Epilogue
MIDSUMMER - TWO YEARS LATER
IVY
“B y the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Virginia, I now declare you married.” Carter grinned and closed his folder, gesturing between Miri and me.
The tiny audience applauded as I stepped closer to my wife, cupping her jaw before leaning down to press a tender kiss to her lips. She grinned against me, opening her mouth wide enough for me to tease her with my tongue.
“I love you, Miri,” I murmured, pulling back long enough to meet her gaze before leaning in for another gentle embrace.
“I love you, Ivy,” she replied and turned to face our witnesses. My siblings had come to watch us tie the knot as had her cousin, Edward, who currently held our sleeping son, Donnelly. My mother had refused, no surprise.
“This is outrageous,” she’d said. “An absolute waste of your privilege.”
It had been two years since we’d announced our relationship to the world, but she still didn’t understand. She couldn’t control what I did anymore, and I wouldn’t let her. I hadn’t resigned from Congress, much to the chagrin of my more conservative colleagues. But the queer community embraced us, and with their support, my public image bounced back enough for me to win re-election. I was the preferred candidate for the Senate in two years. As for my mother, I’d done what Lex had told me to do before leaving us for Faerie. I now lived my life for me. I’d taken her plan and ripped it apart on live television.
First, I wanted to make good on my promise to my wife. When I’d barged in on her fake wedding to Reginald whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is from Monaco, I’d told her I would marry her if it came to it. That I wanted to be the one who brought her into my family, who made her mine.
It had taken two years, but finally, I was making an honest woman out of us both.
“All right,” I said, turning to Carter and taking the folder from him. “Your turn.”
He took a deep breath and held his hand out to Lex, who stood next to me, my “best man.” Now, I traded spots with Carter, and Miri became Carter’s matron of honor, and we started the ceremony over again. Sure, maybe it was cheesy that we held a double wedding, but after much deliberation, we couldn’t figure out a better option. It was only for silly legal purposes since polyamorous marriages weren’t technically allowed in our society. Yet . But that was another thing I planned to change with my newfound sense of empowerment.
The public had a lot to learn, and we could be role models for that ideal future.
Miri had to get married to inherit her father’s fame and fortune, something that had taken a year’s worth of pleading with the king of England to accomplish. But in his eyes, neither Carter nor Lex were suitable options.
Me, on the other hand…well, I had the name and the formal background, and four of my direct ancestors had been president. My genetics made up for my gender and nationality, and once Miri became pregnant with Donnelly, there was only one solution—put me on the birth certificate and silence the deliberation about which man in our union was the baby’s father. Sure, the world would still speculate, but it no longer mattered. Any baby that came out of my body would be Miri’s, and any baby that came out of hers would be mine. End of story.
I repeated the same vows that both Miri and I made, waiting for Lex and Carter to echo the sentiments before proclaiming them married in the eyes of Virginia and all the human realm.
Then, it was over. Our closest friends and family gathered around us, kissing and hugging my spouses.
“Holy Hell, I thought this day would never come,” Kit said, rolling her big ice-blue eyes.
“Don’t forget you still owe me twenty bucks for calling the couples.” Jon nudged her in the shoulder with his, and I swallowed back the retorts I had about my siblings betting on which ones of us would get married.
“Jon, be nice.” Lizzie shook her head and wrapped her arms around her big brother, who pulled her into a hug.
“I think someone needs a nappy change.” Edward grimaced and held the miniature version of himself out to anyone who would take him.
“Oh, I’ll do it,” Carter’s mom said, her grin stretching from ear to ear. Renee had recently moved to Virginia to be closer to her grandchild (and any future ones). Out of all our parents, she’d handled the news the best, which had surprised none of us. She’d likely seen this coming four years ago.
“No, that’s okay. Thank you, Renee. I can do it,” I insisted as Edward handed Donnelly to me, pretending to retch, and after catching a whiff of my son, I figured it was urgent. But as I kissed his ginger head and turned to the bathroom, I thought I saw chestnut hair and a tattooed shoulder with vines twisting around the upper arm. I walked to the end of the church sanctuary and glanced back and forth in the dark hallway.
“Hello?” I called, seeing no one. “Siobhan? Is that you?”
Donnelly let out a whine and gripped my white jacket with his chubby fingers, and despite the sneaking suspicion we were among fairies again, I took my son to the bathroom so I could use the changing table.
In the two years since we closed the veil, there were moments when I thought I heard Siobhan reaching out to me mentally or times when I’d wake up in the middle of the night certain I’d been running from Alberich or Diana in my dreams. But then I’d try to enter Lex’s head or talk to Carter telepathically, and nothing happened.
