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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Golden Couple

The good thing about Modestine, Sunny and Morrigan being the last to arrive was that, after she’d changed into the dress, Morrigan could simply wait for the bride to walk down the aisle before sneaking quietly into the last pew.

Miraculously, they were only twenty-five minutes late – thanks largely to the Aurora Amphibia Sprint, which lived up to both its second and third names. First it sprinted through several boroughs to Ogden-on-Juro. Then, with some seriously impressive shapeshifting of rubber and metal, it transformed from an open-air roadster into a closed-top subterranean vessel, zooming beneath the Silver District waterways at high speed. (Morrigan couldn’t wait to tell Charlie.)

The Chapel of the Divine Thing in the Paramour Pleasure Gardens was extremely grand – more like a cathedral, really, with its dramatic stained-glass windows and intricate carvings, and filled with glorious bouquets of red and pink roses.

The brief ceremony featured quite a lot of inappropriate giggling from the bride and groom, who seemed awfully young to be getting married, and didn’t appear to take the institution very seriously.

But they did look beautiful together, Morrigan thought. Lovely Modestine with her shiny blonde curls, big doe eyes and spotlight smile, and handsome Dario with his wavy dark hair, deep dimples and warm, sunlit skin. If their silliness together was any indication of what married life would look like, things certainly boded well for their future. At least they’d probably have fun.

At the end of the ceremony, an officious man in a tuxedo jacket and kilt announced there’d be an interval while the bride and groom and their families had photographs taken. Guests were encouraged to partake of the plentiful canapés and champagne being readied for them outside in the sunshine, to play croquet and other lawn games, or to ‘promenade on the green’ (which was, Morrigan surmised, a fancy way of saying ‘go for a walk’), before dinner and dancing in the Glade, beginning at sundown.

A string quartet struck up a lively march and the giggling newlyweds left the chapel beneath a shower of flower petals and well wishes. Under cover of this joyful ruckus, Morrigan slipped quietly outside, nervous to be spotted by any of the Darlings. She knew she was here by invitation, but there was still a part of her that was sure their hospitality might be revoked when they saw her again and remembered what she’d done to their home.

Pushing aside that fear, though, it was a real treat to have time on her own to explore the park. She meandered down a shaded pathway until she came to a large, signposted map of the Pleasure Gardens, carved meticulously into wood and framed by blue and purple hydrangeas.

Along its length and breadth, the map showed two long intersecting paths lined with landscaped gardens and rows of trees, meeting in the Glade right at its heart, inside which stood a circular structure simply labelled the pavilion. Morrigan needn’t worry about getting lost on her way to the reception, then; all roads, it seemed, led to the Glade.

There were other landmarks scattered across the map, and rambling pathways that connected them. The Chapel of the Divine Thing stood in the south-east corner, a boathouse and pier on the north side and another on the south, a small open-air theatre to the west, a hedge maze, a tea house, and multiple gazebos, fountains and ponds dotted here, there and everywhere.

Bordering the Pleasure Gardens were twelve equidistant footbridges. They radiated out like the spokes on a vaguely oblong-shaped wheel – or perhaps the hours on a wonky clock – connecting the park to twelve smaller islands across the Greater Circle canal. Morrigan read their names aloud, clockwise from Mahapatra Bridge to Choi Bridge, to Fairchild and so on … before landing on Darling Bridge in the west.

She recalled from her visit earlier in the week that Darling House was directly opposite the Paramour Pleasure Gardens … which meant that the house was on its own island . Her mind boggled. These people really did have a very silly amount of money.

Several hundred wedding guests had dispersed throughout the park, strolling in their finery and soaking up the glorious afternoon sun. Morrigan found it surprisingly easy to melt into the background.

Nobody was staring at her. Nobody was whispering about her as she went by. Occasionally someone made a banal comment about the weather, and one woman even complimented her dress. (Morrigan scrambled for something complimentary to say in return, and landed stupidly on, ‘What a lovely big hat.’) But nobody narrowed their eyes at her or hissed Wundersmith under their breath. They were all far too polite.

Morrigan breathed the perfumed air deeply, letting the unexpected feeling of freedom wash over her. She could get used to this.

