Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

  “But I don’t want to lose Zel,” Sonny said. “She’s the most important person in my life.”

  Zel wanted to echo that, but she didn’t. Because she wasn’t sure if Sonny was the most important person right now. She wanted to pay more attention to Henry…which didn’t entirely make sense to her, since she really had just met him.

  “As long as that is true,” Lachesis said, “you will live without your soulmate. He exists, Alessandro. He is waiting for you.”

  Sonny glanced sideways at Zel. “You—”

  “I owe you everything,” she said. “I’m not going to get in the way of your true love.”

  “Zel,” Sonny said. “We’ve been close forever. We—.”

  “No,” she said. “We need to grow. We need to live apart. We need to see who we are without each other.”

  What she really meant was that she needed to see who she was without him. But she didn’t say that. Because she didn’t want to hurt him.

  No matter what, she didn’t.

  He took a deep breath, then turned toward the Fates. “Who is my soulmate?” he asked.

  “We are not allowed to answer that directly,” Lachesis said.

  “Says who?” Zel asked.

  “There are rules to magic, child,” Atropos said. “And we are bound by many of them.”

  “Don’t get them started on that,” Henry whispered.

  “Henry always feels put upon when he has to listen to us,” Clotho said.

  Henry shook his head just a little. “All I want,” he said, “is for you to put things right. The dragon has to go somewhere. You need to clean up that neighborhood and free our friends. And heal the faeries.”

  “Orders from someone who is not one of the Powers That Be?” Lachesis said sarcastically.

  “They are sensible instructions,” Atropos said, and for the first time, Zel realized that all three women could disagree, even with that weird speaking-in-order thing.

  “And we shall follow them,” Clotho said to the other two Fates.

  “Even though we would have come up with that all on our own.” Lachesis was clearly speaking to Henry.

  He held out his hands. “I did not mean to offend.”

  “Good,” Atropos said, “because you did not.”

  “Now,” Clotho said, sweeping one hand in the air. “Begone! We have work to do.”

  Zel was about to ask a question, when she found herself on the floor of Sonny’s office. The dining room to be exact, with all of the scabbards. Henry was right next to her. Sonny had arrived a few yards away, cradling his sword as he leaned against the wall.

  Zel wasn’t sure she liked all of this moving around, especially since she seemed to have no say in it.

  “Will they do what they said?” She directed the question at Henry. He seemed to know the Fates better than Sonny did.

  “With the dragon?” Henry asked. “Yes.”

  “And the neighborhood and the faeries?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “But they won’t rebuild our house for us,” Sonny said. “We could move in here, I guess. Or one of the other houses we own.”

  Zel was shaking her head before he finished. “I’ll find a place, Sonny.”

  “You don’t know how,” Sonny said, and his tone was not cruel. It was just matter of fact. “You’ve never done it. I have.”

  “I know,” Zel said. “It’s time I learned, don’t you think?”

  Then she glanced at Henry. He was looking at his hands. He clearly did not want to be part of this conversation.

  “Zel, you don’t know—”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Henry snapped. “She pissed off a dragon. Because she’s so competent and powerful. Other people—you, for example—came across that dragon’s spells and did nothing. You didn’t even see them. She did and vanquished them. She has power. She has a brain. And she has the ability to use both. So stop standing in her way.”

  Zel put her hand on his arm, again, and held firm this time, so he couldn’t take her hand off.

  “Sonny has been really good for me,” she said.

  “Years ago,” Henry said. “When you needed him. But he still sees you as that person who needs rescuing.”

  She glanced at Sonny, who looked stunned.

  “Speaking of,” Henry said to Sonny, “you can get rid of the protect spells you put everywhere. They’re getting in her way.”

  “I only cast one,” Sonny said. “And we used it.”

  “The Charming spell,” Henry said.

  “Huh?” Sonny asked. “No. The sword. I wanted to make sure it would help her if she needed it.”

  Henry looked stunned. “You didn’t add a Charming protect spell?”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Sonny said.

  Zel was only partially monitoring that conversation. Henry’s words were still going around and around in her head. She was strong. She had saved faeries this morning. She had angered a dragon over the space of years. She had rescued Sonny, in her own way.

  And yet, Sonny wasn’t the only one who still saw her as someone who needed to be rescued. She saw herself that way too.

  And she needed to grow beyond it.

  She tightened her grip on Henry’s arm. “You said Sonny sees me as someone who needs rescuing. You rescued me too.”

  “I think we’ve been trading that honor all day,” Henry said.

  “Nonetheless,” she said, not wanting to litigate this very long day, “who do you see me as?”

  She thought for a half second that he was going to give her a glib answer. Instead, he looked away from her, glancing toward the living room where she had removed the dragon magic, then at the sword in Sonny’s hand, then back at her face.

  “Who do I see you as?” he repeated. “I don’t see you as anything. I see you.”

  “Jeez, man,” Sonny said. “I would have given her the same answer.”

  Zel felt a flash of irritation at Sonny. For once, this conversation wasn’t about him.

