29. Cassiel #2
“Bath,” one announces cheerfully, already tugging at Wren’s sleeve. “Proper bath. Proper dress. No arguments.”
Wren opens her mouth, likely to argue anyway, and is immediately outnumbered.
“Cassiel,” she calls, laughter threaded with protest as they steer her toward the adjoining room, “don’t let them drown me.”
“I’ll mount a rescue,” I promise.
The door shuts. There’s splashing almost at once, and murmured brownie commentary.
I don’t have time to dwell on it. Another hobgoblin appears, arms laden. “For you,” she says, setting the bundle on the bed and fixing me with an expectant look.
Inside are clothes finer than anything I’d expected—soft shirt, well-cut trousers, and a waistcoat that steals the breath right out of my chest. Blue silk, shot through with darker veins, the pattern unmistakable. Butterfly wings.
I touch it like it might vanish. “This is—”
“Yours, for tonight,” she says briskly. “Wear it well.” Then she’s gone.
I change slowly. The fabric fits as though it knows me. I wonder if it’s magic and realise it must be. When I fasten the waistcoat, I catch my reflection in the small mirror by the washstand and barely recognise myself.
It’s the first time I’ve seen my reflection in over a year.
I take my hands and explore my face, almost as if it’s someone else’s.
Realistically, I don’t think I’ve changed much in that time.
My hair is still gold, my skin still pale and dewy…
but there’s a hardness in my expression I don’t remember from before, a sharpness to my features. I look older than twenty.
I fix my gaze on my eyes, watching as my pupils shrink, responding to light, to focus. They really are very green. Green, and mine, and working.
I barely register Wren reentering the room.
“You look good, Cass,” she says.
“Why, thanks, I’m just—”
I turn towards her, and my mind simply… stops.
Wren stands there, framed by the lamplight, transformed and utterly herself.
The gown clings and flares in rich scarlet and black, red admiral butterfly wings spread across her skirts, edged in ivory.
Her hair falls loose down her back, dark and glossy, a wild softness to it I have never seen before.
She looks like she’s stepped out of a story the folk tell when they want to make mortals ache.
She lifts her chin. “Well?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Her lips twitch. “Cassiel?”
I try again. “I—” My voice fails me entirely this time. I swallow, helpless. “You look…”
Beautiful is too small. Stunning is laughable. Every word I know feels like an insult.
She crosses the room, slower now, uncertainty creeping in. “Is it too much?”
“No,” I say immediately, too fast. I catch her hand before I quite realise I’ve moved. “No. It’s—” I laugh, a breathless sound. “I think the world may have peaked.”
She laughs, colour blooming in her cheeks, and the sound hits me straight in the chest. “You’ve quite a tongue for flattery, precious prince.”
“You’re a menace,” I remind her.
A knock sounds at the door before I can think of a better way to retaliate.
“Guests are gathering,” a brownie calls through the wood. “If you please.”
We follow the sound of bells—real ones at first, then something softer, chiming from beetle-wings and glass mushrooms as we’re led out and down a winding path.
Brindlewick at night is a sight to behold, most of it in almost perfect clarity.
Lanterns bloom along the roots and low branches, light cupped in petals of cut bark.
I frown, staring at the light—it looks like fire, but it burns nothing.
“Foxfire,” Wren explains, catching me staring. “We use everlight in the Moonhollow. It’s not as warm as foxfire though, and it doesn’t look like flames.”
I want to see it all, strange as that sounds—I want to see the place where Wren grew up, despite the people in it.
But for now, I content myself with the feast for the senses unfurling in front of me.
Threads of light are strung between trunks like constellations, close enough to touch.
The Duskfen breathes around us—cool, sweet rot and fern, water murmuring somewhere unseen.
Above, the canopy has been coaxed into an arch, leaves stitched together with silver twine.
I can’t make out much beyond that, but I’m sure it’s glorious.
Creatures gather in quiet knots: brownies in embroidered coats, hobgoblins with flowers braided into their hair, moth-folk shimmering like they’ve been dusted with night. There’s laughter, hushed and bright. Someone presses a cup into my hand that tastes of honey and smoke.
