Wanda was there then, her perfect face covered in smudges of soot, her hair lopsided and mashed to her face, her dress sodden from the snow.
She brushed Toni’s hair from her eyes with a trembling hand. “Honey, listen to me. Please, please listen. We have to go. It’s going to be okay. Not now. Not a month from now, maybe not even a year from now, but someday…someday it will be okay. It will. I’ll make sure it will. Arch will cook for you. He’ll coddle you. He’ll love you. Darnell will sit with you. He’ll take walks with you. He’ll rock you until you fall asleep on my porch swing. But you have to let go. I’m begging you, come back with us.”
Carl sat down on his haunches, letting his front legs slide forward until he was resting against Toni’s side, his chin on her arm. He whimpered, nudging her, and still she held Jon’s hand.
Nina hooked her arms under Toni’s and pulled with a grunt, her tug weak. “Come with us, Toni. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Will you be my BFF?” she asked weakly, tears gushing from her eyes and streaming down her face.
“Forever and ever. Swear it on Marty’s life.”
“Will you braid my hair? Talk to me for hours on the phone while we watch The Bachelor?”
Nina nodded in earnest, giving up on trying to move Toni. “I’ll do sleepovers and fucking hair salon appointments, and GD shopping until your legs fall off. We’ll see rom-coms till your flippin’ eyes bleed, but you have to come with me now. We need to see the king and go home.”
“I…I can’t,” she managed to husk out without sobbing.
“You can. You fucking will. The hell I’m leaving you here,” Nina insisted, sitting back from her kneeling position to flop on the floor tiredly. She gripped Toni’s free hand and pressed it to her stone-cold cheek before setting it in her lap. “You can.”
Marty placed her hand over Nina’s, and Wanda repeated the act. They held her hand that way for what seemed like forever, stroking her fingers, whispering to her, soothing her.
“Why do you sit upon the floor when the prince’s life hangs in the balance?” someone asked with an outraged yelp.
“Lady, shut the fuck up. I don’t know who the hell you are, but Jesus and fuck, we’ve been through some shit here, okay? Nothing’s hanging in the balance. Now blow,” Toni heard Nina say before she caught sight of an elderly woman.
“Are you mad?” the woman wailed, making a fist of her wrinkled hands and wringing them.
“Do you mean, like, mad as in I wanna rip your head off? Yeah. I’m mad. Or do you mean crazy like belong-in-a-straightjacket mad? Because then no. Though, after this crap, you’d think I’d be headed in that direction. Now go away and let the kid mourn her man!”
“No, no! You misunderstand! She is his one true love—she and only she can save him! I saw her face in my mirror. She is the one!”
Toni gasped at the woman’s words just as King Dick appeared above her. The arm of his fancy jacket ripped completely off, his hair hanging in his regal face, dripping droplets of water mingled with the blood from the cut on his forehead down on her.
“Roz speaks the truth! You must save him, Antonia!”
She sat upright so fast it made her head spin. Looking up at the old woman, her wrinkled face so sincere, Toni asked frantically, “How? Tell me how!”
Whatever it took. If she had to eat frog’s legs, turn tricks in the Garden of Wings, whatever.
Roz looked at her as if she were the one who was crazy. “True love’s kiss, of course!”
Toni blinked, because this really was madness. A perfect, incredible insanity to be sure, but utter madness. So much so that she began to laugh at the irony, her head falling back on her aching shoulders, her eyes filling with tears. Marty, Nina and Wanda joined her in her laughter until they were all holding their stomachs.
Of course it was true love’s kiss that would save him. Of course.
Toni rolled toward Jon—or Iver—or whoever, resting her torso upon his as she brushed his wet hair from his face. His handsome, flawless face, with eyelashes that swept over his ruddy-colored skin in ebony perfection and cheeks a Kardashian would kill for.
Toni smiled at him, her heart swelling in her chest, her fingers trembling as they traced his mouth.
“Ye must wake now, Stable Boy, for ’tis I, your one true love,” she whispered, before she placed her lips on his, his mouth cold and unyielding, and kissed him.
With everything she had. For all she was worth, with all the growing love she’d thought was crazy to have felt after knowing him for so little time.
There was a moment of silence, a slight intake of air when Wanda and Marty held their breath. A moment where she did indeed think Roz might be out of her mind.
But then Jon’s chest heaved and his eyes popped open. His beautiful sapphire eyes. “Milady?” he croaked, his deep voice cracking.