Epilogue
ELLA
On the day before her wedding, I break the news to Alix while we’re sitting in side-by-side pedicure chairs at Esther Hong’s. When I say, “I need you to know that I’m dating your brother,” her massage feature switches to “vigorous,” and it sounds like I’ve induced a seizure.
“How did he manage to talk you into it? Do you know that he paints miniature Siege Blade figurines to relax? Never mind,” She shakes her head. “He’s perfect. You’re perfect. The important thing is that we’re going to be sisters,” she declares, her voice pitching up into a near-squeal.
“Alix, we’re just dating. You can’t put the cart before the horse,” I say. Of course, there’s a bonus feature in Runaway Wagon that absolutely allows players to do such a thing.
It doesn’t matter where the cart is. I see the future as clearly as I see my own toenails, painted Seongan Spring just for the wedding. It’s always been Marc, and it will always be Marc.
To her credit, my mother is trying not to appear elated.
Her official position is that her daughters will be the death of her.
That this is a difficult time to manage yet another boyfriend for the House of Wolffe, and could I please think of the monarchy and keep things well in hand over the coming months?
Her unofficial position peeps out in the form of a dimple whenever his name is brought up or she crosses his path and he gives her one of his courtly, old fashioned bows.
“What?” she asks, when I catch her eye on these occasions. “It’s rare to see a young person do it correctly.”
Amma doesn’t make a scene when we tell her, but she gently edges Marc out of her way and holds my hands tightly, brushing my cheek with her own.
The thin crust of her Lutheranism must have evaporated during her time in Seong, because as soon as Alix told her such an event was possible, she collected the precise moment of my birth and consulted a shaman.
When we pass her in the halls or gardens of Lindenholm, in the midst of these last minute wedding preparations, she murmurs things like, “Next summer is an auspicious season.”
Marc handled Noah. I am not privy to the particulars.
I don’t know if anyone wrestled anyone else into submission.
The only thing Marc will say is that no punches were thrown.
He must have given Noah something to think about, because my brother paces the halls of the Summer Palace with his “Isn’t there a foreign country we can wipe off the map?
” face and growls irritably when Marc walks through the Great Hall like he owns the place.
“Don’t worry about him,” Marc says. “This really isn’t about us.”
I promise Alix that Marc and I will keep things private until well after her wedding, but she begs us go public.
“I can’t buy that kind of buzz,” she says, which isn’t even true.
She hired a pair of juggling fortune tellers off of Pixy Shopfront for the reception, and invited acclaimed artist Linus Tiele to recreate the bride and groom in bottle caps as her guests watch.
Marc and I are another kind of spectacle.
We hold hands and don’t let go, not even when VrouwWOW’s photographer trains his lens on us.
I feel the moment we’re captured. Marc scoops me into his arms and lifts my hand to kiss the back of it.
I straighten my shoulders and give the camera my best angle, but I can’t stop smiling long enough to look elegant.
It was a nice track record while it lasted, but I very much doubt I’ll be winning any popularity polls with readers of VrouwWOW next year.
When Yasmin sees us, her mouth forms a tiny cupid’s bow of shock. Soon, though, her expression shifts into the determined look of a town crier, bent on sounding the news through every hamlet and village in Sondmark that Princess Ella has thrown her cap over the windmill at last.
By morning, everyone in Sondmark will know that Marc and I are a couple.
Tom gives a speech and presents his bride, now on her fourth wedding outfit, a Creature Catching account, filled with all the life points he’s collected while taking business calls. “I’m never not thinking of you,” he says, dipping her into a kiss.
I move my hands in a series of tiny claps, my shoulders lifting in a happy sigh.
“Think about the private island, Ella.” Marc leans over and gives me a whui-ho fist.
I look up at him. “All that time, Marc. Think of how many digital butterflies he had to catch when he doesn’t even like video games. I think I love him.”
He scans the room. “I can do better than that.”
Marc takes my hand and secrets me out of the wedding tent, leading me deep into the orchard.
He shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket and throws it across my shoulders before I have a chance to feel the chill, and when the sound of the party is low and distant, the stars winking brightly overhead, he pauses.
At the base of a cherry tree, he finds a dandelion and brings it to me, holding the delicate puff between us. The seeds glow in the moonlight, full of promise, a dozen possibilities shivering on one slender stem. This is our new tradition.
“I’ll give you all of your wishes,” he says, secure in the knowledge that I won’t wish to be anywhere that he isn’t.
I blow, and the seeds drift in the night air, glinting under the moon. I think back on a moment I’ve been turning over since it happened.
“What is it this time?” he asks.
“You’ll laugh,” I say. I’m laughing myself.
There is no such thing as a Lutheran shaman, but I can see the future.
I can see my roots planted deep in the soil of Lindenholm.
I can see Marc and I weaving our lives together, the threads strong and unbreakable.
I can see the generations to come, stamped by the both of us. I don’t waste wishes on a sure thing.
I have vowed to work for the monarchy as long as my family needs me, even if I prefer living on my own terms. It will happen naturally as I become a peripheral member of the royal line, and there’s only one way that’s going to happen. “I wished that Noah would fall in love and get married.”
“Why would I laugh about that?” he asks, swaying me gently to the distant sounds of an American ballad, something from Sinatra.
“Because I wished he would do it with Caroline.”
I laugh and expect him to laugh with me. I expect him to say, “Caroline Tiele and your brother? Try wishing for the moon.”
Instead, he pulls me into a kiss and whispers against my lips. “I’ll see what I can do.”