"Oh." Drova sounded disappointed.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Dominique said. "But you really need to stand still, or I will never be done. Say goodbye to your friend, Arezoo."
"Drova, I have to go." Arezoo straightened. "I'll send you pictures."
"You'd better. And tell Ruvon that if he doesn't treat you right, I know at least fourteen ways to make him regret it."
"I'll pass that along."
With her compulsion ability, Drova could think of countless ways of making Ruvon miserable, and Arezoo had no doubt that she would if he ever did anything to upset her.
"I mean it. Fourteen at the least."
"I know. Goodbye, Drova."
"Goodbye, bride." The word sounded strange in Drova's accent, like she was trying out a foreign language. "I'll see you in twelve days."
When the call ended, Donya snapped a few pictures and then retreated to the settee to wait for Dominique to be done.
"I'm glad you have Drova as a friend," her mother said. "Even if she threatens your fiancé with bodily harm."
"To be fair, she threatens everyone with bodily harm. It's how she shows affection. It's her people's way."
"Which people is that?" Dominque asked.
"Burmese," Arezoo said, the first thing that popped into her head.
Dominique looked up. "I thought they were peaceful people."
"Not all of them." Arezoo hoped he would drop the subject because she knew nothing about Burma or the Burmese.
He finished his pinning and stepped back with a satisfied nod. "There. We'll have the alterations done by Wednesday. That gives us plenty of buffer time before the ceremony, provided you don't lose or gain any weight. Can you make an effort to stay the same?"
"I'll try," she promised. "And thank you. The dress is pure perfection."
"Not yet, but it will be," he corrected.
Arezoo turned one more time in front of the mirror, watching the tulle swirl around her ankles. In twelve days, she would walk down the aisle in this dress toward Ruvon. It felt surreal, like something that happened to other people in stories.
Laleh pulled out her phone and began circling her like a photographer at a fashion shoot, and Donya joined in with her own phone, narrating quietly into what was probably some kind of video log for her spreadsheet.
Her mother watched it all with an expression that was part pride and part bittersweet awareness that things were changing, and that her daughter was a grown woman and no longer her little girl.
22
MATTIE
"Another round!" The immortal slammed his empty glass on the table hard enough to rattle the other glasses. "And don't take forever this time."
Mattie kept her expression neutral as she collected the empties onto her tray. "Right away, sir."
Other than this table of four immortals, the bar was nearly deserted. Most of the evening crowd had filtered out over the past hour, leaving only this unpleasant bunch who showed no signs of calling it a night. They'd been drinking steadily since they had arrived about three hours ago, and even though their curfew time was approaching, they didn't seem to care. Could they be exempt?
If they were high enough up the command structure, they might be, which was unfortunate for her. Their voices had been growing progressively louder, their jokes cruder, and their eyes more prone to lingering where they shouldn't.
They were scaring her.
Mattie kept telling herself that she'd dealt with worse, but the truth was that she hadn't. These males were up to no good, and one of them in particular was aiming his bad vibes at her.
