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It couldn’t have been a more perfect day. Sunbeams streamed through the grand canopy of flowers overhead, a wedding tent fit for the very gods themselves. Golden light bathed the black-and-white hair of my betrothed, crowning him with a halo.

A well-deserved one, too, because I was, in fact, marrying an actual angel. Xander’s tuxedo was the perfect complement to his hair, but the boy looked good in anything he wore. Didn’t matter if it was a ratty old Grayhaven alumni T-shirt or a tank top stolen from one of my drawers.

I beamed as our friends clapped, my smile a mirror of Xander’s as we waved at the gathered crowd. Everyone we loved was here, dressed in their very best. I shielded my eyes from the sun as I followed Xander to the table where we were meant to cut the cake. All of its impossible tiers and layers, a unique creation from the wonderful bakers at Mother Dough.

Xander picked up the cake slice. I wrapped my hand over his, a small yet significant gesture of how we would do everything going forward: hand in hand, together as one. And I was going to love every single second of it. He lowered his arm to the table, guiding my hand toward the cake, and —

Where was the cake? The table was empty. I could have sworn it was there just a minute ago. Or had I hallucinated it? Was it actually a flower tower that I’d glimpsed out of the corner of my eye? I knew it was a mistake to get the giant conical floral arrangement. We should have asked for spheres!

My heart pounded, the cake slice falling from our hands and clattering onto the empty table. Our first five minutes of married life already ruined, all because I couldn’t be bothered to check on the cake. Or the flowers. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck, down the lump in my throat, a blazing hot trickle.

“The cake!” I screamed, sitting up with a start, the bedsheets tangled around my legs.

I panted as I stared at nothing in our bedroom, my hair an equally messy tangle against my forehead. I was absolutely drenched — only in sweat, fortunately. Maybe I hadn’t reached the panicked bedwetting stage of pre-wedding jitters just yet. Oh, boy. Something to look forward to.

Xander’s side of the bed was empty, but I could already hear footsteps pounding up the staircase. The door burst open, and there stood my beautiful future husband, the hard lines of his chest huffing and puffing under a revealing tank top. Hot day in the Black Market, then, as evidenced by my similarly sweaty state.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, brow furrowed with concern and maybe a little incredulity as he approached the bed. “Were you having another nightmare about the wedding?”

I scratched the back of my arm and threw him my best pout. “This one was real scary, okay?”

The mattress dipped as Xander sat on the bed. He brushed my hair out of my eyes and tutted to himself. “What was it this time? Did the flowers catch on fire? Did the cake explode?”

“It wasn’t even there. We forgot the cake, Xander. No cake at the wedding!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’ll never happen. We’re working with professionals here, Jack. The most professional professionals we could possibly find. I’m sure the Mother Dough bakers cater to hundreds of weddings every year. Maybe even thousands. Everything is going to be fine.”

I grimaced. “You say that now, but what if we forget other stuff? What if the candles burn too hot and go haywire? What if the flowers come to life and choke everyone to death?”

“Jack. Jack? Listen. It’s very sweet that you’re so worried about the wedding, but relax. We’ve got everything under control. And not to belittle your concerns, but a lot of them are a little, you know — implausible.”

My eyes went wide. “What do you mean, implausible? We live in a world full of magic, Xander. You went to a school for magical boys. You of all people should know that — ”

His finger pressed gently against my lips. “I do know, Jack. Because all the people supplying our wedding are our magical friends. And our magical friends have our backs. I mean, every single vendor is someone we already know in the Black Market.”

“Go on,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously, mostly making him repeat himself for my own peace of mind.

“The wedding is happening at the Garland. That’s only a few blocks away from literally everywhere else in the dimension. Even in the very worst case, someone would just have to run down the street to fetch anything that’s missing.”

Excellent points all around. In most cases, we were actually friends with the guild masters themselves. Good enough friends, in fact, that we got ourselves a fabulous price on the venue from the guild of flowers: free. Master Lobelia had insisted, offering one of the grandest pavilions as her own wedding gift. We were flabbergasted, and very, very grateful, of course.

Xander cupped my chin and pressed a kiss against my cheek. “Now, get dressed, and no more sweaty outbursts about cake. Keep it down. Some of our friends are downstairs right now. They could hear. They’ll think there’s already trouble in paradise. I mean, I’m having second thoughts myself.”

“Hah. I don’t believe you.” I shoved my entire hand against his face. Xander sputtered and laughed as he fell onto his side of the bed. “You wanna marry me. You always wanted to marry me. You wanna marry me so bad, it’s embarrassing.”

