Page 83 of When Sorrows Come

Ginevra, Raj’s regent, was also absent. That made sense; with Raj and Tybalt both here, the Court was her responsibility, and it wasn’t like we knew each other well enough for her to care one way or the other. Her father, Jolgeir, wasn’t there either, probably because, as Portland’s King of Cats, travel wasn’t really in the cards for him. Dianda wasn’t there, but both her husbands and both her sons were.

What mattered more was the people whowerethere. My friends; my family. They filled the seats, a descending series of tiers leading me to the platform at the front, where Tybalt was waiting for me, alone in front of a beautiful, terrible woman I still somehow recognized as the Luidaeg.

She had no illusions left to keep her concealed from our eyes. The tricks she played with her appearance and environment were some of the only lies she had left to her, and so she played them constantly, protean and mercurial even in the presence of the people who loved her. I had never seen her entirely unveiled before. That didn’t matter. There was no one else she could have been, and no possible way she could have been concealing herself, not when she was suddenly so much more completely who she’d always been.

She was taller, built less like a gawky human teen and more like the woman that teen could, given time and a series of miraculous wins in the genetic lottery, become. Her hair, still dark and curly, was no longer an indeterminate shade between black and brown, but the bruised blue-black of the deep ocean at midnight, even down to the silvery glints the light struck every time she moved her head. She saw me, and she smiled, her perfect lips stretching back to reveal the serrated shark’s assortment of her teeth.

Tybalt was wearing a nicer version of the suit both Quentin and Simon had been dressed in, more perfectly tailored to him, and—here I had to swallow the urge to laugh—with red leather trousers, rather than the heavy linen the others had worn. Well, if you know what makes your bride-to-be happy, why not roll with it? He was tense, his posture oddly anxious, and he didn’t seem to have noticed me yet.

No one had. I looked around the gathering again, wondering how I could be standing here in the whitest dress ever known toman or fae, without them noticing my presence. Then I caught the eye of the tall, antlered figure standing behind the rear row of chairs, and I understood.

Oberon looked at me and smiled. Then he nodded, and the moment shattered into shards, raining down around us. Someone moved to my left. I flinched, hand going to the knife that wasn’t at my hip.

“It’s okay,” said August. She was wearing a long, form-fitting gown in the same color as Simon’s suit. “No need for stabbings on your wedding night, not from me. I was just told to bring you this.” She thrust a mixed bouquet of red roses, white violets, glowing starflowers, and fern fronds into my hands, then winked and dashed away before I could say anything.

Lacking an August to stare at, I settled for blinking at the flowers I was suddenly holding, then pulling them closer to my body, securing the bouquet with both hands. I had the feeling that dropping this one would go poorly for me. The way to the front was clearly delineated, continuing onward from where I was standing. As no one else seemed to have seen me, I stayed still. As I did, August hurried to the front and took the open seat next to Simon, setting her head against his shoulder. That seemed like as good a cue as any, especially since there wasn’t any music.

I started walking. There was a strange feeling, like someone was standing on the train of my dress. I looked back over my shoulder. The entire back of the gown was covered in roses, starting at my waist and extending down to the hem. The ones highest up were as snowy white as the fabric around them, but the lower they dipped, the redder they became, until the roses at the bottom were the deep, virulent red of freshly dried blood. Those roses were unraveling endlessly, leaving a carpet of rose petals behind me as I walked.

I smiled and faced forward again, shaking my head. Of course, Tybalt had played stupid tricks with my dress. What’s the point of having an enchanted wedding dress if you can’t use it as an infinite rose generator? And it wasn’t like my dress was even the most ridiculous piece of enchanted clothing on display.

No, that honor went to the Luidaeg, who was wrapped in what looked for all the world like a slice of the sky, taken during the aurora borealis. The colors swirled and danced all around her torso like a living oil slick, never stopping, neverstabilizing. It was a gorgeous effect. Her ridiculous dresses generally were.

No one stood as I passed them. That custom was apparently human enough not to have caught on here. I saw a few more people in the red suits and dresses—May and Stacy each had one, as did the man who looked heart-stoppingly like Simon Torquill, but absolutely wasn’t. He was sitting alone, and he offered a wan, wavering smile when he saw me, like he wasn’t sure I’d want it. I smiled back, as sincerely as I’d ever done anything.

We might not be close right now, but the day I couldn’t return a smile from my liege was going to be the day I died.

Tybalt finally glanced in my direction when I was about ten feet away. He froze, the tension leaving his shoulders as his pupils expanded, swallowing his irises completely. He just stared at me.

I stared back, somehow afraid to do anything else, like this was his last chance to realize he’d made a terrible mistake and take steps to correct it. Who in their right mind would want to give up a crown and a kingdom for a changeling with no sense of self-preservation, who needed dozens of stain-repelling charms on her own wedding dress just to keep it from getting drenched in blood?

But I kept walking. If he didn’t change his mind soon, I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity.

Then I was standing in front of him, and he was reaching tenderly out to take the bouquet I was holding. “These, I believe, are mine,” he said, and I let the flowers go, not knowing any better. His smile grew. Letting him have the bouquet was apparently the correct choice. He turned, handing the bouquet to Quentin, who had suddenly materialized beside him.

“My lady’s gift to us,” he said solemnly. Quentin bowed, to both of us, and disappeared back into the rows of chairs. Tybalt took my hands.

“I knew you’d be a natural at this,” he said.

“Convinced many clueless brides to wear a corset for you?” I asked blandly.

“Only you,” he said, voice soft. “Only you.”

I knew I wasn’t his first wife—that honor went to a mortal woman named Anne, who had died long before I was born—but it was somehow nice to know that this was his first formal pureblood wedding. Maybe I have a romantic streak after all.

“If you’re ready for me,” said the Luidaeg. “We can get started.”

We turned to face her. And that was when the archers hidden in the trees opened fire, with a cry of, “For Ash and Oak!” that reverberated around the trees. One arrow hit me in the upper arm, embedding itself deep into the muscle. Three more bounced off the bodice of my wedding dress, not even snagging the fabric in the process.

Tybalt yowled, the angry, animal sound of a tiger unexpectedly injured. I whipped back around to face him. Another arrow was in his shoulder, and he was clutching it, trying to stop the blood that was pumping out between his fingers. “Don’t pull it out,” I yelled, while ramming the arrow that was sticking out of my own arm the rest of the way through to the other side.

He shot me an irritated look. “I wasn’t intending to pull it out,” he snarled. “I know howarrowswork.”

“Thank Maeve for that.” I winced as the arrowhead broke the skin again, before reaching behind myself and snapping it off, making it easier to yank the arrow out of my arm without ripping the muscle even worse in the process. I crouched slightly, looking around.

The archers had apparently figured out that elf-shot wasn’t a great weapon against us, since we just kept waking people up, and had been firing into the crowd with intent to wound. Several of our guests had arrows sticking out of them, although none of them looked more than superficially hurt. Aiming hadn’t been high on the priority list when they came to ambush us, making me suspect that half of them—or more—weren’t archers at all, but Doppelgangers who had managed to replace members of the guard.

Suddenly, the bad archery at the arrival banquet seemed a lot less inexperience and a lot more the desire not to shoot one of their own. Aethlin needed to take a serious look at his staffing.

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