Roasted & Wedded: Chapter 14 — The Queen Has Arrived Part 1

Yup, stretching this out into two parts…

Romantic Comedy | Contemporary Romance | BFF Comedy | Unicorn vs Black Cat | Wedding Planning Comedy | BDSM Romance | Renaissance Faire | Billionaire Romance | Unconventional Wedding | Steamy Romance | Best Friend Wedding Planner | Absurdist Humor | Wedding Chaos | Character-Driven Fiction | Alternative Subculture | Spicy Romance | Banter | Dom/Sub Romance | Quirky Romance | Massachusetts | Witty Romance

(I get paid more if you read this by clicking the email)

I swear this was going to be a novella. I’m actually going to be doing most of my focus on this one so I can get it out by the wedding.

Previously on Roasted & Wedded:

[embed]Roasted & Wedded: Chapter Thirteen — The Eve The day before the wedding…bewolf.medium.com

Please remember to clap, highlight, comment, and if you enjoy this, use the new repost feature, as it helps me get more noticed by medium (and paid more).

Roasted & Wedded is primarily from, oddly enough, Ebony & Holly’s POV, with a few interludes from others. Holly and Ebony’s friendship is a major part of the backbone of the stories and even as other Smutty Shops stories go out, there will still be interactions between them in the form of short stories or things within the background.

This is technically supposed to happen between Baked & Pied and Stuffed.

So prepare for sexy chaos and shenanigans, not with each other, but still…

Ebony…Ebony…WHAT DID YOU DO EBONY?

Of course this is the rough draft.

Holly

There was no coffee.

Holly registered this fact before she registered the hand on her shoulder, or the voice saying her name, or the pre-dawn dark of the loft that meant the hour was criminal. There was no coffee. The espresso machine was cold. The counter was bare. The air smelled like nothing except the particular absence of the thing she needed most to be a person who could form sentences and refrain from violence.

“Holly.” Ebony’s voice was close and bright and operating at an energy level that should have been illegal before sunrise. “Wake up. We have to go.”

“Coffee.”

“Later.”

“Now.”

“The bus has coffee.”

Holly opened one eye. Ebony was standing over the bed in the dark, fully dressed, her pastel hair pulled back in a way that meant business, her phone already in her hand with the screen illuminating the organizational frenzy of someone who had been awake for hours and had decided that the rest of the world should join her. The fairy wings were nowhere in sight, which meant the costume was being saved for later, which meant Ebony was currently in command mode rather than wedding mode and the distinction between those two states was the difference between a woman planning a party and a woman conducting a military operation.

“What bus?”

“Get up. Bring Uno. I’ll explain in the car.”

Holly got up because the alternative was arguing with Ebony at an hour when her brain was operating at approximately twelve percent capacity, and twelve percent was not enough to win an argument against a woman who had been planning this day for over a year and was currently running on whatever fuel source powered people who did not require caffeine to achieve consciousness. She pulled on sweatpants and one of Joseph’s stolen shirts and carried Uno’s leash in one hand while Uno trotted beside her with the cheerful obliviousness of a dog who did not understand what was happening but was enthusiastic about participating.

The street outside Abyss was dark and quiet in the way that streets in this neighborhood were dark and quiet before the city woke up: residual, like the silence was borrowing time it would have to return. A tour bus was parked at the curb. Not a van, not a shuttle, a full-sized tour bus with blacked-out windows and the kind of industrial presence that suggested it was accustomed to transporting people who needed a lot of room and a lot of privacy. The exterior had been shrink-wrapped with the image of a large siege engine, a trebuchet or catapult rendered in faux-weathered detail that made the entire vehicle look like a piece of Renaissance faire equipment being transported for installation.

“You shrink-wrapped a tour bus to look like a siege engine,” Holly said.

“So it could park on the faire grounds without looking like a tour bus on faire grounds.” Ebony opened the door with the proprietary confidence of a woman who had rented this vehicle and intended to extract maximum value from every square inch of it. “It opens onto a bridal pavilion once we’re on site. You get ready inside, you walk out into the tent, nobody sees you until the ceremony. Also, it has a shower, a full-length mirror, and a coffee station.”

“You led with the wrong feature.”