We’re guided to a ring of seats grown from living wood, their backs curling like fern fronds.
As we sit, a brownie slips between us, standing on tiptoe to whisper, conspiratorial and delighted, “The bride and groom are called Tallowbark and Juniper. They’ve known each other since they were children. ”
I can’t see them yet, but I’m thankful for the information. I glance at Wren, then at the place where the path opens like a stage. “Do weddings here differ much from Moonhollow?” I ask quietly.
She considers. “In some ways. Fey don’t love spectacles for promises.
We prefer… privacy, since our vows don’t have to be public.
We do have a grand party, though.” Her mouth quirks.
“For the ceremony, there’s a veil. One or both wear it.
It’s stitched with runes—wishes, protections, desires…
” She drops her voice. “Traditionally, you make love beneath it on the wedding night. To seal the work.”
Heat rises in my ears. “Ah,” I manage, very eloquent. “Mortals tend to… say things. Out loud. In front of everyone.”
She turns the question back on me. “What do you say?”
“Vows,” I say. “Promises made before witnesses. ‘I will’ this, ‘until death’ that.” I smile, wry. “We like to be heard.”
Wren nods. “Fey can’t lie, so public vows aren’t needed.” Her gaze goes distant, fond. “We whisper the words where only the other can hear. In a burrow, or down by a sacred lake—perhaps in the trees.”
“What kind of vows do you whisper?”
It occurs to me that there is much we mortals promise that they can’t, or won’t. No promises of forever, no vows that can’t be broken. How can they make grand declarations that they know won’t always be true?
“Oh, anything we fancy,” Wren whispers. “But they often end with, ‘So I speak it, so make it true.’” Her smile brightens. “And after, we come out and tell our friends, ‘We are married!’”
I grin, too. There’s something rather joyful about that.
Music begins to thread through the air, strings plucked by hands and wings, a low drum like a heartbeat under moss.
The path glows brighter as Tallowbark and Juniper appear together, hands entwined.
One wears a veil of pale silk, runes glimmering softly as if breathing; the other’s brow is crowned with leaves still damp from the river.
They don’t look at us. They look only at each other, faces alight with a joy so private it feels like an honour to glimpse it at all.
Wren’s fingers lace through mine. I cling on just as tightly.
The couple step up to the stage. Someone comes forward with a small bowl of something, or possibly a pot. I really can’t make out much more.
“An ink pot,” Wren explains, whispering quietly. The rest of the congregation is beautifully quiet.
The groom dips his fingers into the pot and draws something on the inside of the bride’s wrist. She does the same.
“They’re writing the rune ‘infinite’,” Wren explains. “They cannot stand there and promise each other forever, because then, as fey, they would be bound by their word, and most understand the weight of that, the impossibility.”
Is it truly impossible, I wonder, to be with someone forever, when forever might be what you have? Perhaps. I’ve never known what it’s like to live in a world where I could expect to live for centuries. But my short, human life? That I could imagine giving to someone else.
One someone else.
“They may not be able to make a vow, but they can think it,” Wren continues. “They can give each other a word. It’s a nothing rune, of course. You can’t make anything infinite. But you can believe in it.”
My chest heats. “What does the rune look like?”
Wren lets go of my hand and turns mine over. She traces a symbol on my forearm, like the figure eight. It tickles. I try not to flinch under her touch. I don’t want her to pull away.
“We are married!” announce the couple.
The company bursts into cheers of pure joy.
Wren yanks her hand away to clap. I clap, too, but I’m not looking at the bridal party.
Even when petals start dropping from the sky, my eyes are on Wren, her face bathed in lamp light, the petals catching in her hair.
I’m mesmerised by how the light flickers across her features, bathing her hair in hues of red and gold.
I’d known her hair was dark long before I saw it, but I’d pictured it more as raven-black.
I’d not thought to colour it in my mind with so many shades, like a forest at dusk.
It’s warm and earthy, petrichor given shape.
Wren turns to look at me. “You’re staring.”
“Is there somewhere else I’m supposed to be looking?”
She gestures all around her. “Yes, actually!” Laughing, she seizes my hand. “Come on, prince. Let me show you how the commoners party.”