  Henry took Zel’s hand off his arm again, and she nearly protested. Then she realized that he kept it captured between his hands.

  “You,” he said. “I see you. The strongest woman I have ever met.”

  “Ever?” she whispered.

  “Ever,” he said, and let go.

  Part V

  Before The End

  Chapter 33

  Henry made himself vanish after that. He didn’t belong in that conversation. Zel and Sonny were discussing their relationship, and no matter how Henry felt about Zel, he had no place in that discussion. He also had no idea how she felt about him, not really.

  The thought that his strong feelings for her come from some place other than a protect spell unnerved him. The entire day had unnerved him.

  Zel had unnerved him.

  He made himself appear in his own living room—his stupidly clean and barely recognizable living room—and he sat on the couch where Zel had recovered from just one of the magical attacks the dragon had thrown at her.

  Courageous woman. Powerful woman. Mighty woman.

  He had to stop thinking about her.

  So he moved to the kitchen, where she had spent almost no time. He sat on the uncomfortable aluminum chair that had come with his ancient Formica kitchen table, and stared out the ridiculously clean window over the sink.

  The black cloud of smoke had disappeared.

  He got up, and opened the back door, stepping outside and looking up.

  The Fates had kept their promise. (Of course they did. They were the Fates.) They had done something with the dragon, and gotten rid of the burning crater that had been Zel’s house.

  Zel and Sonny’s house.

  The thought made Henry dizzy. So he went back inside and sat down again, after grabbing himself a glass of water. He was startled that even the water glasses were clean. He was used to everything in this place being covered with dust.

  Zel wasn’t the only one who needed to rebuild h
er life.

  He did too.

  He had let himself be Froggy for too long.

  He almost let himself be Froggy again. He almost slipped into his avatar and went to the Archetype Place.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he raised his arms and spelled himself there, uncertain what he would find.

  He found an empty front desk, with his lily pad looking worse for the wear. Voices came from the hallway, and he followed them.

  Selda stood in her office, arms crossed. Mellie, the beautiful dark-haired co-owner of the place, leaned against the wall, looking more the Wicked Stepmother that Disney had slandered (libeled?) her as than she ever had before.

  Selda smiled when she saw him.

  “Henry,” she said. “You brought in the Fates.”

  “It was too big for us,” he said. “All of it.”

  “As long as we don’t owe them for anything,” Mellie said.

  “I think they owe us,” Henry said. “They let the dragon problem get out of hand.”

  “They let a lot of things get out of hand,” Mellie said, her mouth thin. He knew the litany. He didn’t need her to recite it again.

  One reason this place existed was because the Fates had allowed those evil Grimm Brothers to release their lies as fairy tales throughout the world.

  “Whatever happened, they helped us,” Selda said. “We have clean-up to do, but the spell that dragon cast is behind us.”

  Henry’s shoulders relaxed. As unsettled as he was, this news calmed him.

  “And the faeries?”

  Selda’s mouth thinned. Mellie shook her head.

  The release of tension that Henry had felt vanished. The tension returned.

  “Did they die?” he asked.

  “No, no,” Selda said. “It’s just Tank.”

  “Tank died?” he asked.

  “No,” Mellie said, sounding annoyed. “She won’t let us help. And she doesn’t want help from the Fates.”

  “She says she has it under control,” Selda said.

  “Does she?” Henry asked.

  “We hope so,” Mellie said. “But until she allows us to help, we won’t know.”

  “We have people working on it,” Selda said. “You know Blue.”

  “I know Blue,” Henry said, still not understanding everyone’s now-good opinion of the former Bluebeard.

  “He and Tank are close. He’ll make sure the faeries get what they need.” Selda’s gaze became piercing. “And you, Henry? Are you all right?”

  No. Of course he wasn’t all right. The day was life-changing, in ways he was just beginning to understand.

  But he hadn’t been ensorcelled, and he hadn’t been forced to protect Zel through a spell, and he had confronted a dragon and helped rescue a prince and all without the usual frog-interactions.

  Not to mention the fact that he seemed to have fallen in love.

  “I’m all right,” he lied.

  “Good,” Selda said, apparently taking his word for it, which told him just how preoccupied she really was. “Then we can—”

  “Do you mind if I make some changes out front?” Henry asked.

  Both Selda and Mellie frowned at him. “Today?”

  He nodded.

  “Sure,” Selda said. “Just leave the seating alone.”

  “Okay.” He hadn’t planned to touch the seating. He didn’t say that though. Instead, he walked down the corridor to his desk.

  The dead fly he had looked at so fondly a day ago still rested on his lily pad. Some dusty frog prints dotted the surface of the desk.

  He gently took his lily pad off the desk and placed it into the top drawer—after discarding the fly. Then he sat down in the chair he had never used, discovered that it was comfortable, and leaned his head back.

  He could work here like this.

  He wasn’t sure if he could deal with the people who came in the door like this. They would see him as a person, not as a frog, when he made the cutting remarks he knew he wouldn’t entirely be able to suppress.

