Chloe is crying before I've even put the dress on.
"I'm not crying," she says, crying.
"You're absolutely crying," Tiana says, handing her a tissue with the precision of someone who packed extras specifically for this eventuality. Which she did. I watched her count them into her clutch this morning.
I look at myself in the mirror and try to remember how to breathe.
The dress is simple, which was the argument that won after three months of Chloe sending me links to things with trains longer than most airport runways. Ivory silk, clean lines, nothing that will make it difficult to move, eat, or exist as a human being. My hair is half up, dark curls escaping everywhere, and Margareta cried when she saw it and then pretended she had something in both eyes simultaneously, which was impressive.
"You look insane," Chloe says, blowing her nose. "Like, actually insane."
"Thank you."
"I mean it as a compliment."
"I know you do."
Tiana straightens my shoulder gently. It’s been six months, and the scar has faded to something I barely think about anymore. She meets my eyes in the mirror and doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to. We've been friends long enough that some things live entirely in the look.
You good?
I'm good.
A knock at the door draws our attention back, and my father’s voice comes through.
"Aurora?"
Chloe and Tiana slip past my father as he comes in.
Papa closes the door.
He looks at me for a long moment. His jaw does its usual thing when he's feeling something he hasn't named yet, tightening slightly, with his mouth going straight. Then he exhales through his nose, the tension eases, and he looks just like my father—exactly like the man who taught me to ride a bike and let me win at cards for years before I figured it out.
"Your mother would have—" He stops. Clears his throat. "She would have cried more than Chloe."
A laugh comes out of me that is dangerously close to a sob. "That's not possible."
"You didn't know your mother at weddings."
He offers his arm, and I take it, and we stand there for a moment in the quiet of the room before everything begins.
"Papa."
"Don't," he says. "If you say something sentimental, I will embarrass myself, and I refuse to embarrass myself before I've even walked through the door."
I press my lips together. "I was going to ask if you had the rings."
He pats his breast pocket. "Obviously."
"Obviously," I agree.
He covers my hand on his arm with his, just briefly, just for a second, and squeezes.
We walk through the door.
The garden is full of people who should probably not all be in the same place at once, legally speaking, but today that seems beside the point.
Luca's men are on the left. Axel's are on the right. Viktor is in the front row, looking extremely uncomfortable in a suit that fits him perfectly, which seems to be the cause of his discomfort. Sergei is next to him, his gold tooth catching the afternoon lightevery time he smiles, which happens often. Alexei is in the third row, already emotional, already losing the fight with it in the way only Alexei can, visibly trying to channel Sergei's stoicism and failing completely.