‘Miss Crow! Miss Crow? Over here please!’

Her bubble of tranquillity popped as the kilted man who’d made the post-ceremony announcements rushed towards her, beckoning frantically.

‘ There you are, young lady!’ He lifted a small handheld radio to his mouth and pressed a button. ‘Bird in the hand! Stand down everybody, I repeat: BIRD IN THE HAND.’

Panicking, Morrigan blurted out, ‘I was invited!’

Before she could explain that she was allowed to be there, a team of black-jacketed people descended to escort them over to the pier. There the newlyweds, the bridal party and the two families were gathered, surrounded by half a dozen photographers and assistants carrying equipment. The man marched Morrigan directly towards a flustered-looking Lady Margot, in quiet conversation with her sister Miriam.

‘… suggested she put it in her safe with the others after she reads it, and I hope for my sake she does read it, but you know how stubborn – OH, Mr Stirling, you found her!’ Lady Margot cried when she spotted them, and threw her arms open in welcome. ‘Morrigan, darling, you had us so worried! Didn’t you hear the announcement about family photos?’

Morrigan hastily wiped a few canapé crumbs off the front of her dress. ‘Um – yes? Sorry, I thought guests were meant—’

‘ Guests, dearest, yes. But you’re family!’ Lady Margot said kindly, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her down towards the water. Morrigan felt a tiny flutter at those words. ‘Come now. Everyone’s so excited to meet you.’

A menagerie of painted boats bobbed calmly in the canal. Moored alongside a flock of Darling House swans with their slender white prows were striped tigers with roaring mouths full of teeth, elephants with noble grey trunks, dragons in a rainbow of colours, and foxes with curling red tails.

The Darlings and Rinaldis were being directed by Mr Stirling to board the swans and dragons, while his assistants lit a flotilla of paper lanterns and pushed them out onto the water. The effect of this in the fading afternoon light was, Morrigan had to admit, quite magical.

‘Do you like the dress?’ Lady Margot asked her.

‘Oh! Er. Yes, it’s … peachy.’

‘Meredith loved it too,’ she said, looking suddenly misty-eyed. ‘She wore it when she was just about your age. You look as beautiful as she did.’

Morrigan looked down at the dress, feeling suddenly strange in it … though not necessarily in a bad way. If her mother had loved this dress, perhaps she could try to like it a little more, too.

‘You’ve just missed Mama, regrettably,’ Lady Margot went on. ‘She had a little dizzy spell after the ceremony and has gone home to rest before dinner. But she sends her love.’

‘Oh!’ Morrigan felt guilty at the relief that engulfed her. It was Lady Darling she’d been most nervous to see. ‘I … hope she’s all right?’

Lady Margot squeezed her arm affectionately. ‘You are sweet.’

‘Noble Darlings and honourable Rinaldis,’ Mr Stirling called loudly from the front of the group, clapping his hands for their attention. ‘Please step into your assigned boats.’

A handful of tiny, noisy children were being coaxed and bribed into the boats by a regiment of uniformed nannies. Amid the chaos, Morrigan was swiftly bundled into a swan with Lady Margot and her husband Tobias, and her other aunt, Lady Miriam, and her wife Winifred, and launched onto the shimmering canal. The photographers all ran to their places along the bank and on top of Darling Bridge, where Mr Stirling was shouting instructions to everyone on the water below.

‘Mr and Mrs Darling, eyes up here please!’ He waved at Dario and Modestine, who were mid-conversation with Sunny in the boat behind theirs and kept twisting around to chat. ‘That’s the way, facing us. No, back to us again, please. Big smiles!’

Morrigan turned to the eldest Darling sister. ‘Lady Margot—’

‘Do call me Aunt Margot, won’t you?’

‘Oh – um, all right. Aunt Margot, did he just call Modestine and Dario, Mr and Mrs Darling?’

Aunt Margot laughed drily. ‘You thought they’d be Mr and Mrs Rinaldi ?’ She and her sister shared a knowing smile.

‘Everyone who marries into the family takes the Darling name,’ said Aunt Miriam, as Winifred slipped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Mama insists on it. She’s very old-fashioned.’