It’s over, I reminded myself. We’re done and it’s over.
“The gift is gone, right, my little bug?” I cleaned Donnelly and refreshed his diaper before picking him up to take him back to our family. Even though he’d come out of Miri’s body and looked more like Carter the older he got, he’d become most attached to me. I was the only one who could get him to go to sleep when he had colic, and when he got scared, I was the one he searched for first. “When do you think we should tell them about your little sibling, huh?”
He grinned up at me with his silly smile and I kissed his face, thankful yet again that it had all worked out the way I wanted it to. While we didn’t know who Donnelly’s father was, and we never wanted to find out for certain, I did know who had impregnated me. I was just over twelve weeks along, which would be the time when Miri and Carter went to Scotland for a month, just the two of them. Lex and I had torn the house apart…and now I faced the consequences.
I laughed to myself at what the sixteen-year-old version of me would think—married to Miri, pregnant with Lex’s baby, certain to fuck all of them tonight. Her brain would explode, but I wouldn’t have changed anything about my story if it ended this way every single time.
My heart had never been so full, and I swore to protect it. Any deities, fairies, or media monsters that came for us would have to go through me first.
I was Ivy Fucking Washington, and I had finally claimed my life for myself.
I intended to keep it.
* * *
CARTER
My mom had taken our kid for a sleepover, leaving the four of us to spend our official wedding night in our cabin, far away from the prying eyes of the rest of the world. After the way the Washingtons, the Fairfaxes, and the Stuarts had treated my spouses, I thanked my lucky stars my family had always been accepting of whatever I chose to do with my life. They wanted me to be happy, and after seeing the way I interacted with my spouses, Mom needed no more convincing. She would have been just as thrilled if I’d married Miri or Ivy that day, but I understood why the girls had chosen to do what they did. Which left me with my moody, broody DC, not that he was a consolation. The opposite, in fact.
He stood at the end of the bed with an arm draped over Ivy’s shoulders, leaning into our ginger-haired wife with mischief echoing behind his eyes. They’d spent the better part of the last hour undressing Miri and me as slowly as possible, now whispering in cahoots over what would happen next.
“Do you remember that night in Faerie?” Lex said, eyes glittering, lips curling into a smirk.
My heart pounded behind my ribs as I recalled the same look echoing out of Miri’s eyes on the night in question. It felt like ages ago, despite only being twenty-four-ish months. Our princess and I had held them down and taken them how we wanted, knowing it might be the last time we ever did.
“I do,” Ivy said, refocusing her attention on me, steel gaze burning with retribution.
“How about a little payback?” Lex smiled like a wolf with a rabbit between its teeth, amping up my anticipation as Ivy crawled over my prone form, her white lingerie hiding all the best parts of her. My cock twitched as Miri turned in to me, biting my earlobe before pressing up to kiss Ivy. Our queen allowed it for a moment before pushing Miri back down next to me, sitting back on my pelvis, rubbing her laced cunt right over my sensitive flesh.
Fuck, they’d been at us for an hour—biting, licking, demanding we do the same to each other. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Lex handed something to her, and when the jingles of the metal clasps on her strap-on rang out through the air, I shivered with anticipation, my balls clenching at what would come next.
“Oh, look at that,” Ivy said as she tightened the straps. “Are you excited for me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, damn near embarrassing myself.
Lex laughed and climbed on top of Miri, mirroring Ivy’s pose, and leaned down so he could press his lips to hers. “Don’t worry, Princess. You’re going to get fucked good and proper, too.”
She smiled. “I certainly hope so.”
Then, they did. Ivy held one of my legs over her shoulder, lubed up her rainbow-colored dildo, and fucked me until I couldn’t remember my name. I came all over both of us twice, much quicker than I would admit to anyone else, and when Ivy took off the strap to crawl on top of my face, I noticed a softness around her cheeks and a heaviness in her breasts that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago.
Is she pregnant?
I ignored that for the sake of making her come, and then they switched places so Lex could have his way with me before we came up for air.
“God, I’ll never get tired of fucking your ass, Chicago.” Lex inhaled his cigarette and let it out on a sigh.
I chuckled and rolled to throw an arm over his waist, pushing my head up on my hand and bending my elbow so I could look to Ivy and Miri on the other side of him, cuddling against each other and giggling at whatever Ivy had whispered to my Juliet. She turned to face us, catching my gaze and holding it for a second before shifting to Lex so she could lean in and kiss him. When she glanced back at me again, I raised an eyebrow to suggest I knew what she was hiding.
“What?” she said, furrowing her brows.
