I hurried away, grabbing a bottle of champagne as I rushed past the wedding hall. I popped the cork and took a swig of my own liquid courage.
64
You can say one thing of the Bards. They really know how to throw a party.
It never fails. If revelry is in order, you want a Bard at hand.
The wedding hall was grotesque in its gaudiness. Gold filigree. Gem-dusted frescos of ancient wedding rites and debauchery. Pink marble columns wrapped with stone grapes and vines. Sweeping arches hung with swaths of purple silk.
If you didn’t know Luvic, you’d think the wedding hall he’d conjured was an accurate reflection of his personality.
Ostentatious. Loud. Flamboyant. Grandiose.
A Bard.
Basically, his illusion contained every quality Last had listed that she hated about him.
But Luvic wasn’t ostentatious or showy. If he’d been designing this space for his wedding to Cora, he’d have left it simple. Quiet. Like his room at the Bard mansion. Sure, there might have been a bit of gold or a dusting of flowers, but he wouldn’t have wanted anything to distract from what mattered.
This gaudy hall was so far from the true Luvic it made a very loud statement. Unfortunately, no one could hear it but me.
It wasn’t as if Last weren’t making a statement too. She’d choked Luvic’s columns and arches with poison vines. She’d cracked his frescoes and muddied his river. His marble and gold was smothered in stinging nettle. She’d crushed his creation with giant, ugly boulders. Last’s knots were formed like a vine wrapping tightly around a tree, slowly killing Luvic’s illusion with strangulation.
If I had to guess, I’d say the entire hall had a week at most before the illusion collapsed in on itself.
But if you managed to look past the poisonous vines and the cracked frescoes, the wedding hall was the perfect setting for a conjurer wedding. The setting sun streamed in golden waves through the windows, and a sweet, apple scented haze swirled around the hall.
I was certain the haze was euphoric, but my blood was so agitated all I could feel was a tight foreboding.
At the front of the hall, a string quartet quietly sawed at their instruments.
There were nearly a hundred conjurers here—all of them Bard or Clark—and as the music shifted to a formal march, they quieted and looked toward the back of the hall.
Last appeared in the entry as if she’d blown in on an evil wind. Her black wedding dress shifted like a miasma, and when a group of Bards gasped, she gave a satisfied smile. Her gaze passed over the hall until she found Luvic standing beneath the stone wedding arch.
His face was pale, but that was the only sign of his discomfort. Everything else pointed to him being a perfectly happy groom. He took in Last’s wedding dress, her hair studded with smoky diamonds, her black lips, and her silver-dusted skin.
“She’s beautiful,” someone whispered.
Luvic’s mouth curled into an appreciative smile, and his eyes warmed. He looked like a man worshiping his bride. Like a man incredibly happy he was marrying the most terrifying woman in the room. Like he didn’t care that she planned to kill him shortly after the wedding.
If I’d ever wondered what a man looked like when the love of his life walked down the aisle—now I knew. He looked like Luvic Bard watching Last step toward him.
He may hate acting, but he was brilliant at it.
I pressed my nails into the fleshy part of my palm.
As Last started forward, following the trail of the muddy indoor stream, I bent down and grasped her train, lifting it from the ground.
I walked slowly, the lace scratching my hands, not looking at anyone.
The quartet plodded on. Luvic’s gaze stayed on Last. Primus stood next to Luvic. He didn’t watch his sister. He watched me.
My skin crawled as Last stepped under the arch.
One hundred conjurers watched as the Bard, his wife, and the Clark stood and joined us at the front.
“When a conjurer marries,” the Bard began, his rich voice trickling over the hall, “they enter a lifelong commitment that cannot be broken. They are two souls that entwine. Entangle. Become one. When an heir marries the scion of another house, it is important to remember this joining isn’t merely metaphor—it is reality. The promises said here today will echo for eternity.”
