Maryah is next to him, and meeting her is like suddenly gaining an older sister I didn’t know I needed. And Ada, her assistant, is...well, she’s the cousin you love fiercely but can’t help feeling nervous about, because within five minutes of arriving she’salready knocked over a champagne glass and called Alexei “Your Majesty” by mistake.
Before the ceremony, I watched Nicolo clasp Alexei’s shoulder and say something low that I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made Alexei’s composure crack for half a second, not into vulnerability but into something almost like amusement, and Nicolo laughed, a real laugh, and I thought: these two have history. The sort where one man can look at another and know exactly what he’s feeling because he’s felt it too, and the knowing is enough.
Alexei was watching me. Not the ceremony preparations. Not the guests. Me, laughing at Ada’s chaos, and the look on his face—
It was the look from the plane. From the Expo. From every stolen moment of the last week where I caught him watching me with something vast and barely contained behind his eyes.
Except now I know what it is.
Now I have a name for it.
The ceremony itself is brief. The officiant is a preter I don’t recognize, someone from the Viver tradition, humans with mystical knowledge who have been performing supernatural unions for centuries. The words are spoken in a language I don’t understand, and then in English, and when Alexei says “I do,” his voice is the steadiest thing I’ve ever heard.
When I say it, mine breaks.
But I say it.
And then he’s cradling my face and kissing me, and Joni is sobbing, and Trish is sobbing, and Nicolo has his arm around Maryah and he’s looking at Alexei the way you look at someone you’ve known for a very long time who has finally found what you always hoped they’d find.
And I’m married.
I’m married to the Prince of Atlantis in a hidden garden with humming trees, wearing a dress that Ruby produced from thin air.
My mom corners me as the light is fading, her eyes red and her mascara halfway down her face and her smile so wide it looks like it might split her apart.
“You know what the best part is?” she says, gripping my arm.
“What?”
“He looks at you like you’re the only person in the room. Billy never did that.” She cups my face. “I always knew, sweetheart. I always knew Billy wasn’t it.”
“You never said anything.”
“You needed to figure it out yourself.” She wipes her eyes. “Also I was afraid you’d stop calling me on Sundays if I criticized your boyfriend.”
I hug her so hard she squeaks.
Later, when the guests have gone and the garden is empty and the evening has settled into that deep, quiet blue that comes just before full dark, Alexei takes my hand.
“Come,” he says.
And I go.
Because I chose yes. Because I chose this. Because for the first time in seven months, the fear in my chest is quieter than the wanting, and I’m done, finally, terrifyingly done, letting Billy’s cowardice decide the shape of my life.
Alexei leads me through the garden, through the door in the stone, and into a hallway I’ve never seen, and the fortress closes around us like a held breath, and his hand is warm in mine, and my heart is hammering, and I’m walking toward my wedding night with the man I married three hours ago.
The man who climbed my building.
The man who memorized my lunch and fixed my air vent and sent me miso soup because I mentioned it to the cleaning crew.
The man who stood in my bedroom in moonlight and told meI love youlike the words had been waiting inside him his whole life.
He opens a door.
And I walk through it.
Behind me, on the table in the garden beside an empty champagne glass, my phone lights up.
