Page 95 of A Fragile Enchantment

Rosa drew herself to her full height and lifted her chin. In her gown of all black, she cut a striking figure indeed, and her tone rang out with regal condescension. “What, is she a prisoner? Or are you afraid I shall besmirch her honor?”

An uncomfortable beat of silence passed before he relented. “No, Your Highness. Of course not.”

“Then go, before I tell my brother-in-law that I was treated brutishly. I’m famished. I daresay I’m beginning to feel a swoon coming on.”

He paled. “At once, Your Highness.”

As soon as he vanished, Rosa all but wilted into a chaise and leveled Niamh with a flat stare. “What was that? What exactly is going on here?”

“Nothing at all!” Niamh scrubbed her face dry and pinned on a smile. “Weddings make me emotional, and the enchantments on your dress… I will do my best not to embarrass myself any further.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? That is not a rhetorical question.”

“No! Of course not.”

“Then why are you lying to me? You are stumbling all over yourself—more than usual. And you are…” Rosa gestured hopelessly at her. “… leaking.”

Rosa is quite an understanding person,Miriam had told her. And she was. Niamh envied how nothing rattled her. But somehow, she did not think even a woman as patient and pragmatic as Rosa could takeI am in love with your fiancé, and if one of you does not call this wedding off, your union may very well shackle you to a financially insolvent kingdom for half a decadein stride. She couldn’t risk it.

So she sat beside her and said, “It’s the stress. I’ve hardly slept in days.”

Rosa placed a hand awkwardly on the top of Niamh’s head, which Niamh supposed was meant to be reassuring. “You have worked yourself too hard for my sake.”

“Do not trouble yourself over me. Today is about you.”

“Is it now?” she asked wryly.

Just then, Miriam nudged the door open with her hip, holding in her arms the tea service she had clearly wrested from the beleaguered footman. Her tongue poked out in concentration as shefumbled with it. But when she saw Rosa, her lips parted and the tray nearly fell from her hands. The teacups wobbled precariously.

“Rosa.” Tears glimmered in Miriam’s eyes. “God above, you are a vision.”

Rosa laughed thickly, fond and rueful. She reached beneath her veil to sweep her fingertips beneath her eyes. “Stop. SoonIwill start leaking.”

Niamh felt like the greatest fool who ever lived.

She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t seen it—truly seen it—before now: the reason Rosa had endured everything like a soldier preparing for battle, the reason Rosa cared little if Kit’s heart was elsewhere, the reason Miriam had helped Niamh without question. Now, it was so beautifully, breathtakingly, heartbreakingly obvious. An invisible thread looped the two of them together.

Love.

The day on which Infanta Rosa de Todos los Santos de Carrillo and Prince Christopher Carmine, Duke of Clearwater, were to be wed was, by all accounts, perfect.

It was a bright and cloudless morning—an Avlish rarity—and the streets, from the royal palace shining on its green lawn to the white-stone Cathedral of Saint John, were lined with people. Nobility and commoners alike gathered, drinking and chattering, cheering and singing, weeping and shoving. They carried wicker baskets at their hips and tossed herbs and flower petals onto the road. Every bloom represented a wish—for health, fortune, fertility, and happiness. In Avlish tradition, the groom led the wedding guests in a parade from his home to the cathedral.

To Niamh, it felt as grim as a funerary procession. Today, she could lose Kit forever.

She followed the parade alone. The crush of people all aroundoverwhelmed her. Her ears rang, her pulse pounded in her wrists, and her eyes felt as though they were going to leak out of her skull from exhaustion.

The dark cloak she’d dredged up from the back of her closet suited her mood and served well enough to disguise her, but she sweated feverishly in the wool. A wide bonnet—and a wispy cluster of baby’s breath tucked behind her ear—obscured her features. Still, it would not take more than a few moments’ inspection for either Carmine to recognize her. She clutched a box tightly against her chest, Kit’s wedding cloak tucked safely inside.

Out in front of her, Jack rode a white stallion that seemed perfectly at ease beside the Kings Guard in their green-and-gold livery and their muskets. Today, he wore his full regalia. His red tailcoat billowed in the wind, and the golden crown nestled into his dark hair blazed in the sunlight.

And there, just ahead of him, was Kit.

Niamh couldn’t see him clearly from here. Only the grim iron set of his shoulders. From the moment she first realized who he was, perhaps Niamh should have known it was destined that she would find herself here. Her, heart twisting itself into lovesick knots. Him, impossibly out of her reach for a hundred different reasons.

As the Carmines passed, flowers sprouted in their wake, pushing through the cracks in the cobblestones and flooding the lawns. The crowds cheered, their eyes alight with magic’s golden glow. It drifted through the air, dreamy as early-morning mist.

Niamh caught a glimpse of the cathedral’s spires as they rounded a corner. Its buttresses and towers extended heavenward like accusatory, reaching fingers. The closer the procession drew, the denser and rowdier the crowds got. They jostled and jeered like a sea whipped to madness by the wind. It didn’t take long for Niamh to realize why.