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Then she continued.
“And last, our men know what we’ve given up for them. Our worlds and everything we know, which is a really big deal. It hurts them to think we pine for it, when we don’t. I love my friends.” She smiled. “I love fluffernutter sandwiches. But I love Frey more than anything on two worlds. And I can’t say I don’t experience nostalgia every once in a while, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here, with him.”
“Yeah,” I whispered with feeling.
“It’s up to you, of course,” Cora chimed in. “We just ask that you be very, very careful.”
“Kingdoms depend on it,” Circe added.
“And think of Valentine,” Finnie concluded.
“Yeah,” I repeated.
There was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” I called.
Idina stuck in her head. “It’s time to get ready, Lady Satrine.”
My heart jumped with happiness.
“I’ll be right there,” I told her.
She shot me a huge smile and ducked out, closing the door.
I looked to Finnie. “Please tell me they breathe fire.”
She shot me a huge smile too. “Oh yes. They breathe fire.”
“Awesome,” I whispered.
Circe shifted forward, lifting up her coupé glass (obviously, since it was my wedding day, and I was sitting around, gabbing with my gals, we were drinking champagne).
“To savages in savage lands,” she toasted.
Cora sat forward and raised her glass. “To men on horseback.”
Maddie did the same and offered, “To breeches and boots.”
Finnie mirrored her friends and said, “To love that spans worlds.”
It was my turn.
My glass high, I offered, “To gossamer in the darkness.”
Joyous, knowing smiles before we all clinked.
And then we all drank.
* * * *
“Idina,” I called when I made it to my rooms after leaving the women.
Well, not my rooms.
My rooms were our rooms.
It was just that, I’d asked one thing of my world from Loren for our wedding, and that was that he wouldn’t see me until our garland was wound around our arms before we walked to the altar at the temple.
So last night after dinner, I left him and slept in these rooms, which Idina had set up to be Get Ready Central, and he went to ours.
He had not liked it, like really, and that was sweet.
But he was Loren.
I’d been right those many weeks ago, he couldn’t deny me anything.
So he gave me what I asked.
“Idina?” I called again when she didn’t answer.
And she again didn’t answer.
She, and Mom, and obviously Mary, were self-appointed Wedding Planners Extraordinaire. Therefore, she was probably off doing something wedding related.
But she’d be back because my hair had to be done, and no way would she fall down on that job.
Mary, by the by, had been filled in about everything, and to say she was shocked was an understatement. But in the end, Edgar being a dick times two, and this spanning entire worlds, wasn’t surprising to her. She had adored Corliss and was glad to have a version of her, even if she couldn’t have the real thing. And she regarded me as a bonus.
Plus, she was an extreme patriot and would do nothing to endanger the kingdom, so she’d vowed in her inimitably dramatic way to keep her mouth shut.
And obviously Ansley knew, because Tor and Loren let him in on it, and his fealty to crown and country was even stronger than Mary’s. But more, his son was in love with a parallel universe chick, and in his way, he was too.
In other words, we were good on that score.
FYI, Ansley requested us to delay the wedding another two months, because, after the goings-on at the magistrate’s court, Mom and I got super-famous and super-popular, and Ansley and Loren already were. This meant Ansley was getting some pressure to make this a grander, more political affair, and as such, since it took forever to get anywhere in this place (they didn’t even have trains), we needed to give time for the invitations to go out, and more time for people to show up.
Loren wasn’t a fan.
But, shades of that aforementioned fealty, I could tell Ansley struggled with not doing what was requested by his king for his country, and it had to be said, just to be polite, so I talked my man around.
I could wait. I had him. And I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
I moved to the window and looked out.
It was now nearly winter, and we were in Dalwin Castle, which was situated on the northeastern cliffs of Hawkvale. Loren told me we were parallel to Bellebryn, which was at the same latitude, just on the western coast.
I probably didn’t have to say, castles were da bomb-diggity-bomb-bomb.
Talk about fairytale.
It had turrets and banners and moats, the whole shebang.
It was everything.
Adding to the ambiance, it was chilly and crisp here. I’d always been a fall and winter girl (I lived in Phoenix, so fall and winter were the best), and Loren told me Hawkvale didn’t have the fierce winters that Lunwyn did. Sometimes there were only dustings of snow in the northern regions, but in the central and southern ones, the temperature changed only slightly.