“I led with the feature that would get you to stop asking questions and get on the bus.”

Holly got on the bus.

The interior was not what the siege engine exterior suggested. The front section had been arranged for seating with the kind of plush benches that touring musicians used to sleep on between cities. The middle section contained what appeared to be a mobile salon: a vanity with Hollywood lights, a styling chair, and the organized arsenal of someone who did hair and makeup professionally. The back of the bus had been converted into something approaching a bedroom, a wide bench seat with pillows and a blackout curtain that could be drawn across to create a separate compartment.

Ebony steered Holly toward the back. “Nap.”

“I just woke up.”

“You woke up at a time that no human should be awake. The drive is going to take a while because we’re picking up people on the way. Sleep. When you wake up, there will be a shower and a robe and your coffee will be ready. I have everything handled.”

“You always have everything handled.”

“And yet people keep acting surprised.” Ebony drew the blackout curtain with the finality of a woman closing negotiations. “Sleep, Holly.”

Holly lay down on the bench with Uno tucked against her side and the vibration of the bus engine beneath her like a mechanical heartbeat. She had expected to lie there with her eyes open, staring at the blackout curtain and thinking about every element of the day that was about to unfold. Instead, the exhaustion of the previous day’s pampering relay and the particular peace of having surrendered all logistical control to the most competent human being she had ever met combined into a sedative that worked faster than any deprivation tank.

She slept. The bus moved. Somewhere beyond the curtain, Ebony’s voice gave quiet instructions to the driver, and the tour bus that looked like a siege engine navigated the pre-dawn streets of Boston collecting passengers like a very well-disguised school bus for adults who were about to attend a wedding at a Renaissance faire.

---

Holly woke to the sound of the faire.

Not the full roar of an open day, but the preliminary sounds of a grounds coming alive: distant hammering, the clank of vendors setting up stalls, someone testing a PA system with the particular feedback squeal that meant a sound check was in progress. Through the blacked-out windows, she could hear voices calling to each other with the casual authority of people who set up temporary kingdoms for a living and knew exactly where every tent pole and banner stand belonged.

The blackout curtain was open. The bus was parked. The front section was empty of passengers, which meant everyone who had been picked up during the drive had already disembarked to begin their own preparations. Sunlight leaked around the edges of the window tinting, and the air inside the bus smelled like coffee.

Holly followed the smell.

The shower was small but functional, the kind of compact unit that tour buses carried for musicians who needed to wash off a concert’s worth of sweat between cities. The water was hot and the pressure was adequate and Holly stood under it for exactly as long as it took to feel like a person who was getting married today rather than a person who had been kidnapped by her best friend before dawn and transported to a Renaissance faire in a siege engine.

A fluffy black robe hung on a hook beside the shower. It was soft in the way that expensive things were soft, the kind of fabric that felt like a statement about what the wearer deserved. Holly put it on and padded barefoot to the coffee station, where a pour-over setup waited with beans she recognized immediately as her own Abyss house blend, ground to the specifications she preferred, with water at the temperature she required. Ebony had sourced her own beans and her own grind and her own brewing method, because Ebony understood that on the morning of Holly’s wedding, the coffee could not be generic. The coffee had to be Holly’s coffee served in a way that communicated respect for the ritual.

Holly made the pour-over with the particular attention she brought to every cup, even on the morning of her own wedding, because some things were sacred and the angle of the pour was one of them. She sat in the styling chair with the cup in both hands and the robe pulled tight around her and the sounds of the faire filtering through the bus walls like a soundtrack being assembled in real time.

She was alone. She was calm. She was drinking her coffee.

The door opened and two women entered carrying cases that Holly recognized as professional makeup and hair kits. They introduced themselves with the brisk warmth of people who had been hired by someone extremely specific about outcomes and had been briefed accordingly. Holly sat in the chair and let them work while the faire sounds grew outside, the particular crescendo of a grounds preparing for something that went beyond a normal operating day.