He protested, but couldn’t get a word out as I peppered his face with kisses. He swatted at me playfully, laughed harder each time my beard tickled his face. I finally stopped when he shoved me off, his eyebrow cocked as he stared at my waist.

“This early, Jack? It’s very flattering that you’re springing boners over me, but we don’t have time for this right now. We’ve got a long day ahead. Time for a cold shower. Now.”

I whined and complained as he pushed me toward the bathroom, never even noticing that I’d gotten rock hard. At least the cold shower helped with the worst of it. I was mature enough to put it away for later, store that pent-up energy for when Xander and I had a little more time to fool around. He was going to get it, and he was going to get it rough.

But for now, the long day ahead. I’d expected Xander to rattle off our agenda while I toweled my hair. Instead, he gripped me by the shoulders and stared hard into my eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I’m going to tackle all the wedding stuff on my own today.”

My muscles tensed up again. “But cake. And flowers. And what about the music?”

“You let me worry about all that for now, Jackie boy. I spoke to the others earlier this morning, figured you needed a break. You can spend all the time you want at the Halls of Making today. Tinker with that fancy device you boys have been building. Go take your mind off the wedding stuff. It’ll do you a world of good. You just leave all the planning to me for now.”

The artificer’s device, the one Whitby found in his memories, an unfinished blueprint courtesy of Luciana and Octavian Pryde. Even thinking about it kindled the fire of excitement in my belly. It somehow made every muscle in my body relax, too.

“You’re actually the best, you know that? But are you really going to be okay? I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about wedding prep at all.”

“That’s exactly the problem. You care too much, and it’s stressing you out. You’ve done plenty, Jack. Let me do this on my own for a little. It’s going to be okay.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, assessing him for a moment. “And you’re sure you can handle this? It’s a lot to take on for anybody.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely sure.” He clapped me on the cheek, a light, playful slap. “I’m an actual genius, Jack. Got a certificate for it and everything.”

I body-slammed him onto the bed, then raced out the door before he could take his revenge on my gorgeous body. We reached the bottom of the stairs at about the same time, both breathless and clutching the bannister. It was only the presence of our friends that stopped us from doing anything too gross or too violent to each other.

Beatrice Rex cocked one eyebrow, a hand on her hip. “Eww. Is this foreplay? This looks like foreplay. Don’t inflict that on us, boys. Get a room. Go back upstairs.”

“I heard yelling,” said Sedgewick McCall, candle mage of the Flickering Flame. “Another nightmare, Jack? Something about a cake this time? Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. Promise.”

“We’ll see to that ourselves,” said Kaoru Minamimoto, the Scribe of the Thousand Hands. “Everything will be in order, Jackson. You’ll see.”

Sedgewick and Kaoru sat on the couches in our living room, Beatrice standing over them like a general surveying a war table. Which was what our coffee table sort of looked like, covered in a mess of paper, ink, ribbons, wax, and fabric swatches of all kinds. Samples for me and Xander to look at — or just Xander, now that he’d insisted on letting me take the day off.

The basics had already been sorted out: our outfits, the handwritten invites, down to the delicate wax seals that Sedgewick had designed and stamped himself. I loved how everything was shaping up aesthetically, this classic, sophisticated black-and-white look, something to match the color of Xander’s hair. But our friends were such good friends that they’d doubled up on wedding supply duties.

Beatrice had volunteered to provide any necessary drapes and fabric furnishings, and who were we to turn down the Seventh Veil of the House of Needles, someone who could control cloth with her own mind? Kaoru was more than happy to handwrite place cards for every table, each card as lovely as a work of art. Meanwhile, Sedgewick was extremely excited to discuss the larger part of his contribution: enchanted candles to help set the mood and match the decor.

We had the very best friends on hand to make this the perfect wedding, in short. Seeing all the materials spread out in our living room and these very eager faces who just wanted to help definitely took a massive weight off my shoulders. Xander was right.

“You guys,” I started to say, unsure of how to finish the sentence. “I just — thank you so, so much for everything.”

Xander ushered me out of the living room and past the kitchen, which was emitting the wonderful smell of something baking. I barely had time to wave goodbye to the others, Xander only relenting when I stopped to talk to Whitby. His mainframe was blinking in alternate shades of white and red, accompanied by his distressed murmuring.

“What is it, buddy?” I asked, kneeling close by.