“How far along are you?” I smiled as the flush crept up her neck and made the X on her neck.
Miri gasped and Lex sat up straighter, whipping his attention to his former fiancée. “Seriously?”
Ivy nodded and grinned down at him. “It was the time we spent here when Miri and Carter were in Scotland.”
Lex smiled harder, his eyes glimmering with the joy he must have felt, the same happiness echoing in my chest. A younger version of me might have been jealous that Ivy’s first child would be with Lex, but the one in that bed with them only knew true elation. This was what we wanted. This was what we fought so hard to get. I loved these three humans more than I’d ever loved anyone, and if I got to spend the rest of my life proving that to them, I would.
After I left Fractured Crowns , I dedicated my life to LGBTIA+ outreach programs in the greater Washington, DC area. While we might have been shunned in political high society after the news of our affair first went public, our own community opened their arms in welcome. Eventually, the more liberally minded politicians came around, choosing to enmesh their brands with the radical one we had created. We were the most famous queer poly couple in the world, and I wanted to use that platform to make sure no one else ever had to deal with the shit we did. Our children would only be more proof that these types of family structures worked, that our house was full of love and devotion to each other.
“I hope it’s a strong-headed ginger,” Miri said, leaning in to kiss Ivy.
Ivy wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in closer. “I hope it’s a hazel-eyed nightmare. I need someone else to give Lex a run for his money.”
Lex laughed and I hugged him closer, and when I fell asleep that night, I realized I never needed the fairy gift. I became the luckiest motherfucker to ever live the day the four of us met in that college cafeteria, and I’d go on that way for the rest of my life.
* * *
LEX
I couldn’t sleep, so I went downstairs to grab a drink and stood out on the balcony, basking in the full moon’s glow. The sounds of the June nightlife echoed around me, cicadas and crickets desperate to make their presence known. Warm, humid air coated my skin and I moaned as I relished the feeling.
The weather in Faerie was weird. It never stormed, and the days could go on forever, making the moon seem even more unattainable. But fuck it…I’d gotten what I wanted. I had my spouses and my kid and another one on the way.
But something didn’t quite feel right. When I first returned, I told myself it didn’t matter. The queen had fulfilled every other part of my request down to the minute. Poppy had dropped me off outside the church where Ivy had absconded with the prince of Monaco’s bride, and Carter had nearly fainted when he saw me. I was living my life. I had gotten out of it all unscathed.
Except…when I stared down at my palm where the proof of my oath to my beloveds used to be, an aching chasm opened in my chest. The queen had restored me to them, but left a chunk of us missing. I remembered how deeply the four of us connected the night before the battle at Beltane, how our union had created a tangible energy that we used to defeat the most powerful fairies in Faerie. I used to be a walking-talking lie detector, for fuck’s sake.
Perhaps this was better. Wasn’t this what we said we wanted? Normalcy? For things to go back to the way they were before we wandered into those woods on that ill-fated Midsummer? Then why did it feel like I was being suffocated by the mundaneness of my new reality?
Trying not to break down into a full existential crisis, I lit a cigarette and let it out with a soft sigh, telling myself I needed to cut this filthy habit. I didn’t smoke around Donnelly, and now that we were having another child, the opportunities to destroy my lungs were dwindling.
Footsteps behind me brought my head up before warm, tender arms circled me, a soft kiss pressing into the center of my shoulder blades.
Ivy.
“What are you doing awake?” I murmured, stabbing out the smoke so she didn’t accidentally inhale it.
“Wondering what you’re doing.” She trailed pecks across my shoulders, soft and sweet, much more civilized than I was used to from her.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Turning in her hold, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and brought her in for a hug, inhaling her vanilla scent as deeply as I could.
“What’s on your mind?” Ivy twisted her head so she rested her chin on my sternum and looked up at me with a grin.
Nostalgia overwhelmed me, and my thoughts went to much younger versions of us standing in a loft in Georgetown, just figuring out our powers for the first time. She’d entered my head and felt my emotions for the entirety of our lives together.
“Remember how you used to be afraid what we had wasn’t real?” I kissed her temple, squeezing her tighter when her muscles relaxed against me. “That I would go back to hating you once the gift went away.”
She hummed an affirmative noise. “Yes, I remember.”
I dropped my hand to her belly, rubbing the spot where she carried my child… our child. “All these years later and pregnant with a Fairfax heir, how do you feel now?”
“My inner teenager is screaming in mortification.” She grinned as I laughed, touching my forehead to hers. “But I’m happy with how our life turned out. Aren’t you?”
I nodded, but that sense of missing something rose again, like the last puzzle piece hadn’t pushed into place yet, like it was just over the horizon, taunting us with being out of reach.
