“Well, yes, but—”
“Then it is decided. And, of course, you will make the journey across the ocean every few years so that I might see my great-nephew.” Tante Cristelle nodded with satisfaction at having ordered everything and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Emeline turned back to Samuel to find him watching her.
“Will it be all right?” he asked. “Leaving all this behind? Meeting new people? Living in a new country, one not quite as sophisticated as this?”
“It doesn’t really matter where we live as long as I’m with you.” Emeline smiled slowly. “Although, I plan to set a new standard for sophistication and wit in Boston. After all, no one there has been to one of my balls.”
He grinned at her then, a wide happy smile that with all his bruises made him look like a pirate. “They won’t know what hit them, will they?”
Emeline mock frowned, but then she drew Samuel’s head back down to hers so that she could kiss him. Sweetly, happily. And as she did, she murmured one more time against his lips.
“I love you.”
Epilogue
“I love you.”
As Iron Heart’s words left his lips, there came a scream from the wicked wizard.
“No! No! No! It cannot be!” The terrible little man’s face reddened until steam began to shoot from his nose. “I’ve waited seven long years to steal your iron heart and make its strength mine! Had you ever spoken in those seven years, I would’ve won it, and you and your wife would be damned to hell. It isn’t fair!”
And the wicked wizard spun in a circle, enraged that his spell was forfeited. He spun, faster and faster, until sparks flew from his whirling body, until black smoke billowed from his ears, until the very ground quaked beneath him, and then, BANG! he was suddenly swallowed by the earth! But the white dove upon his wrist flew up as he vanished, the golden chain broken, and when the bird alit, it turned instantly into a squalling baby—Iron Heart’s son.
And then what rejoicing there was in the Shining City! The people cheered and danced in the streets with happiness at the restoration of their prince.
But what of Iron Heart and his cracked heart? Princess Solace looked down at her husband, held still in her arms, afraid that he was already dead, only to find him whole and smiling back at her. So she did the only thing a princess can do in such a case: she kissed him.
And though many in the Shining City are of the opinion to this day that Iron Heart’s heart healed when the wicked wizard’s spell was broken, I myself am not so sure. It seems to me that it must have been Princess Solace’s love that revived him.
For what else can mend a broken heart but true love?