“I apologize,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He smoothed a hand up and down her back to keep her warm, watching her face to make sure he wasn’t increasing her plant affinity as he had when he’d kissed her thirty years before. His touch magic had drawn hers out, and she’d been stuck in between being human and tree. He hadn’t known what to do.
Baba had made him prune Abigail to free her. He’d felt each slice of his knife as acutely as if someone had been cutting him. More than anything, he’d wanted to gather her up in his arms and comfort her afterward, but he couldn’t do so without drawing out her magic again.
Now as she leaned against him, he hoped he wouldn’t accidentally make her grow uncontrollably again. He didn’t want to make her worse. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.
She drew in a quavering breath.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She still didn’t answer. Her green eyes were wide with wonder. She looked at him no differently than the trees or the stars. Tears filled her eyes, and her breath hitched in her chest.
“It’s all right. You’re awake, and we’re together again.” Except he wondered whether it was all right. Now that she was awake, what would Baba do?
Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares, who had transformed him into a cat to manipulate him into returning, wouldn’t be pleased. She had promised to teach him the magic necessary to awaken Abigail after he had finished his apprenticeship. But he hadn’t been able to wait, not with the way Baba used Abigail’s body parts to fuel her spells. With each toe Baba had cut away, Lucifer felt part of himself dying. Each time she had wounded Abigail, Lucifer had worked to restore her with magic.
Now that Abigail was awake, Lucifer hoped Baba would stop stealing Abigail’s fingers and toes. She couldn’t use the excuse that Abigail couldn’t feel the pain.
On the other hand, Baba would punish Lucifer for stealing the bottle where she’d kept Abigail’s soul and disobeying her. It was possible she would punish him through Abigail.
A breathy sigh escaped Abigail’s lips. “Lucy.”
Hearing his name on her lips filled him with such joy, he grinned like a fool.
Lucifer kissed the tears from her freckled cheeks. He wanted to reassure her as much as he craved to be reassured. When he pressed his lips to hers, he tasted the strawberry he’d bitten into earlier. She made a little noise of protest and pulled away. She turned her face from his, gasping for air.
“I suppose you might need to breathe. Sorry.” He stroked her hair. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
She drew her knees up to her chest and sniffled. He realized then her expression didn’t mirror his own joy.
“What is it, Abby?”
Her face pinched up, and she started to sob.
Baba’s voice sounded brittle, coming from behind him. Her Russian accent was thicker than ever in her anger. “Lucy, what kind of foolish thing have you done now?”
Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares, hobbled closer.
“I haven’t done anything foolish. I woke up Abby.” He circled an arm around her shoulder protectively.
Abigail squirmed him away and began to wail. He stared at her in astonishment. She was supposed to be happy to see him. Why wasn’t she smiling?
Whatever he’d done, he was certain he should have listened to Baba.
CHAPTER TWO
The Physics of Souls
Lucifer couldn’t comprehend Abigail’s reaction. He didn’t sense any pain radiating from her. Perhaps a little bit of hunger and thirst, but that was minor. She had all her fingers and toes the last time he’d checked. He couldn’t understand what ailed her.
It had to be Baba. Abigail was in shock and adjusting to returning to her body. Baba was the last sight anyone would want to see—let alone by someone who feared having her toes mutilated for Baba’s spells.
Baba’s long nose and the wart on her pointed chin wasn’t exactly an endearing sight. She hobbled closer, using her cane to help her.
“What did you do to her that I don’t know about?” Lucifer snarled. His fingers itched for action. If he had been a cat, his claws would have extended. “Did you hex her? Curse her?”
Baba clucked her tongue at him. “I did nothing. This is all you and your foolishness.”
She shuffled forward in her unhurried pace. Lucifer placed himself between Abigail and the old hedge witch. Without his arm supporting her, Abigail flopped over onto her side on the wooden bed he’d constructed. She curled into a ball and continued to cry, pushing away cushions of moss and strawberry vines.
