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He realized she was staring at his eyes––his cracked crystal, glasslike, vampire eyes. He found himself thinking she was less afraid of them now and more trying to get used to them.

When Nick jerked his chin towards the door to the kitchen, indicating that she should lead the way, she smiled at him.

That time, Nick could have sworn the smile was real.

Almost real, anyway.

Whatever it was, he would definitely take it.

6

THE HOLD UP

Istared down at the huge cake in front of us, and the beautiful painting that made up the top of it. I wasn’t sure what to make of the actualimageJem chose for me and Black’s painting. I’d seen a number of the cakes by then, with people coming by and showing us theirs.

The paintings were all different.

I’d seen mountains, blue skies, cityscapes, balloons, houses, trees, sunsets, puppies, flowers, butterflies, people, what looked like nebulas, wormholes, abstract colors, rainbows, flying horses, griffins, fairies, serpents, scraps of poetry and quotes from religious texts, eagles, a woodpecker, a kangaroo, even a flying squirrel.

My and Black’s cake managed to somehow look and feel completely unlike any of theirs. Each cake had its own “vibe” of sorts, but ours struck me as noticeably off the norm, maybe because we were the main married couple for the seer portion of the ceremony, so there was a different thing Jem needed to convey. Really, we were theonlymarried couple for this, since Angel and Cowboy were both human.

Whatever the reason, our cake struck me as different.

For one, it was deep black… almost the whole cake.

When I stared at it longer under the torchlight, I saw that blue-black and dark green covered the bottom half, like an underwater ocean scene at night. Lighter lines of frosting, dipped in silver, looked almost like waves. A swirl of silvery-blue light stood out above, like a moon behind clouds over water.

I swore I saw the black eagle there, the one from Black’s company logo.

The overall feel of it was still, tranquil, endless night.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

I felt more there, too, almost a yin-yang type thing, peace and violence, death and rebirth. I didn’t find it ominous or anything negative, but it had more of a mysterious, deep, primordial vibe than I would have expected on any kind of wedding cake, even me and Black’s.

Even a seer wedding cake.

I looked around at the seers and humans on the pool deck below, most of whom sat on loungers or clustered around the edges of the pool, their feet dipped in the water.

“This is such a strange wedding,” I muttered.

Even after what happened in Saratoga, this all just felt so weird.

“It’s about to get stranger,” Black joked.

He kissed the side of my face, pulling me against him, wrapping both of his arms around my waist. I couldn’t help but feel the protectiveness behind the impulse, or the intensity behind how he held me. My odd shiver of worry, or premonition, or whatever it was had affected him. He’d taken my weird feeling seriously and now I felt bad about that… even worse than when he first pointed it out.

But I couldn’t do anything about it now.

“It’s not about our wedding,” I’d tried to tell him. “Or our marriage, Black.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded emphatically. “I’m definitely sure. I’m one hundred percent positive it’s not either of those things.”

Now I wondered if he believed me.

Another thing occurred to me, too, as I leaned into his chest.