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But he only squeezed her hand in return. It seems we do.

On and on, the rector droned through the well-worn prayers, but Ruby heard none of it. All she could think was that this was a mistake. All she could feel was the enormity of her own guilt for forcing them to this point.

It will be okay, Theo’s expression seemed to say. And Ruby knew he wasn’t wrong. It would be okay. They would make a fine life with each other, but it would only ever be the shadow of the life she had dreamed of before she’d even known what to dream.

“… speak now or forever hold your peace,” the rector was saying. He paused then, waiting for someone to speak as the silence of the church threatened to crush her.

Theo turned to the few friends and family who had come to witness their union. His eyes searched the small group of their guests, but then something suspiciously like hope lit in his expression. It was enough to make Ruby turn as well, to see what it was.

In the rear of the chapel, sitting far off from anyone else, a pair of violet eyes met Ruby’s. Ruby turned back to Theo, unsure of what was happening even as the rector continued with the ceremony, completely unaware that anything had just changed.

“What is she doing here?” Ruby whispered.

“I think she came for you,” Theo told her, which was about the most preposterous thing he could have said.

“I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God,” the rector droned, “that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God’s Word, you do now confess it.”

Theo’s eyes suddenly didn’t look quite so sad. “You can throw me over right here and now,” he whispered, a small smile playing about his lips. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit.”

Ruby’s heart felt as though it would burst in her chest. “It’s impossible,” she told him, feeling so many eyes upon them. The weight of expectations and promises not yet kept. But Ruby was already turning back once more to where Viola was sitting.

Viola looked like a woman carved from stone.

The rector was asking whether Ruby would take Theo as her husband, forsaking all others, but she wasn’t listening. She was still looking at Viola. Could she? Could they? She had seen the women in Paris, the women who lived lives that she’d once thought impossible.…

But Viola could never go to Paris, Ruby realized. Not so long as the Order controlled the Brink.

“… as long as you both shall live?” the rector asked.

The church was draped in silence, and it seemed that everyone—everything—was hanging on her answer. Past and future together meeting here in this one instant. This one impossible moment.

Ruby glanced back at the people in the church once more. But Viola was no longer sitting there. She was making her way out of the church. She was leaving.

“It’s okay, darling,” Theo told Ruby, giving her hand a soft squeeze before releasing it.

“Miss Reynolds?” the rector said, clearly growing impatient.

Ruby opened her mouth, her throat tight with fear and hope. But in the end…

“I do,” she said, her voice cracking.

She couldn’t decipher the look Theo gave her as he slid his ring upon her finger, but it didn’t matter. It was done.

The priest lifted his arms. “Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.”

The congregation murmured amen, and it was over. Her fate was forever sealed to his.

“You may kiss your bride,” the priest told Theo, who looked just as shocked as she did that they’d actually gone through with it.

His cheeks went pink, and she gave him a small nod to let him know it was okay. Slowly, he stepped toward her, reached for her veil, and lifted it.

But his lips had barely brushed hers when she felt her bouquet start to vibrate. Surprised, she drew back. Something was happening to her flowers. They were moving and quivering as though they were alive, and then they began melting.

“What the—” Theo took an instinctive step back.

The people in the pews were murmuring, and Ruby was frozen with shock as her once lush bouquet began to melt, liquefying down the front of her full white skirts. As the flowers dissolved into a lurid mess, they began to release a strange green fog-like substance.

Horrified, Ruby finally managed to toss the bundle of flowers—and the strange fog—away from her, but the instant it landed, the entire bouquet exploded in a burst of cold flames. They crackled as they grew, flashing with peculiar colors.