Baba plucked the tiny bottle out of the blanket of strawberries and held it up to the moonlight. The shimmering green magic that had been Abigail’s soul was now absent.
She shook her head. “Such a waste.”
“What is such a waste?” Lucifer’s heart seized in his chest. Had he truly performed the spell wrong? That would explain Abigail’s reaction. But he had followed the directions of the spell. He’d performed the exercises correctly.
Baba didn’t answer. She shuffled into the house.
Abigail tried to roll away from him. She would have fallen off the wooden pallet, but Kelsie dove forward to catch her. He hadn’t even realized Baba’s other apprentice was nearby, but then it made sense if Baba had returned.
Kelsie was a tall young woman, seventeen if she had told him the truth, though her baby face looked younger. She was slender like a beanpole. Her shock of blue hair was short and brilliant, even in the moonlight. He’d learned she was a wind affinity—the hard way—after insulting her.
Her youthful face was full of concern. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything. Why would you think I did something?” Irritation needled under his skin. He didn’t know whom he was more irritated with, Kelsie or himself.
“Well, she is crying.” Kelsie patted Abigail’s back and tried to cover her nudity with the blanket, but too many strawberry vines had woven through the fabric for it to move.
Abigail squirmed away from Kelsie.
He lowered his voice. “Did Baba curse her to punish me?”
Kelsie bit her lip, uncertainty in her expression.
“Nyet,” Baba called from inside the cottage. “Your deeds reap their own consequence without me adding to your burden.”
He whispered, though it was likely Baba heard him anyway. “How’d Baba know what I was up to?”
“We were relaxing in the hot springs when she had a vision.” Kelsie grimaced. “She made me carry her back. She’s a lot heavier than she looks.” She slugged him in the arm. “Now I feel like my back is broken, thanks to you.”
Baba shuffled out of the cottage, bringing a bundle with her. She soaked a cloth in a bowl and touched the fabric to Abigail’s lips. Immediately, Abigail silenced. She sucked on the cloth.
“What kind of potion is that?” Lucifer asked.
“It is not potion.” Baba dipped the cloth back into the bowl. “It is water.”
“What?” he asked. “How could that make her stop crying?”
“She is thirsty and hungry. She is like baby and needs bottle.” Baba shoved the bowl into his hands, sloshing some of the contents onto him.
Lucifer stared at her incredulously. “But I thought when I put her soul back into her body she would be restored.”
“Had you waited for me to show you, da. But you divide pelt of bear before you catch it like a knave. Did I not tell you she would be like baby if you restored soul too soon, and she would be burden? Now you will see for yourself.” She threw up her hands in exasperation.
Lucifer’s shoulders slumped. Baba had told him, but he’d believed she had said that to try to thwart him.
Abigail whimpered.
Lucifer brought the cloth to her lips. “How long will she be like this?”
“How long will she be baby?” Baba harrumphed. “That depends on how much skill
or lack of you used when putting soul back.”
“There is hope, then?” He placed a hand on Abigail’s back, the trembling in his fingers belying his fear.
“Hope? Pah! I told you if you had to care for her you would fall out of love,” Baba said. “Now you get to see I speak truth.”
CHAPTER THREE
Baby Steps
The idea that he would stop loving Abigail was preposterous.
Lucifer carried Abigail inside the cottage and sat her at the table where he continued to dip the cloth into the bowl of water. She couldn’t sit up on her own, but she managed to grab onto the cloth with enough strength he could hardly pry it from her fingers to dip it back into the bowl. She cried out in anguish each time he did. It pained him to hear her cry so pathetically.
Abigail struggled as Kelsie and Lucifer tried to dress her in a nightgown. All she wanted was water. She was a wild thing not anything like the Abigail Lucifer had known. He didn’t think his heart could break any more than it already had, but seeing her like this crushed his spirit more than it had seeing her as a tree.
At least she’d been content as a tree.
