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“Nope.”

“I am six foot four!”

“I’m carrying you over the threshold. It’s traditional.”

“It is traditional for the bride. “

“You’re wearing white, aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth, and closed it, and gave up. He staggered up the steps, laughing, swaying a little under my weight, and kicked open the door with his foot.

I will not pretend that I was calm.

I had been calm at the altar. I had been calm during the vows, and the toasts, and the endless embraces of a hundred and forty humans who smelled of champagne and wool. I had been serene for the whole of that long, bright, extraordinary day. But when the cabin door swung shut behind us and the noise of the world fell away, and I stood in the firelight in a room with a large bed and a great many pillows and my husband’s eyes on me, I felt my hands begin to shake.

“Hey,” said Lex, softly.

“I am well.”

“You’re shaking.”

“It is a happy shake.”

“You stole that from Jason.”

“I am acquiring vocabulary.”

He came to stand in front of me. He set his hands on my chest, over the white lapels, and looked up. The firelight moved in his eyes. I could see the gold in them, and the green. I could see, in the curve of his neck, the small silver crescent I had put there. It shone in the light like a fingernail of moon.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he said. “You know that.”

“I know.”

“We can just lie here. We can watch the fire. We can eat leftover cake.”

“I would like that.”

“But?”

“But,” I said, “I would also like the other thing.”

His mouth curved. “Yeah?”

“Very much.”

“Good,” said Lex. “Because I’ve been planning this for a month. “

He undressed me himself.

He did it slowly, watching my face. He hung the white jacket on a chair as if it were made of glass, and he laid the waistcoat beside it, and he dropped the cufflinks in a dish. He unbuttoned the shirt one pearl at a time with his tongue between his teeth, concentrating, and when I laughed he looked up and said, “Shut up, I’m doing a thing,” and I shut up.

He kissed each inch of skin as he uncovered it. My collarbone, my ribs, the small pink scar on my shoulder where the silver had gone in. He lingered there, mouth soft, breath warm. I felt something in my chest melt.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Only when I think about it.”

“I’ll make you think about something else.”