Fortunately, we never saw another incident like the one at the Halls of Making, when he’d gone wild after being overloaded with memories of the blast that had destroyed the old guild. We’d been very careful to keep things low stress for Whitby, because even an artificer’s intelligence could only take so much. But the poor guy clearly had something he wanted to say.

“Um, Jackson? Remember when we discussed my presence at your wedding? I’m very flattered — really, I am — that you’d like me to be the ring bearer. But I really don’t know about all the attention. And I really don’t want to be an imposition, you moving around my monstrous bulk and all.”

I smiled sympathetically and patted his crystal mainframe, warm to the touch. “You’ll be fine, Whitby. Look, it’ll be great. Preston and I are going to build you a trolley so you can attend the wedding to begin with. It’s not an imposition at all. Someone will roll you down the aisle when it comes time for the rings. No sweat. People will love it.”

“Right, right,” he said, pale light blinking from within his crystal body with every word. “It’s just, I’m not sure that I’m going to love it. You know?”

A second, smaller crystal whizzed out of the kitchen and straight toward us, coming to a dead stop in mid-flight just a foot away from my face. I didn’t even flinch anymore. Lore truly had mastered the gift of movement. Then again, he’d mastered it within minutes of attaining freedom from his mainframe. The Pryde AIs were brilliant in every way.

“Oh, Whitby, I’m positive you’ll have a wonderful time at the wedding. Why, you’re being almost as jittery as Jackson here. All will be well. And as for the cake, well! I can tell you now, Jackson. You’re going to be blown away by the result.”

I chuckled as I stood back up. “I’ll hold you to that, Lore. I knew we did the right thing trusting you with the cake.”

Weird how I still thought of the amorphous Mother Dough bakers in general whenever I tried to remember who was supposed to be baking our wedding cake. It was Lore, actually, working busily away in our kitchen, experimenting with the best kind of cake base to use as well as the best way to put the cakes together and stack them up high.

It was hard to mentally separate Lore and the guild of bakers ever since he’d become a proper member of Mother Dough. The very first artificer’s intelligence to join any of the Black Market’s guilds! A fantastic achievement, and one made possible by none other than Master Gertrude Goodness herself.

He’d have to construct the thing at his own workspace at the guild, though, given the lack of proper space and equipment in our kitchen. A very ambitious design, so he said, one that would require plenty of room to build. But imagine that! An artificer’s intelligence with guild membership and his own workshop? I couldn’t be prouder of the Prydes, of what we’d all accomplished.

A quick trip into my own workshop to pick up my backpack and I was ready to head down to the guild. Tools, check. Gauntlet, check. Just in case. I glanced over my shoulder as I headed to the front door, unable to stop myself from smiling as I saw my friends working to make this the best possible wedding for me and my almost-husband.

Everything was going to be okay. My heart bursting with sunshine, a spring in my step, I headed into the foyer and onward to the front door.

Only to stop dead at the sight of someone lingering there. Niko Belkova was too cool to sit with the rest of the kids, leaning against the wall with his arms and his legs crossed. Heir to the leadership of the Ringing Hollow, Niko had already expressed disinterest in taking over the guild of glassmakers the way his mother and grandmother did.

Niko was far more interested in inventive pursuits outside the guild, being my primary business partner in the creation of Jackson’s Spell Jars, patent pending. Name pending, too, because he hated that one. I’d refined the mechanism that siphoned magical essence into the glass eggs that he personally crafted and enchanted, resulting in my first artificing invention that anyone actually wanted to buy for themselves.

“Xander called me over to escort you to the Halls of Making. In other words, I’m supposed to babysit you today, because you’re a big baby. Big, hairy baby.”

I draped my arm across his shoulder and pulled him in, planting the sloppiest kiss on his cheek. He hated those, too, pawing and swatting at me like an angry kitten. “You’re the best, Belkova, sacrificing your usual day of doing nothing for a day of doing nothing with me instead.”

“Shut up,” he said, shoving me off, red in the face, head lowered just enough to disguise the little smile that betrayed how much he enjoyed the occasional show of affection. “Come on. We need to get going. The others are already waiting.”

I threw the front door open into the sunshine of the Black Market, breathing in a day that was simply bursting with potential. And it couldn’t be said enough, but bless Xander — bless him and his adorable face and his enormous brain for giving me this much-needed breather. I set my boot on the cobblestones and yelled for Niko to hurry.

“Niko! Get your butt in gear. Let’s go and make some magic.”