“She will need more than water.” Baba nodded to the pan of congealed fat and broth that she had insisted on saving from dinner. “Good thing my intuition had told me guest would need leftovers for later.”
Kelsie stepped over to the pan and heated up the renderings without being told. Lucifer flashed a grateful smile at her. There was a price for uttering words of gratitude in the Faerie Realm, and he was careful to keep his appreciation from his tongue.
Kelsie was too busy gawking at Abigail to even look at him. She added water to the broth and ladled it into a bowl, continually glancing at her. Lucifer blew on the broth and tried feeding Abigail with a spoon, but she got as much on her as she swallowed. Kelsie fashioned a bib for her out of a towel.
Abigail opened her mouth for more and whimpered when he didn’t respond quickly enough. He spooned soup into her mouth. More of it dribbled down her chin. Melancholy settled into Lucifer’s heart as he witnessed her ineptness.
Kelsie nudged him. “You have to show her how to eat first.”
He set down the bowl on the table. “How would you know how to feed someone?”
“I had a baby brother once.” Her voice was quiet.
In his own body, he felt a phantom pain in his throat, reflecting Kelsie’s anguish as her words caught like barbs. He was careful not to look at her. She was already prickly enough.
Kelsie picked up the spoon and pretended to eat. “This is how you close your mouth around the spoon so the broth doesn’t fall out.” She talked kindly to Abigail, far more nicely than she had ever spoken to him.
Lucifer supposed he was grateful for that too.
When Kelsie placed the spoon in Abigail’s mouth, she touched her chin to close her mouth around the spoon. Kelsie dabbed at Abigail’s chin with the towel and smiled at her. “There you are. You are a good girl, aren’t you?”
Lucifer could barely stand to watch. He’d imagined everything would turn out so differently when he woke Abigail from her sleep. He had thought he would whisk her away into the forest where she would gain strength from the trees. He had imagined that when they kissed, they would be able to test whether his magic still drew out too much of hers.
Kelsie handed Lucifer the bowl and spoon. Abigail squirmed in her chair, her eyes on the bowl. There wasn’t much left. He balanced the bowl on his knees and continued to hold her upright as he spooned the broth into her mouth. Kelsie readjusted her arm around Abigail so she could pat her back.
Abigail burped. Her gaze fixed on the nearly empty bowl, and she extended her arms toward it. Lucifer placed it on the table, out of reach. She fidgeted in her chair and would have fallen out if he hadn’t kept ahold of her. Her mewling sounded like a wounded animal.
Lucifer wanted to flee from the cottage and get some air, but he forced himself to stay seated. He’d made this problem. Now he would reap the rewards of his efforts. Good and bad.
Mostly bad.
Tears filled Abigail’s eyes.
“Do we have something in the pantry more nourishing that we can feed her?” Lucifer asked.
“I can make some porridge,” Kelsie offered.
Baba shrugged. “For tonight, perhaps you will wish to stick with liquids, nyet?”
“Why would porridge be bad?” Lucifer asked.
“She might not remember how to swallow solid foods. She might choke.” Baba waved a hand at Abigail. “You might find it easier to change diaper first time if it is only fluids.”
Lucifer blanched at that.
Baba cackled. “You think it is easy to care for baby? Now you find out how difficult it is raising child.”
Abigail lunged for the bowl, knocking it from the table. Lucifer eased her back in her chair. Kelsie removed the bowl from the floor and sopped up the spilled broth. Abigail cried until Lucifer handed her the rag he’d used to dip into the water earlier.
“Fetch rags to fashion diaper.” Baba nodded to the trunk in the corner.
Lucifer looked to Kelsie. He couldn’t leave Abigail to find something suitable while he held her upright in the chair.
“You owe me big-time, buddy.” Wearily, Kelsie rose to sort through the rags. There were cloth diapers in the rag box, left over from a patient who Baba had once attended. They were large enough for an adult.