  But he would try.

  He would try to put the past—his past, his painful past—behind him. He needed to.

  Because Zel wasn’t the only one who needed to learn how to stand on her own two feet. He had to learn it too. He’d been hiding too long.

  He’d actually decided to keep the prison Aite had made for him wrapped around him as a second identity. Probably to punish himself for not figuring out how to save his wife—from something that the midwives and his in-laws and every other magical person he had known had told him was just one of those things.

  Sometimes magic doesn’t help, one of the midwives had said.

  And the Fates, with repeated and growing exasperation: You know we don’t bring back the dead.

  He had tried everything. He had failed.

  So he had imprisoned himself.

  He had given up.

  He had thought he had nothing to live for.

  He had been wrong.

  That was what this day had shown him. Even if Zel never looked at him again, he had gained something from his sudden and surprising attraction to her. He had learned that his heart still existed.

  And then it broke when he saw Tank fall to the ground. When the faeries nearly died.

  When Selda looked at him with blank eyes.

  Even without trying, he had developed a life here, and had a make-shift family. One he kept denying, but one he loved nonetheless.

  Probably like Sonny loved Zel.

  Henry wanted to protect them. He needed to.

  And to do so, he had to discard the last of his prison. He needed to become part of the world.

  Maybe then, he would be worthy of a woman like Zel.

  Maybe.

  He would need to work first. And think about it. And find his courage all over again.

  But sitting here was a start.

  In his place of employment. Among his friends. In a world he had convinced the Fates to save—because he loved it more than he had loved himself.

  Part VI

  The Actual End

  Chapter 34

  Zel stood outside the Archetype Place, arms wrapped around her torso in a desperate self-hug. Half of her thought she shouldn’t have come here, but the other half couldn’t stay away.

  It had been six months. Six long somewhat lonely months.

  She half expected Henry to contact her, but he hadn’t. And she hadn’t known how to contact him.

  Oh, she knew where he lived and where he worked, but she hadn’t known how to approach him.

  Sometimes she imagined it:

  Hey, Henry, it’s Zel. I’m no longer married. We found a sympathetic Greater World judge and got the marriage annulled.

  Or she would say:

  Yes, Sonny and I still see each other all the time, but we don’t live together.

  Or maybe she would lead with:

  I missed you.

  But she wasn’t sure Henry would believe that, since they only spent one day together. One dramatic, life-changing day, but one day nonetheless.

  She squared her shoulders, let her arm drop, and pushed open the door to the Archetype Place. The air was warm and smelled faintly of wet dog. Something small flew at her face, then lowered itself – or rather herself—until they were eye to eye.

  Cantankerous Belle.

  Zel stiffened. She had gone, more than once, to Jodi Walters’ place to figure out how to help the faeries only to be rebuffed. Once Jodi’s husband, Blue, had told Zel not to worry. The faeries were taking care of themselves.

  “At least you look good,” Tank said. “I was worried you would take the entire debacle to heart.”

  Then she flew out the door as if Zel had opened it just for her.

  “Thanks,” Zel said to the empty air. And would have added, I’m not the only one. You look good too, if only Tank had stayed around to hear it.

  Zel stepped further inside. The couch and chairs near the far wall were empty. A sheepdog slept on
the rug near the scarred end table. The dog was probably the source of the smell.

  Zel walked to the large front desk, looking down, expecting to see Henry as Froggy.

  Only Henry sat in the back, his hair perfectly trimmed. He had put on just enough weight to make him look stronger, but not so much that it seemed like he had been overeating.

  He looked up, only to freeze, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.

  “Zel,” he breathed. Then he cleared his throat and said, “How can I help you?”

  She swallowed, wanting to blurt all of those sentences. Instead, she said, “You can go to dinner with me.”

  He stood, ever so slowly. He was wearing a light green shirt with khaki pants. He looked good. He looked put together.

  He looked healthy.

  “I would love to,” he said. “Can we go now?”

  She laughed then, surprised and pleased by his reaction.

  “Sure,” she said. Then, because she couldn’t stop herself, she added, “I missed you.”

  He reached out with his long fingers and touched her face. “I missed you too.”

  She leaned into his touch. And knew, right then, at that moment, she had done the right thing.

  It had been right to wait, to learn how to be on her own, to get her own home, and get all of the magical training she had never had. She hadn’t even driven here. She had flown here on her own.

  She would tell Henry that.

  She would show him some of the things she could do.

  Now that she could stand on equal footing with him.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “Just how right this feels.”

  He smiled too. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  It felt right, but it felt awkward too. She wanted to hurry past the preliminaries, onto the happily ever after, but she couldn’t.

  Because she had learned these last six months that growth took time. Change took time.

  And no matter how she felt, she had to learn how to be herself before she could be with someone else.

  It looked like Henry had learned the same thing.

  “That day,” she said, “with the Fates. They told Sonny he was standing in the way of true love.”