I’d rather you weren’t here when I try and explain this to my sisters.’

She could just hear Mare’s reaction. You threw him out because you found out he’s richer than God? Oh, yeah. That’s thinking.

Danny cupped her face in his hands. ‘Promise you’ll be here when I get back.’

She couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing eyes. For the first time, she saw no humor in them. It was enough. ‘I’ll be here.’

It wasn’t until she’d let him out the front door that she took in her first real breath. Then, where nobody could see her, she allowed herself a slow smile. Life was very, very good.


Waking up with Crash in the sunlight inspired Betty Crocker fantasies in Mare.

‘I could be a wife,’ she told him, lying on her stomach with her chin in her hand, staring at her new beautiful footboard as the Sunday sunshine poured through the window, warming her naked body and making the butterflies on the drapes glitter. ‘I could be a barefoot wife and learn to cook.’

‘A barefoot wife with a blue butterfly on her ass,’ Crash said, tracing the round wings of the new tat on her tailbone with his fingertip. ‘This works for me.’

‘It’s black, not blue,’ Mare said transferring her attention to other renovations. ‘You know, the flowers I painted never went back to the drapes. They’re all over the floor and the sheets now, they never went back. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t fly like the gold butterflies.’

‘This butterfly is blue,’ Crash said, letting his finger drift lower.

‘Hey, it’s Sunday,’ Mare said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Show some respect.’ She sat up and craned her neck, trying to see her new tattoo. ‘I saw it when Mother was done with it. It was black.’

‘It’s blue now, like your magic,’ Crash said, looking at her breasts.

‘You are entirely too predictable,’ Mare said, and got off the bed to try to see the tattoo in the newly cleared cheval mirror.

It was blue. The black outline was still there, but now it was filled with blue. The color of her magic. ‘Huh. Maybe the magic changed it. Maybe something happened last night-’

‘Come here,’ Crash said.

‘I think I should make breakfast,’ Mare said, her hands on her hips. A good wife makes breakfast for her man. I could start with toast and work up.’

‘I think we should make something else,’ Crash said. ‘I could start with your toes and work up.’

‘Okay,’ Mare said.

An hour and a half later, Mare was down in the kitchen wearing an apron over the long striped skirt she’d made for the movie that night – Victoria from Corpse Bride, since Sophie had no good clothes in Howl’s Moving Castle - and doing her damnedest to fix toast. Setting the toaster on ‘5’ turned out to be a bad idea, since it meant darker not faster – ‘You’re not going to eat that,’ she told Crash when he looked manfully ready to consume charcoal for her – so she sent him out into the dining room with orange juice while she dialed the toaster back to ‘2’ and tried again. But when she went out to the dining room with a plate of reasonably golden buttered squares of hot bread, she found Jude alone in the dining room with Py hissing at his feet.

‘Ciao, Mare,’ he said, smiling, but she scowled at him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, putting the plate on the table. ‘Where’s Crash?’

‘He had to go,’ Jude said. ‘I came because I have to talk to you.’

‘No you don’t. You’re a minion. Where did he have to go?’

‘It’s about Xan,’ Jude said and Mare paid attention. ‘We belong together, Mare.’

Mare frowned. ‘You and Xan?’

‘No. You and me.’ He took a step closer and Py snarled so he took a step back. ‘Xan cast a True Love Spell, Mare.’

Mare nodded. ‘I know. Where’s Crash?’

‘She cast a spell to bring the three of you, the Fortune sisters, your True Loves. That’s how Danny found Dee and Elric found Lizzie. And that’s how I found you, Mare. You can’t argue with a True Love Spell.’

‘I can argue with anything,’ Mare said. ‘As for my True Love, you are not it. Now where the hell is Crash?’

Py hissed again, and this time Mare heard a faint but angry croaking.

‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she said to the cat, and then looked under the table.

A frog sat there, panting hard, or maybe it was pulsating, Mare was not up on her Frog Basics. Py was in front of her, but just as Mare moved to scoop him up and save the frog, she realized that Py was standing between Jude and the frog, growling at Jude.

‘Nice kitty,’ Jude said.

‘Not even close.’ Mare got down on her knees and picked up the frog. ‘We don’t usually get frogs-’

The frog’s eyes were bright blue, like the Italian sky.

Mare surged to her feet, the frog cupped in her hands. ‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed at Jude.

Jude blinked in fake innocence. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mare wheeled and ran for Lizzie’s room, her fingers curled protectively around Crash who croaked his fury.


Lizzie was lying sideways across the tattered bed. She opened one eye very slowly. She could hear the wind outside, and it was so dark she had no idea what time of day it was. Not that she cared.

She started to stretch, then realized one wrist was still tied to the iron bedpost with a purple silk scarf. She sat up, looking for Elric, and she grinned.

He was still on the floor, sound asleep, looking as if he’d been hit by a truck. Not mashed by a truck, fortunately. Very little could tarnish his physical beauty. But something had managed to drain every last vestige of energy from him, and the delightful thing was, it had been her. Them.

And the libido spell had worn off hours before they’d gotten to silk bondage. She looked down at him fondly. They were going to have a really good time in Toledo.

They’d lost his heavy silver earring somewhere in the bed – she needed to find it when she recovered her energy. An overenthusiastic bite on his ear and she’d almost swallowed it. He’d laughed, tried to put it in her ear, and then they’d gotten distracted once more and forgotten all about it.

She could hear her sisters moving around in the living room. Dee would probably think twice about marching in here unannounced – in his current state of happy exhaustion she doubted Elric would have the energy to shield his presence, and she really didn’t like the idea of her sisters seeing Elric at his finest. He was hers, and for the first time in her life she wasn’t going to share.

She untied her wrist and slid off the bed, kneeling down on the floor beside him. He opened his eyes.

‘Not asleep,’ he murmured. ‘Dead.’

She bent to kiss him, but a pounding on the door made her jerk back, Elric catching her in his arms.

‘Lizzie,’ Mare screamed, and pounded again. ‘Lizzie, please, PLEASE!’ And Lizzie grabbed the purple sheet from underneath the bed where it had landed hours earlier, wrapped it around her body, toga-style, and stumbled to the door to face her sister.


Mare heard Jude behind her, but she ignored him to beat on Lizzie’s door with her fist. ‘Lizzie, I need you RIGHT NOW, Please, please, PLEASE-’

Lizzie opened the door wrapped in a purple sheet looking flushed and rumpled and annoyed.

Mare stuck the Crash frog out at her. ‘Turn him back. Please, please turn him back. I love him. Please, please, God, Lizzie, you have to.’

‘I have no idea what she’s talking about,’ Jude said from behind her.

Lizzie looked closer at the frog. ‘Put him on the floor,’ she said, no longer angry.

Mare swallowed and put Crash on the floor. ‘Oh, God, Lizzie.’

‘Step back,’ Lizzie said.

Mare stepped back, hating to leave him so exposed.

Lizzie looked down and took a deep breath and raised her encircled arms.