Abigail stilled. She eased back into her chair. Lucifer thought she might be growing tired. Her brows drew together in concentration. In the silence of the cottage, it was easy to hear the trickle of water. Lucifer looked down to find the puddle growing on the floor.
This definitely wasn’t the future he’d envisioned with her.
* * *
Lucifer had once enjoyed using magic to shift into the form of a cat. That was before he had been trapped in that body as punishment. For thirty years, he’d suffered in relative silence. Most of all, he’d loathed being a burden on Abigail.
He’d felt too humiliated to use a litter box and had preferred the lawn outside. He’d tried to use a toilet like a person did so that he wouldn’t inconvenience her.
When Abigail had married Adam, Lucifer had done his best to appear as a normal pet, lest he raise suspicions. After about a month of being married, her husband had woken in the middle of the night and turned on the bathroom light, catching Lucifer in the act of using the toilet. Lucifer had been so startled, he’d fallen into the toilet bowl. Adam had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dropped him in the shower where he’d sprayed Lucifer off. It had been one of the few times Lucifer had permitted Adam to handle him, and the only time he’d voluntarily showered.
Not that he hadn’t clawed at Adam out of spite. He’d deserved it, if not for spooking Lucifer, for marrying Abigail. Lucifer only tolerated the insufferable Morty because he was good to Abigail, and she deserved to be happy.
It had taken Lucifer years to get used to the idea of a litter box. Abigail had changed the kitty litter without comment or complaint. She’d spoken to him as though he were still a person inside his cat body, and for the most part, he had been.
But with time, Lucifer had grown more feral. It became more difficult to concentrate on human words for any length of time. Over the years, he grew wilder, his consciousness fighting to hold on to his humanity. The soul of the idealistic young man he’d been at eighteen shriveled into the bitter and disagreeable soul of a crochety old cat.
In his more lucid moments, Lucifer had considered leaving Abigail and returning to Baba Nata. He was certain he could find his way—if he stayed focused long enough to do so. But if he did go to his former master, that meant he would be abandoning Abigail. Guilt raked his insides when he considered what that might do to her.
He was the reason she’d been drained of her affinity with plants and had lost her magic. His electricity had sapped everything out of her, rendering her useless to Baba—ex
cept to use to harvest body parts. If he returned to Baba, he would be leaving Abigail defenseless. No one would be there to protect her from Morties, Witchkin, or Fae.
If he returned to Baba and became human, he would have to think about Abigail with his human brain. Lucifer would pine for Abigail, and he would hate himself for robbing her of magic. It was easier to lose himself as a cat. He didn’t have to feel guilt that way.
Abigail had a family, a husband who cared about her, and two daughters—for a time anyway. The temptation to return to Baba grew, but after one of Abigail’s adopted daughters, Missy, died in a magical accident, Adam had died in a car accident, and Clarissa had abandoned her by going off to school, Abigail had been all alone. He couldn’t desert her. He’d stayed with her and had tried to comfort her as best he could.
He was all she had.
* * *
The night Lucifer restored Abigail’s soul and woke her from her slumber, he lay in bed beside her, tormenting himself with thoughts of his every failure. His forbidden magic had managed to hurt her rather than help her once again. He might have deserved to be punished for his shortcomings, but she didn’t. Once again, his attempts to do good had backfired, and she was changed for the worse.
Abigail lay sandwiched between him and the wall next to the window where he’d pushed his bed so she wouldn’t roll out. He gazed at her as she slept, thinking she looked no different than she had when she’d been without a soul. Perhaps she didn’t have one now either. He couldn’t tell. But then, if she didn’t have a soul, he doubted she would have woken.
It would just take time, as Baba said, for her to adjust. Abigail had said his name. That meant something, didn’t it?
He couldn’t allow this hitch in his plans to leave him without hope. Abigail had remained with him despite his curse being stuck as a cat. Lucifer was determined he would be just as patient, just as loyal and considerate, as she had been.
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