Morrigan frowned in confusion. ‘Is that old-fashioned?’

‘In the Silver District, yes,’ said Aunt Margot. ‘The tradition is that whoever marries into a Greater House from a Lesser House will take the Greater name.’

‘What if they’re both from Greater Houses?’ asked Morrigan.

‘Miriam and I flipped a coin.’ Winifred gave an easy shrug. ‘My grandmother wasn’t best pleased, but fortunately I have legions of siblings and cousins to carry on the Babatunde name. And my father said Winnie Darling made me sound like a glamorous movie star, so that was that,’ she finished, fluttering her eyelashes at Miriam, who laughed.

‘Not everyone sticks to the old ways now, of course,’ added Aunt Margot. Some of the young people of Lesser Houses take umbrage.’

‘Not my young person,’ came a familiar voice from the golden dragon boat as it cut through the water to coast alongside them. Modestine held out her crystal champagne coupe for her new husband to top up, and he obliged with a dashing smile. ‘Dario is ever so pleased to join the Darling brood.’

‘Honour of my life!’ declared Dario, and there was warmth and laughter in his eyes. He pressed a hand to his heart. ‘I enjoyed my tenure as a Rinaldi boy, but I’m only truly in my element now, as a Darling Man. Don’t you agree, Tobias? You don’t miss being a Clark lad, surely?’

Aunt Margot’s husband turned to Dario, eyebrows raised, and lifted his empty glass in acknowledgement. ‘To our excellent wives! May we endeavour to deserve them.’

Dario drank to that, then smiled brightly at Morrigan, his cheeks dimpling. ‘I insisted we paddle over here so I could have the honour of meeting my new niece. Thank you so much for coming to our wedding, Morrigan. Modestine and I are both looking forward to getting to know you better when we return from our honeymoon!’

‘Oh yes ,’ agreed Modestine, rocking the boat a little in her excitement. ‘I’ve made a list of things we’ll do together! Shopping sprees, trips to the theatre … and of course you must come and see Dario fly. He’s the finest dragonrider who ever lived!’

‘But she could see that tomorrow at the Winter Trials, surely?’ asked Tobias, turning to Dario with a slight look of alarm. ‘You’re not planning to leave for your honeymoon before the big event, Mr Darling? We have tickets to see you.’

The groom took another gulp of champagne, peering into his glass. ‘Of course not. I have a responsibility to the Rinaldi Stables, after all.’

‘Dario is a career man ,’ Modestine explained to Morrigan in a whisper, covering her mouth as if she’d said something scandalous. ‘He has a job .’

Margot winced slightly at that word. ‘We’ve talked about this, dear. What Dario has is a special interest. ’

‘A treasured hobby, my love,’ added Miriam.

‘That he gets paid for ,’ said Modestine obstinately. ‘Which makes it a J-O-B. Dario is very talented and I intend to support his dragonriding career for as long as he wants to do it.’

‘We can call it a hobby if it puts you at ease, Margot,’ Dario said, flashing his unimpressed sister-in-law a charming grin. ‘Don’t we all need a creative outlet?’

Morrigan perked up a little. ‘My friend Hawthorne is a dragonrider, too! He’s brilliant. He’s even been invited to do an exhibition ride tomorrow at the Winter Trials.’

‘How thrilling ,’ said Modestine, clapping her hands with delight. ‘Dario will be riding Alights on the Water Like a Seabird , isn’t that right darling?’

Dario nodded earnestly. ‘Of course. Alights is a Rinaldi Stables dragon – she and I have been flying together for years. As long as I’m around, nobody but a Rinaldi will ever take her saddle.’

‘I do wish we didn’t have to delay the honeymoon,’ said Modestine, with a put-upon sigh. ‘But it’s only one day. The beaches of the Third Pocket will simply—’

‘MR AND MRS DARLING!’ came an amplified voice from the bridge ahead. In his desperation, Mr Stirling had managed to rustle up a megaphone. ‘PLEASE GET BACK IN FORMATION. WE ARE LOSING THE LIGHT. I REPEAT, WE ARE LOSING THE LIGHT!’

