I laugh. "I keep saying that."
"Because it's true." She reaches over and touches my hand. "How's he doing?"
"He's stitched up like Frankenstein, but he'll heal." I look toward the window, where I can see Afon out on the snowy lawn, throwing nothing for Wolf to not chase because Wolf can't run yet and Afon can't throw yet, just the two of them standing inthe cold being alive together. "Lukas has him in the study most mornings. Wrapping things up. Whatever there is to wrap up."
"There's always something to wrap up," Cass says. "But it's the good kind now. The kind that ends."
I find Alexei Ivanov in the kitchen the day before the wedding.
I've never met him in person, only heard his name. The fixer who told Afon where Lukas was, who got us the lodge address, who somehow knows everything. He's a strong, lithe man with a sharp face and clever eyes, eating a sandwich at the counter.
"You're the bride," he says right away when I come in. "Bill Oglethorpe's girl, right?" He studies me. "You've got his chin. He never could hide what he was thinking. It was all right there on his face. Bad quality in a lawyer. Good quality in a man."
"You knew my father?"
"He did me a good turn once. A long time ago." Alexei takes a bite of his sandwich, chews, and swallows. "I won't bore you with it. But I never forgot it." He sets the sandwich down. "Satyrin's one of the last good bastards left. You know that?"
"I'm starting to."
"There aren't many of us," he continues. "We're a dying breed. Men who'll burn it all down for the right person and never once mention it after. Hold onto him. I'm sure you've noticed, but he's kind of an idiot sometimes." He slides off the stool, brushing crumbs from his coat. "Sorry for such a quick meet-and-greet, but I've got some business of my own to get back to."
"What kind of business?" I ask out of curiosity.
He smiles tiredly. "The kind you don't ask about." He pulls on his gloves. "Tell Satyrin I said congratulations. And tell him—" He pauses at the door. "Tell him to stay out of oil drums. He'll know what it means."
Then he's gone, melting back into wherever men like him come from, carrying his own ghosts off toward whatever's been waiting for him.
We get married the next day. At noon. The same hour Reznik gave Afon to come die.
Afon picks it on purpose. Reclaiming the time. Taking the hour that was supposed to be his ending and making it a beginning instead. Mostly, it's a big ol'fuck youto the universe.
It's a small affair. We do it at Lukas's house, in the big room with the windows looking out over the snow. Cass and Rae and Jillian stand on my side, Matvei and Lukas and Kir on Afon's. Wolf sits at the front, bandaged and dignified, in the place where a ring bearer would go, because Afon insisted and nobody had the heart to argue. He's even got a bowtie on his collar.
I wear the ivory dress. The same one. The bulletproof vest is gone this time, and I can breathe.
Afon waits for me at the front in a dark suit, the beard grown back enough to be his again, not the clean-cut stranger from the apartment. When I come down the aisle, he watches me the whole way with an expression I've never seen on him.
Open. Completely open.
Like every wall he ever built has finally come down and there's nothing left but the man underneath.
"Hi," I whisper when I reach him.
"Hi," he says back, rough.
"You came."
"I'm here," he agrees. "I'm not going anywhere."
We don't have a real officiant. Lukas does it, which I'm told he can, somehow, in some legal-enough way, and I've decided not to ask too many questions about anything Lukas does anymore. The words are short. I don't remember most of them. I remember Afon's hands holding mine, scarred, warm, and steady.
And I remember the ring.
It's not the bronze band. That one is on my right thumb, where it's been since I found it on my pillow, smoothed warm by my fingertips tracing over and over for days.
The new ring is plain gold, simple. The kind of ring a man who wants no attention would choose.
But before he puts it on me, he takes my hand and he slides the bronze band off and holds it.
