Page 144 of In the Shadow of a Hoax

She turned her head. “After witnessing this, I can see why you might run for the border.”

Lachlan smiled. “Not a chance.”

She turned slightly. “Even after all that’s happened?” she asked. “Monsters, talking ravens, dragons? This chaotic family?”

“We’ll fight them together,” he whispered.

“After the wedding,” Scarlett repeated, and her gaze connected with Auri. “And if this is still what you want, after—I will support your choice, Auri.”

“Why wait?” Mattias asked.

Scarlett took a deep breath. “The story is… a lot. Besides your ribbons, there are spells protecting the story that need to be unraveled, and that’s before I tell it. Remembering it will hurt me.” Tomas wrapped his arms around her from behind, and she leaned into him. “I don’t wish that unhappiness during a time in which we should be celebrating. When there is much work to be done.” She offered a wan smile to Tarley, then to each of them.

“After the wedding,” Jessamine said and looked at each of her siblings. Even though there were mixed emotions on each of their faces, they all deferred to their older sister and nodded in agreement.

Scarlett turned and looked at Tomas. “Take me home.”

Tomas nodded and led his wife from the room, each of their grown children finding it in their hearts to follow.

Lachlan stood in an alcove of the meeting house, dressed in his Jast finery of purple and gold, feeling like a trussed-up peacock. Ollie stood with him, staring out a window at the people walking in.

“Your brother looks bored,” Ollie laughed.

“Loam is bored at everything.”

“We were never like that.”

“Of course not.” Lachlan smiled, but his heart was fluttering with the nerves dipping into his stomach. “I definitely don’t feel bored right now.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Ollie turned from the window. He, too, wore Jast regalia, a rapier at his hip and his auburn hair pulled back at his nape with a bow. “Nervous?”

Lachlan nodded.

“Still happy to be going through with this?”

“Won’t change my mind about that. Tarley’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Ollie lifted a brow—an action that Lachlan hated because he couldn’t replicate that unnerving look. “Then what are you nervous about?”

“What if she does?” Lachlan had had a nightmare that he’d been standing at the altar of the meeting house waiting, and when the door opened for Tarley’s procession, it wasn’t her. In her place, Beaknose Truisante.

Ollie clapped him on the back. “Deep breath so you don’t faint. Otherwise, your bride might have to give you smelling salts to revive you.”

Lachlan chuckled.

It had turned cold in Sevens—a month since the wild day filled with assassins and monsters and a dragon. Nothing so intense had occurred since, other than wedding planning. It was technically late summer, but a bite in the air had turned the leaves in the trees from green to gold with dashes of orange and red among them.

Scarlett had been right about the wedding becoming the center around which everything else swirled. From clothing, flowers and decorations, party planning fit for a royal party that she refused to relegate to someone outside of Sevens, food, cakes, and drinks along with the million other details Lachlan didn’t consider, this royal wedding to a commoner had become the event of both countries.

Sevens was alive with people near and far. The Copper Pot Inn had become royal headquarters. The cottage was Fareview headquarters, where Tarley had retreated after their row at the inn. While he’d spent as much time as he could with Tarley, they hadn’t much time to be alone together beyond the hedge. There was a pall still hanging over the family that needed closure.

Now he understood Nixus’s scowl.

“Divert me then. What is New Taras like?” he asked Ollie.

“Old.”

Lachlan laughed. “Opalant is old.”

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