Dario saluted the wedding planner in acknowledgement and jumped into action, using a long golden oar to push along the canal bed. As they neared Darling Bridge, a game of chicken erupted between the groom and his best man to see who could stay standing longest before ducking underneath the bridge at the last second. Dario won, but his distraction cost him the tip of his golden dragon’s curling tail, which hit the curve of the bridge in just the wrong spot, the metal point scraping and sparking horribly against the stone underside until it broke off, falling into the boat with a loud clang .

‘Sorry, Papa!’ Dario called out sheepishly to his father, as Sunny collapsed with laughter.

‘Faster, driver! Faster!’ cried Modestine, giggling deliriously and thrusting the bottle of champagne in the air. ‘We’re losing the light!’

When Mr Stirling and the photographers were at last satisfied that they had captured every angle of the newlyweds in the perfect light, the bridal party and their families were set free to make their way to the Glade for the reception. The little cousins were smothered in kisses from their parents and ushered across the bridge to Darling House by the nanny brigade, and the youngest Rinaldis were waved off with their nanny in a green dragon boat.

The eldest Darling cousin, seven-year-old Marigold, tried to kick up a fuss about coming to the party. Margot patiently explained to her daughter that the wedding reception wasn’t for children, and Tobias pointed out that even Dario’s eleven-year-old sister had returned to Rinaldi House without complaint, and when that didn’t work, Modestine promised to buy her niece a kitten if she went home to bed like an angel.

‘I already have a cat!’ Marigold pouted. ‘I want a dragon!’

‘A DRAGON?’ boomed Dario, picking her up and swinging her around. ‘What do you need a dragon for when you can already FLY? ’

Marigold squealed happily as Dario zoomed her across the bridge while his new wife and best man followed, cheering them on loudly.

Morrigan heard a tutting sound and glanced over to see Aunt Margot watching the newlyweds with a disapproving grimace. She wasn’t the only one who noticed – Aunt Miriam chuckled and looped an arm through her sister’s.

‘They’re young ,’ she reminded Margot. ‘You know they don’t take anything seriously.’

Margot gave her an exasperated look. ‘ Really, Mim. They’re a pair of golden retrievers.’

‘Whatever can you mean by that?’

‘Oh, you know. Every partnership needs a wolf and a golden retriever,’ she explained. ‘In my marriage, I am the wolf, and Tobias is the retriever. Sweet, uncynical and – bless him – a little bit stupid. Two wolves in one marriage can be trouble, but two retrievers … that’s a recipe for disaster.’

‘I don’t think we need to worry about that, Margot,’ said Miriam, laughing breezily. ‘Not least because people aren’t dogs.’

Upon their arrival at the reception, the aunts were immediately rushed away on bridal business by the wedding planner, and Morrigan was left on her own to stare, slack-jawed, at the opulence of it all.

The Glade was a romantic fairyland, awash with the bright golden flames of burning torches and what looked like millions of tiny twinkling stars. Tunnels of wisteria arched over the pathways, meeting in the centre of the clearing where a full orchestra played a waltz beneath the handsome white Pavilion. An ocean of flowers seemed to pour from its turreted roof, twisting down the white columns and overflowing onto the grassy floor. The Pavilion was surrounded by dozens of round tables, swathed in soft draping fabric and laid with the finest porcelain dishes, crystal goblets and gleaming silverware.

Morrigan made her way through the humming crowd of wedding guests, past an elevated wooden dance floor sheltered by a canopy of green vines and fairy lights, and through a gallery of swan and dragon ice sculptures. Finally, she came to a seating chart in the far corner and, finding her name, felt her stomach drop somewhere below the floor.

There she was: MISS MORRIGAN CROW , squeezed between LADY MIRIAM DARLING on one side and MR COSIMO RINALDI ( Dario’s brother) on the other … at a long, rectangular table, set apart on a raised platform, presumably so everyone could see the bride and groom and their families at every moment throughout the evening.

Morrigan could almost feel herself breaking out in hives at the thought of being that visible. But her sudden panic was derailed by a tickling breath in her ear, accompanied by a low, dangerous whisper.

‘Don’t even think about sitting at that table.’