He sat up, leaning against the wall. ‘Let me clean up, and then I’ll face them, too.’

‘The shower is upstairs.’

‘You forget – I don’t need traditional plumbing,’ he said. And vanished, leaving Lizzie kneeling on the floor, alone. Apparently he wasn’t quite as exhausted as she’d thought.

She got Jude some water, tied the sheet tighter around her body, toga-style, and then headed out into the living room.

Dee was sitting at the table, a big splotch of bright blue paint on her cheek, a cup of tea in her hands, and a bemused, besotted expression on her face that Lizzie knew would be a perfect match to her own.

‘You have paint on your face,’ Lizzie said. ‘It looks good there.’

Dee blushed. ‘I was painting Danny’s portrait.’

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. ‘And where is Danny now?’

‘Gone,’ Dee said happily. ‘He needed to be taught a lesson. But he’ll be back.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d say three hours at the most. He loves me.’

‘I take it you didn’t turn into Danny’s mother?’ Lizzie asked, closing the door behind her just in case Elric reappeared in the same condition as when he’d vanished.

Dee’s smile was both shy and extremely pleased with herself. ‘Uh… yes. Er… no. No mothers. No nothing. Just…’ She let out a happy sigh. ‘Just lovely’

Lizzie looked at her for a moment, astonished. ‘Finally having sex really does change everything, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘You look like a different woman.’

Mare came in from the kitchen. ‘You’re looking pretty lovestruck yourself

Mare was looking miserable. ‘What happened?’ Lizzie almost took her younger sister into her arms, then thought better of it. For one thing, Mare wasn’t into the huggy thing, for another, Lizzie really needed a shower. She was going to have to get Elric to teach her that trick about cosmic bathing.

‘I made Crash go,’ Mare said, sticking her chin up. ‘He was gotten here under false pretenses. Unlike the frog.’

‘Frog?’ Dee asked. ‘What frog?’

‘No,’ Lizzie said, very sure of herself. ‘Crash is your soul mate.’

‘Lizzie’s right, honey,’ Dee said, patting Mare. ‘He came all the way from Italy for you. What frog?’

Mare sighed. ‘Jude stopped by this morning and turned Crash into a frog, only it turned out that Jude was really a frog, so Lizzie has him in her room in a bunny cage.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Dee gave up on Mare and turned to Lizzie. ‘So where’s Elric? Don’t you think I ought to meet him?’

‘He’s cleaning up.’

‘Where?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. In Spain, for all I know. He’ll be back momentarily. In the meantime I need to take a shower.’

‘I can make toast,’ Mare said in a lousy attempt at cheering up. ‘You want me to make toast for you?’

Lizzie looked at her miserable younger sister. Mare was no longer the Queen of the Universe – she looked lost, broken. ‘Toast would be lovely,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘I’m starving.’

By the time she got back downstairs again, fully dressed, there were three squares of burned toast on a plate, and a distinct odor of charred bread coming from the kitchen.

‘Mare got distracted,’ Dee said. ‘Maybe we should take her to the Greasy Fork…’

‘I don’t think we should leave the house.’ Lizzie sat down and reached for the toast. ‘Xan can’t get in here for a very long time, according to Elric’ She looked down at her feet. They were bare – for the first time since she could remember there were no extraneous shoes on her feet.

Naked feet, with the glowing purple butterfly tattoo to set them off. How appropriate.

‘Don’t eat that,’ Mare said. ‘It’ll kill you. I’m working on a second batch. It’ll be good. I dialed the toaster back to two again.’

Dee pushed the toast away. ‘We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do about Xan. We can’t hide out forever. And I’m hungry, too. What do we have besides… toast?’

Mare said, ‘There’s nothing in the kitchen. Nobody made muffins this morning. Maybe I’ll go make muffins-’ She started to get up.

‘Elric!’ Lizzie called. She knew the moment he’d reappeared in her tiny, wonderful bedroom. The door opened, and she sucked in her breath. He was wearing dove gray this time, and yet the colors shimmered around him.

‘Damn,’ Dee said. ‘He’s gorgeous.’

‘Mine,’ Lizzie said. ‘This is my older sister, Dee. Deirdre Dolores O’Brien.’

Elric crossed the room with his usual elegance, taking Dee’s hand in his. ‘Darling Dee-Dee Fortune,’ he murmured. ‘It’s an honor.’

And Dee was so dazzled she didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Call me Dee.’

‘And you’ve met my sister Mare.’

He nodded in Mare’s direction.

‘Hey, Elric,’ Mare said, still depressed. ‘I’m going to make muffins.’

‘Please don’t,’ Elric said.

And this is Elric,’ Lizzie said to Dee.

‘Elric who?’ Dee said, smiling at him, her older sister instincts clearly shot to hell by one night with Danny James. ‘Let’s see, what am I supposed to be asking here? Are your intentions honorable? Who are your people?’

Lizzie blinked, glancing at him. Had she just spent the last twenty-four hours doing really wicked things with a man and she didn’t know his last name? ‘Elric the Magnificent?’ she suggested.

Elric laughed, and shards of color split the room. Lizzie glanced at her sisters, but apparently they were immune to it. Only she could see the scattered rainbows.

‘Then you’d end up being Mrs The Magnificent,’ he said, ‘and I don’t think that suits you.’

‘You’re marrying a man you just met?’ Dee asked, sounding far less protective than usual. ‘What am I talking about? So am I. When he comes back, anyway.’

‘Of course. We’re soul mates,’ Elric said, moving up behind Lizzie and putting his hands on the back of her chair.

Lizzie looked up at him. She wanted to grab him and drag him back into the bedroom. She wanted to send her sisters away and haul him onto the dining room table, and she could see by the deep purple in his eyes that he was thinking exactly the same thing. And the libido spell had worn off at dawn.

She gave herself a mental shake. ‘I’m starving. We’re all starving. Any chance you could go out and get us a pizza?’

His luscious mouth curved in a faint smile. ‘I think that would be within my capabilities.’ He glanced at the pile of burned toast, and she belatedly realized he could simply transmute. But he could read her far too well. ‘How long do we want me to be gone?’

‘Just long enough for me to talk with my sisters. Half an hour? There’s a pizza place in town – if you walked slowly it would be perfect.’

‘You don’t want pizza from New York? Or Venice? It’s much better, I can promise you.’

‘Salem’s Fork pizza will be perfect.’ I don’t want to be too far away from you, she thought. Knowing he could read it. ‘Oh, and set the frog free while you’re out, please.’

‘Half an hour.’ He released the chair and headed toward the door.

It closed after him, and Lizzie felt suddenly bereft.

‘How does he know what kind of pizza we want?’ Dee asked.

‘He knows,’ Lizzie said. ‘So what are we going to do next? We’re safe for now, but sooner or later we’re going to have to confront Xan. We can’t spend our lives dealing with her like this.’

‘We’re not going to,’ Dee said.

‘I don’t know why you two are so pissed,’ Mare said. ‘She sent you your true loves. Look what I ended up with. Ribbit.’

‘Crash came back to town,’ Dee pointed out.

‘And left again. You know, maybe we should just split up, go our separate ways. You’re happy with Danny, or you will be as soon as you let him back in. Lizzie’s absolutely glowing…’ Mare’s words trailed off as she stared at Lizzie. ‘You really are glowing, aren’t you? Literally.’ She bit her lip. ‘That’s lovely. Good for you both.’

Lizzie was still shimmering a bit. She smiled. ‘What can I say? He’s a wizard.’

‘I bet,’ Mare said. ‘Sometime you’ll have to tell me all about it. I’ll come visit you in Toledo.’