Page 12

Oberon hesitates for a moment, then crosses the room and takes the comb from me gently, his thumb casting against my knuckles. I put my back to him; he unties the ribbon that holds up my hair. As he starts to comb, the waves drape around my shoulders and down my back, heavy as a golden cloak.

“What happened to you at Marchmain?” Oberon asks quietly. But I only shake my head, unable to answer.

Across the room, hanging alongside the pastel-hued dresses once worn by a younger, heedless girl, is our mother’s betrothal veil.

Taken from the trunk upstairs where it lay preserved in folds of paper.

The cream-colored tulle is embroidered with crimson flowers, spilling like a gossamer stain down to the floor.

Oberon finishes with my hair. I search in the dresser and find a tube of lipstick, the same red as the veil flowers.

I paint it on, press my rouged lips together.

I can’t tell my brothers how thoroughly my only friend had shut me out, treated me like I’d turned invisible.

Or what I did, after, trying to make her see me again.

All I can do is pull both of my brothers toward me until we’re tangled in an embrace.

Oberon leans his cheek against my hair. Henry lays his hand on my shoulder, his fingers pressing my arm for a brief, tender moment.

I can tell by the stilted way he is breathing that he is trying not to cry.

Tears rise behind my lashes, but I blink them away.

“Don’t,” I whisper fiercely. “Don’t act like I’m going to my funeral.”

Henry squeezes me tighter. I want to stay like this forever.

Let all the world fall away. But, with a sigh, I step back and we draw apart.

Solemnly, Henry takes the veil from its hanger and fits it over my hair.

The netted gauze turns everything the color of springtime sunset, when light scatters across the ocean waves like embers.

“You look beautiful,” Oberon says.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The red heart of my lips, the gold of my hair, the veil with its garden of flowers. I’ll go like this to the altar, for the final moments of my betrothal night. I’ll go like this, onward, when I meet Therion in the depths of the salt mine.

I gather up the train of my gown, tuck it into the crook of my arm. In single file, my brothers and I go back downstairs to the waiting crowd.

Everything goes still when I enter the room. It reminds me of the nights at Marchmain when I couldn’t sleep, and I’d open the window to hear the midnight bells from the Canticle, echoing through the moonlit air. Even with the veil over my face, I can’t ignore all the eyes on me.

“I’m ready,” I tell my brothers. “I’m ready to go.”

They flank me like guard dogs as I pass through the crowd: Oberon with his hand at the small of my back, Henry’s fingers curled beneath my elbow.

The gathering of people draws back like a lowering tide as we cross the room, falling into line behind us as we go out into the rear garden.

In a procession, we walk to the clifftop where the bonfire now burns.

I can’t help seeking out Alastair, who stands alone at the edge of the crowd.

The light from the rising flames paints over him, outlining his profile in amber and gold.

And suddenly I’m back in this same field, four years ago, the first and only time I returned from school during a term break.

At the summer bonfire with Alastair, the last time we were together before everything between us fractured apart.

Our eyes meet, and I tense so furiously that my clenched teeth scrape the inside of my mouth.

Swallowing down the bloodied taste of my bitten cheek, I glower at him.

Anger simmers over me, heating my face beneath the veil.

But I don’t turn away. He was so determined to be here, to witness this moment. So let him see.

We’re held in this moment of silent challenge.

Alastair is the first to let his gaze drop.

I continue onward toward the edge of the cliffs.

As I walk, I seem to glimpse him everywhere in the crowd.

He’s beside the bonfire, casting a wreath of flowers into the new flames.

He’s beneath the wisteria arbor, smoking a stolen cigarette.

He’s beside a strange girl, whose features are hidden by the shadows. She’s tall and willowy, with dark hair drawn back in twin velvet bows. She leans toward Alastair with languorous grace, cupping her hand around his ear as she whispers to him.

There’s something familiar about her—but when I narrow my eyes, trying to make out her face, I realize the arbor is empty and it was little more than my imagination, playing tricks.

My brothers lead me to the breakwater, where a candle on each step lights the way down to the beach.

I pause at the apex of the stairs. Oberon’s fingers tremble against my spine. Henry passes me a small velvet bag with a ribboned handle that loops around my wrist. Inside is a flashlight, a bundle of herbs, and the obsidian mirror.

“Be safe,” he whispers. “We will see you at the end of the salt season.”

I’m too choked to speak, I can only nod.

Any other girl might have an ivory veil, a golden band, or strands of polished pearls.

But I have only this—a flower-sewn veil adorning my unbound hair, a black-salt betrothal ring, a magic mirror, and my brothers drawing me into what feels like a final embrace.

I curl between them, my eyes closed, the moth-quick sound of Henry’s heartbeat against my ear. Their bodies, hemming me in on either side, form a protective cave that closes out the sounds of the gathered crowd.

But I know it is time to leave. Silence trails me like a phantom train of silk as I step away from my brothers and walk down the stairs. The tide has lowered to reveal a flat stretch of beach, the sand packed hard and damp from the recent waves.

I walk alongside the water, my bare feet noiseless as they press into the sand. Just before I reach the place where the shoreline curves and the cliffs will hide me from view, I turn back for a last look.

Atop the cliff, silhouetted by the bonfire, Henry and Oberon begin to cast handfuls of flowers down onto beach. The waves draw in, catching up the petals and sweeping them out to the water’s surface, where they float like bitter snow.