Not Your True Love, But Your True Love — R. Cooper

After a curse gone awry has turned him (more or less) into a cat, Melchior Duban’s devoted assistant calls in Scarlett Waterhouse, Mel’s rival in the mage-for-hire business, to help. Well, Mel thought they were rivals, or at least competitors, despite his admiration for Scarlett’s skills and insight. But he’s never been good with people—it’s how he wound up cursed in the first place—and it takes Scarlett’s cheerful assistance for him to realize that the two of them might actually be friends.Scarlett uses magic differently from Mel, and thinks differently than Mel, and yet Mel, who is particular and reticent, doesn’t mind. He has even come to like her more intuitive style, something he’s never had to think about before. But now they are alone in his giant, magical library, collaborating on finding a cure to Mel’s problem—any cure but the old standby, the cliché so many mages use to end their spells, the unquantifiable and confusing notion of True Love’s Kiss, and Scarlett seems to be all he can think of.But true love, even if it were real, which it isn’t, isn’t precise, and it’s not definable, and Mel has no interest in it. All he cares about is his studies and his work, his family and his loyal assistant… and Scarlett. Now, if he wants to be himself again, he has to think about that, and what something as nonsensical as True Love’s Kiss might mean for someone like him.A queer romance for the unromantic. M/trans f