13. Magnolia #2
The impact cracks the basin. Enchanted water rushes into the fracture, flooding over the blade, drowning the green fire. The glow sputters. Flickers. The dagger screams that same tearing-metal shriek, higher and thinner, and then the stone swallows it whole.
The binding runes at the altar flare gold.
Hold.
Steady.
Burn clean and bright against the afternoon sun.
The disruption spell is dead.
I stand in the shattered fountain, water pouring through the cracked basin around my bare feet, my dress destroyed, my palm bleeding, my forehead already swelling where Mark's skull connected with mine.
Mark floats on his back beside me, groaning, cradling his bitten thumb.
Two hundred guests stare in absolute silence.
"Someone call the marshals. And someone get my sister a robe."
Water streams off me in sheets. My teeth chatter so hard they click against each other like a broken typewriter.
The fountain basin keeps draining through the crack I split in the stone, enchanted water pooling across the manicured lawn in a spreading lake that soaks into the white aisle runner and turns it translucent.
The string quartet's cellist peers over his music stand.
Aunt Geneva is still unconscious on Uncle Teddy, who has stopped struggling and accepted his fate.
My palm bleeds freely. The cut runs diagonal across the meat of my hand, deep enough that the edges gape when I flex my fingers.
Pink water drips from my elbow. What remains of my four-hundred-dollar bridesmaid dress clings to my body in wet green strips, like I lost a fight with a paper shredder inside a car wash.
Mark tries to stand. Slips. Goes down hard on one knee, his rented shoes squealing against the wet stone.
The ground shakes.
Three steps. That is all it takes. Three massive, earth-jarring strides and Dash is at the fountain rim.
His shirtsleeves are soaked to the bicep from crushing the first blade.
His amber eyes sweep me head to toe. The bleeding palm.
The split dress. The red welt already rising on my forehead where Mark headbutted me.
His jaw tightens so hard the muscle jumps beneath his dark green skin.
He doesn't speak.
He steps into the fountain.
What remains of the water barely reaches his shins.
The broken stone crunches under his weight.
He bends at the waist, hooks one arm around my ribcage, and lifts me straight out of the basin like pulling a carrot from soft earth.
My feet leave the ground. The world tilts.
Cool air hits my soaked skin and I gasp.
He sets me on the grass.
Gentle. So gentle. His palm cups the back of my skull, steadying me, his thumb brushing the wet hair from my temple. For one heartbeat his eyes hold mine and something vast and aching passes between us. Something that has nothing to do with contracts or gold or fake anything.
Then he turns back to the fountain.
Mark has made it to his feet. He stands shin-deep in the draining water, swaying, his tuxedo jacket ballooning with trapped air. A hydrangea petal is still plastered to his nostril. His bitten thumb is swelling purple. He looks like a raccoon pulled from a storm drain.
Dash reaches down.
One hand. Just one. It closes around the back of Mark's collar and the waistband of his trousers simultaneously, bunching the wet fabric into a single fistful.
Mark's feet leave the stone. He rises out of the fountain basin in a smooth, vertical arc, water cascading off his legs, his arms pinwheeling, his mouth opening and closing like a landed trout.
Dash deposits him on the grass beside me.
Mark lands on his knees. Coughs. Spits fountain water onto the white aisle runner.
"You're done," Dash says.
He has the tone of a man ordering coffee. And that is somehow worse than any roar could ever be. Two hundred guests lean forward in their chairs. My mother lowers her candelabra half an inch.
Mark looks up.
Something stupid happens behind his eyes.
Something reckless and wounded and entirely predictable.
The same look he wore the night he smashed my stand mixer because I spent too long at the bakery.
The same look he wore when he keyed my delivery van after I changed the locks.
The cornered-animal fury of a man who has never once in his life accepted a consequence.
He stands.
Winds up.
Throws a right hook directly at Dash's jaw.
His fist connects with a wet smack. Knuckles against green skin. Dash's head doesn't move. Not a millimeter. Not a fraction. The blow lands and absorbs into the dense Orcish bone structure like a pebble hitting a castle wall.
Mark's face goes white.
His hand goes limp at his side. Three of his fingers bend at angles that fingers should not bend. A sound escapes his mouth. High. Thin. The whimper of a man who just punched a concrete pillar and discovered that physics is not negotiable.
Dash blinks once.
"That was free."
He reaches down. Both hands this time. They close around Mark's torso, fingers overlapping against his ribcage, and Mark rises.
Past Dash. Past his shoulders. Past the tusk and the amber eyes and the scar that runs from his left ear to his collarbone.
Mark's ruined dress shoes kick the empty air.
His arms flail. His mouth opens to scream and only a strangled gurgle comes out.
Dash locks his elbows.
Mark is overhead. Fully extended. Held aloft like a barbell at the peak of a clean press. His body silhouetted against the afternoon sun, water still dripping from his trouser cuffs onto Dash's upturned face.
Two hundred guests hold their breath.
My mother drops the candelabra.
Dash shifts his weight to his back foot. His shoulders rotate. His hips load. Every single muscle in his massive frame coils with the gathered, terrifying potential energy of a catapult at full draw.
Mark finds his voice.
"PLEASE—"
Dash holds the position. Waiting. His amber eyes find mine across the ruined lawn, asking a question without words.
My call.