What are we missing?
“What’s wrong, Lucifer?” Ivy rubbed my cheek, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Are you letting regrets eat at you?”
“No, I just—Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss the gift and the connection and being able to pick through people’s minds?”
She sighed and licked her lips, drawing my gaze to her perfect mouth. “Sometimes. But if that means I lose any of you or have to fight a fairy king again, I’d rather live without it.”
Taking a deep inhale, I let her reassurance sink into my skin and tried to adopt that attitude. We had survived. That was supposed to be enough. I had sacrificed my life with them to save them. Shouldn’t I be grateful that Diana had sent me back here at all?
Once, long ago, I wished I had died instead of my brother, and now I had a family of my own. It was my dream become a reality, my true north, the one vision that kept me going all these years. It was everything I’d ever wanted. It should have been enough.
“I thought I saw Siobhan at the wedding today.” She pursed her lips and glanced out toward the woods, almost as if she could will our fairy friends to appear out of the tree line like they once had. “I took Donnelly to change and I could have sworn she was there. I called out for her, but she didn’t answer.”
“What do you think it means?” I held her tighter, needing her strength as much as she needed mine.
Ivy shook her head. “That I’ve been working too hard and the pregnancy hormones are starting to fuck with me.”
I chuckled, still delighted with her sense of humor after all these years. “Do you think you’ll crave chocolate ice cream and sauerkraut like our princess?”
“Ugh.” She stepped back and shook her head, pretending to gag. “Don’t remind me.”
I opened my mouth to tease her about Carter’s breeding kink, but stopped when our spouses appeared behind us.
“It’s time,” Miri said, moonlight twinkling in her eyes, a hint of mischief on her lips.
“Time?” Ivy furrowed her brows and stepped away from me, glancing at Carter. “Time for what?”
Our husband shrugged. “She woke me up and told me to get moving.”
“Trust me,” Miri said, holding a basket in one hand as she descended the stairs and walked toward the trees.
“Juliet,” Carter said, toting after her like a lost puppy. “Where are you going?”
“Just come along,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.”
I glanced at Ivy, who raised her eyebrows and followed. Against most of the logical thoughts telling me not to wander into the forest in the middle of the night on Midsummer, I turned and went with them.
* * *
MIRI
It was not a sham marriage.
We were in love, all of us, all together. We were always meant to be a four.
The world looked at a relationship like ours and judged us for it, but I no longer cared what they thought. I couldn’t, not when my wife brought out the fire in me, not when one of my husbands lived in the darkness and the other was as blinding as endless sunshine.
I’d been having dreams about this for months. The woods had been calling me, reaching out to me however they could. So many times, I had ventured out here and shoved my fingers into the dirt, praying I’d vibrate with that same vitality the plants had once used to communicate. I’d close my eyes and reach out with my senses to dead air.
Ivy hadn’t been able to get inside our minds anymore. Lex tried to get the truth out of his clients, but the words held no magic. Carter’s luck had finally run out.
A part of me, perhaps the part that had always had a special connection to the trees, lamented what we’d lost…what we’d given up so that we could win. But in my darkest moments, I’d admit I’d do it all again if it brought me the same life.
The tears. The heartache. The threat of a terrible, irreversible loss only to know unimaginable joy.
Until the end, we’d once promised. Until the end had been branded on our hands for four years.
The end had come and gone and we’d survived.
All of us. All four of us. Here to bring in the new day.
“What if the lust hits us again?” Ivy said. “What if we get stuck out here?”
“We’re not expected anywhere for a few days,” I said. “It’ll be okay.”
Ivy took a deep breath and nodded, sinking to her knees in the grass before opening the bag we’d brought with us. Ivy grabbed the candles and put them on the ground as I sat down next to her to light them. I grabbed the scissors to rip off a piece of my long white dress before handing them to Carter to do the same to his white T-shirt. Lex cut off a strip of his matching shirt and handed it to me as Ivy sliced through her dress for a scrap of the same.
Once I had the four pieces of linen, I tied them together into a tight knot and held my hand out in the middle, overtop of the open flame. I grabbed the ceremonial knife that had been sanitized before coming out here and made a tiny incision in my palm, right over where the words had once shined bright against my alabaster skin. Crimson blood bubbled over the cut, and I watched as my spouses did the same to their hands before placing them over mine. Ivy gripped my palm and Carter lay his on top of hers. Lex went under me, holding all of us up with his indomitable strength, truly the king of our world, the gravity around which all of us spun.
I wrapped the fabric around our combined embrace, over and under and over again until Ivy helped me knot it on top.
