The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming through my window. Oberi brushed hair out of my face with his nose, and I peeled myself up off the floor.
Fuck! How could I have fallen asleep at a time like this? I cursed myself for doing so.
Marcus looked exhausted. There were huge bags under his eyes, but a smile spread across his face as he shouted, “I think I got it!”
I started upward. “What did you find?”
Marcus panted as he opened the law book from the United Supernatural Union. “There’s a loophole. The Warden can’t prevent inmates from getting married at the Institute during their sentence.”
I blinked. “Married? What do you mean?”
“By supernatural law, married inmates aren’t allowed to be separated during their internment,” Marcus said in a rush. “They have to be kept together. It’s a law that was written for the benefit of mated partners, such as the fae. It’s considered cruel and unusual punishment for inmates to be separated from their bonded partner if they’re in the same institution, and since you and Charlie share a soul-bond, the law protects you as well.”
“Does that even matter?” I asked. “Charlie’s still part Elf.”
“Itdoesmatter. You don’t have any Elven blood. You’re full-blooded Hawkei, which means the Warden can’t deport you to the Underground without a reason. He doesn’t have one, because otherwise, he’d have sent you there by now. And if Charlie’s spouse, a.k.a.you, are unable to be taken to the Underground, then he can’t go, either. The Warden can’t even send married inmates to Cellblock 9, or the adult penitentiary, without the spouse also being sentenced to the same place. He has to wait for their failure to graduate from the Institute in order to separate them.”
My mouth went dry. “So if I want Charlie to stay…”
“You’ll have to marry him, yes,” Marcus said shortly. “There’s no other option.”
“But if that’s the case, why don’t Elves and Elf-hybrids just find random people to marry, so they don’t get deported to the Underground, or wherever else the Warden sends them?” I asked.
“The law states that you have to have aromantic historywith the person you’re marrying, as well as evidence and witnesses,” Marcus said. “You and Charlie dated for months before the Elves were even discovered. The Warden can’t say your relationship is false. He admitted to it himself, when he threatened you last semester.”
“But we’re broken up now. The Warden knows about that,” I pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter. Say you had a change of heart, came to your senses and got married,” Marcus said with a shrug. “Everyone at the prison knows you had a thing last semester. There are hundreds of witnesses who will confirm that you were a couple before this point. That’s all the evidence you need.”
“Is this enough?” I demanded. “The Warden runs this prison. I don’t know if any of this matters without another supernatural entity getting involved.”
“Darke Island falls under the United Supernatural Union’s jurisdiction,” Marcus said as he reached for a tome on Hawkei law. “If you get married on the island, the Wardenhasto honor your marriage, because it will be verified by the Union. Plus, you’re the daughter of a chieftain, which means you have special privileges, and so does your husband. If the Warden, or any supernatural force outside the Hawkei tribe, attacks a member of a chieftain’s family—”
“It would mean that he’s declaring an act of war.” I closed my eyes. “Of course. And if the Warden sent Charlie to the Underground, my dad would have to declare war on the angels for attacking his son-in-law, because that’s his family. He’d be honor-bound to do it, and the rest of the Elementai Houses would have to back him up.”
“We also know that the Union is split,” Marcus added. “The angels, vampires, and mermaids are willing to help the Warden, but the elementals, the fae, and the witches aren’t. If the Hawkei go to war, the witches will probably back them up, and the fae will be forced to pick a side.”
“It’ll start another war for sure,” I said. “The Hawkei have seen what happened to the Elves. We elementals have been at the bottom of the supernatural hierarchy for a long time. We won’t allow the other races to push us around any longer, because we know we’d probably go extinct next.”
“Exactly. It sends the supernatural world into chaos at the wrong time, before the Warden wants it. He’s not going to risk that, no matter how much he wants to experiment on Charlie.” Marcus snapped the book shut. “So the only question that remains is if you’re going to go through with it.”
I looked at Oberi. He thumped his tail slowly on the floor and gave a doggy, wide-toothed grin.I think you’d make a pretty bride.
I cringed, then turned back to Marcus. “How do we even do this? We’re at a prison.”
“It’s simple. There’s a quick ceremony in the chapel, then some paperwork. Weddings can be performed by any professor at the Institute. It’s part of their training in order to work for juvenile supernatural detention centers.”
He scowled. “Though it’s supposed to be done by the school’s social worker.”
I wrinkled my nose when I thought of Jaymin marrying us. She wouldn’t do it— she was on the Warden’s side. She’d refuse to perform the ceremony.
“Hemlock,” I said, getting a burst of inspiration. “She’d do it.”
“You’ll have to change your name, to make it look legit,” Marcus said.
“The Hawkei base their lineage on their mothers. It’s tradition for the women of our tribe to keep our mother’s names, and the men to change their surnames to ours. Not all Elementai do that, but I wanted to keep things that way when—if— I got married.” I argued.
“The angels are a patriarchal society. If you don’t change your name to Charlie’s, the Warden will use it as evidence against you and say the marriage is fake,” Marcus pointed out. “You gotta play by his rules if you’re going to beat him.”
