No Agnes, nor William.
The tea and spice maker, Madame Rillrose, and Madame Toranaga sat near the front, watching solemnly.
Across from them were Adelaide and Lorietta, dressed in black silk and chiffon, sitting next to Rupert and Emma.
In the frontmost row sat Yanna, Isabel, and Piper.
Marguerite and Henri stood near the altar, Henri’s face pale. Marguerite’s, unreadable.
Bastion marched to the front and slumped Giles into the pew, then jogged to the back of the church. There was a plink, the sound of metal wrenching, then stone splitting; he returned with one of the fonts of Holy Water attached to part of the brick that held it, and splashed it straight into Father Guillaume’s face.
“Don’t you touch the butter!” the priest shouted, snorting and jerking awake. He blinked up at everyone. “Oh. What’s going on?” He spotted Lilac, shivering in Garin’s arms. Henri and Marguerite, glaring in their direction. His gaze stilled on Garin. “What happened to him?” he asked. “And where is my Bisousig?”
“It doesn’t matter, priest,” Bastion snapped. “Read from the scripture there.” He nodded his head at the scroll and Bible next to it. “Just do your job and no one gets hurt.”
“They,” Myrddin offered, swirling his hands and producing a square red box, and an enormous crown upon a pillow, “are getting married. And Lilac will be crowned.”
Not bothering to correct him, Garin left her side and took his place at right of the altar, soaked, eyes darkening. Lilac joined him, and gave him asmall smile. Her bottom lip wouldn’t stop quivering, not just because of the frigid air soaked into her wet clothes.
But instead of returning it, Garin’s hands shot out and gripped hers, squeezing, as if it were the last thing on earth he needed to feel.
Giles cleared his throat. Garin released her hands and forced his down at his side.
He stood at the altar and began the rites, voice slightly trembling as he began. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” He eyed the crowd. Bastion’s eyes narrowed threateningly, so he continued. “We are gathered here under God’s Holy Church to solemnize the marriage between the noble Lady Eleanor Trécesson and His Imperial Majesty, Maximilian, by his most trusted proxy, Sir…” Father Guillaume glanced sideways at Garin, who was still fuming. “Garin?—”
“Albrecht,” Henri corrected from his seat behind them.
“SirAlbrecht. Let the vows now be spoken, by God's grace and under the seal of Heaven.”
As Father Guillaume spoke, Lilac remained reeling. Those memories she’d witnessed of Garin’s, feeling like an unwelcome intruder into his most private family past—memories woven into his bloodline, as the creature had said, now inextricably wound into the threads of her mind. As hers, with him.
The memory of her ancestor, Katella… The dim apothecary that held centuries of secrets within its perfumed walls.
Lilac glanced down at Garin’s hands balled into fists, unseeing, her thoughts flickering like candlelight back to the library—the strange, hidden sanctum filled with lost archives. The Bugul Noz, a not-so-hideous Daemon who had shown them kindness without demand.
Whatever it had been—the gloam, a Daemon realm, some fraying border of dream and memory—Lilac found herself wondering what it would be like to walk those echoing halls again. With Garin, never alone.
Twice usurper, Kestrel had called her.
A breath caught in her throat, something jagged and strange—a laugh, or perhaps the beginning of a sob. She stifled it, swallowing the noise as a whisper brushed against her senses.
Piper. In the front pew, shoulder to shoulder with Isabel.
Her friends. Hersisters.
Both smiled at her—gently, fiercely—while Yanna smirked, casting the occasional scowl toward Bastion and Garin. Nonetheless, theysawher. Perhaps, that was the duty of a sister. Knowing the grief and heartache one carried, and loving her all the more for it.
Piper leaned ever so slightly toward her, lips barely moving. “Breathe, Your Majesty,” she mouthed. “You look beautiful.”
The tension in her chest cracked, just a little. The grief and fury didn’t leave her, but for one breathless moment, it softened. They were with her. And she was not alone.
Garin cleared his throat, low and sensuous. His jaw remained tense, unnaturally still as Father Guillaume rushed on. For a fleeting moment, she thought his lips looked too pale without her blood staining them.
He had not looked her in the eye since the rite began.
“Garin,” she whispered. “We don’t have to do this.”
His eyes lifted slowly, and she saw it then—the faint ring of deep burgundy around his garnet irises. The strain in his working throat. The tremendous effort it cost him to remain composed.