Blood dripped from Carter and Ivy over my hand and down onto Lex’s, combining each of us, mixing our life force. Ivy’s fire soothed Lex’s ice and emboldened Carter’s autumn chill. And each of them complemented the sunny frost of my springtime spirit. We were always meant to be a four, and after everything that happened, I thanked God that had not changed.
“Okay,” I said, glancing at each one of them before returning my attention to our embrace. “Here goes nothing.” I cleared my throat and went first. “I vow to love you. All of you. I will honor and cherish you and treat you with respect.” I winked at Ivy when she smiled, clearly recognizing the words from the first time we’d made this promise, all those Midsummers ago. “I will never betray you. I will never hold you back from your dreams or each other. I promise honesty. From today until the end.”
Lex went next, reciting nearly the same words over again, followed by Carter and Ivy, who both struggled to get through the whole thing without breaking into tears.
“I know I say this all the time,” I continued, giving their combined hands an endearing squeeze. “But thank you for forgiving me. I haven’t made it easy to love me, but you do. And I can never be as grateful as I should be.”
“Miri,” Ivy said, wiping away a tear with her free hand. “I told you. I’ll always take you however I can get you. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“If anyone is difficult to love, it’s me, Princess,” Lex said.
“We deserve each other,” Carter added. “In all the ways possible.”
“It’s time,” came a voice on the wind, a whisper that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
I gasped as a sharp burning pain sliced through the center of my palm, sucking in air as it ached and throbbed. Lex winced and Ivy groaned, each one pulling away from our handfast.
“Fucking hell!” Ivy said, grabbing her aching hand with her free one.
I watched it happen this time, staring in amazement as the letters burned into my skin.
Until the end.
The vow we made to each other six years ago in Killwater woods was now etched bright and brilliant on my palm.
“It worked,” Ivy murmured, her eyes glimmering with wonder and anticipation.
“It fucking worked,” Lex said, running his hands back through his hair. “It’s back. Lie to me. Say you hate me.”
“Come see,” the trees called again.
“I hate you, Lucifer,” Ivy said. “I’ve always hated you.”
Lex winced and curled his lips into a smile. “Liar.”
Carter laughed and held his uninjured hand out to Ivy. “Try to get in my head. Go on! See how hot I think you’re gonna be when you get all swollen with our baby.”
Ivy took his hand, but I already knew the truth. Our gifts had returned to us. My dreams had been right.
“They’re coming,” the trees said. I didn’t know who or what they meant, only that I needed to stand to greet our new guests. I glanced around, exhilaration filling me when the heavy rustling of undergrowth announced multiple visitors.
“What is that?” Lex said.
“Who’s here?” Carter called.
I didn’t know what we would find in the woods, but whatever it was, we were together. We could face it as long as we were a four. Gone were the days of insecurity or questioning when they would leave me. Gone was thinking I could protect them by staying away.
I loved our little family, and once I’d dug in my heels and pressed the issue, my grandparents relented. It had taken time, but they had started to recognize Donnelly as a member of their family, if not yet a part of the royal household. But I knew they would come around to all of it. Even if they didn’t, I no longer placed such emphasis on their opinion. The only family I needed was the one I had with these three humans.
The strength in that knowledge had me standing firm, gripping Lex’s fingers on one side and Ivy’s on the other, her free hand in Carter’s.
But when the visitors broke through the tree line, relief lifted the weight off my chest.
Siobhan walked ahead with a fully grown Poppy standing next to her, now almost the same height as our fairy friend.
“Poppy?” Carter called in disbelief.
The changeling raced toward my husband and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a hug. He laughed and held her, spinning her around in his embrace. Then she went to Ivy, holding her arms out. I thought my wife might turn her away, but she didn’t. She hugged Poppy like an old friend, tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips. I likewise greeted our adopted daughter with a grin.
“What is this?” Ivy said, turning to Siobhan. “I thought you were banned from this realm. I claimed it as my own.”
“Aye, you did,” Siobhan said with a nod. “I told you Poppy was special. She’s the key, and she always has been.”
“Are you staying?” Carter asked. “Are you home for good?”
“For a while,” Poppy said. “We have a lot to catch up on.”
“And we have the rest of our lives to do it,” I said, joy swelling in my torso that we’d all been reunited and things had worked out the way they were meant to. In this fairy tale, the princess wasn’t rescued by a knight in shining armor or a king who had faced a dragon or a queen with an axe to grind. Instead, I was saved by all three, and now, I knew how to stand on my own. No one and nothing could separate us again.
Like Lex had said all those years ago, I deserved to be happy. So I would be.