They were good. The makeup went on in layers that felt architectural, each one building on the last with the precision of people who understood that this face was going to be photographed and remembered and that the work needed to hold through an outdoor ceremony, a reception, and whatever else the day demanded. The eyes received the most attention: dark shadows and precise liner that transformed Holly’s heavy-lidded blue eyes into the specific weapons she deployed at clubs and magazine shoots, the fire tattoo on her throat visible above the robe’s neckline like punctuation. Her hair was styled in a way that left the top of her head accessible, which Holly noted without understanding, as though something was going to go there that hadn’t been explained to her yet.

The women finished, packed their kits, and left.

Holly looked at herself in the Hollywood mirror. The woman looking back was someone she recognized from magazine covers and Saturday nights at the club, except the context had shifted. The makeup was not armor. The dark eyes were not a warning. The woman in the mirror was getting married today, and everything about her face said she was ready.

---

Jess arrived next, slipping through the bus door with the barely contained energy of a young woman who was vibrating at a frequency that suggested she might actually levitate. She carried a garment bag that Holly knew did not contain the dress, because the dress was in the bridal pavilion, which meant this bag contained everything that went under and around the dress: the structural undergarments, the boots, the layers that nobody would see but that would determine how the visible layers fell.

“Oh my god,” Jess said, looking at Holly in the robe with the tiara-less crown of freshly styled hair. “Oh my god.”

“It’s just hair and makeup, Jess.”

“It’s not just hair and makeup. It’s your hair and makeup. On your wedding day.” Jess was bouncing on her toes in a way that reminded Holly of Ebony at her most kinetic, except Jess’s energy was the specific frequency of a young woman who had entered Holly’s life as an emo kid running from a stalker and was steadily evolving into something darker and sharper, the goth chrysalis forming in real time. Her own eyeliner was heavier than it had been six months ago. The black in her wardrobe had deepened from incidental to intentional. She was becoming, and she was becoming in Holly’s direction, and Holly pretended not to notice because acknowledging it would embarrass them both.

“Where is Ebony?”

“In the pavilion. She’s been ready for hours. Hair, makeup, costume, wings, everything. She looks incredible.” Jess was already unzipping the garment bag with hands that were slightly trembling, not from nerves but from the particular overwhelm of being allowed to help the person who had saved your life get dressed for the most important day of hers.

Holly stood and let Jess help her with the process of assembling the foundation of a woman who was about to wear a custom-made black and silver wedding dress with a sword holster to her own Renaissance faire wedding. The boots were first, laced with the particular tightness that combat-adjacent footwear required for stability on uneven faire ground. The undergarments followed, functional and structured, designed to work with the corset rather than against it.

Jess treated every piece like it was sacred, handling the boots with the reverence of a woman dressing a knight for tournament, and the fact that the analogy was not far from the reality made Holly’s chest do something she refused to acknowledge.

“You okay?” Jess asked when the last lace was tied and the last layer was in place, and her voice carried the particular tenderness of someone who could not believe she had been trusted with this role and was determined to deserve it.

“I think so.”

“You look incredible. I know you’re just in boots and foundation stuff under a bathrobe, but you look incredible. You look like you could conquer something.”

Holly smiled in a way that she would not have smiled in front of most people, the unguarded version that she kept behind the resting expression that had been described by people who did not know her as intimidating and by people who did know her as the face Holly wore when she was trying not to let anyone see that she felt things.

---

The bridal pavilion was connected to the bus through a canvas corridor that Ebony had engineered to ensure that Holly would not be visible to anyone on the faire grounds during the transition. The corridor opened into a tent that was larger than Holly expected, the canvas walls creating a private space that smelled like fresh fabric and dried lavender and the particular October air of a New England autumn that had committed to being beautiful for the occasion.

The dress was there. It hung from a stand in the center of the pavilion like a piece of architecture waiting for its occupant, the black and silver catching the light that filtered through the canvas in ways that made the metalwork glow. The sword holster was visible on the back, adjusted for Eulogy’s balance. The pauldron-like shoulder straps rose from the bodice like armor that had decided to be beautiful. The skirt cascaded in layered waves that Holly knew would move like water when she walked.

Ebony was there. She was not in leggings and a bun. She was finished, fully transformed, and the sight of her stopped Holly in the canvas corridor for a full second. The fairy god-bestfriend dress caught the pavilion light in iridescent flashes, the shorter skirt showing legs that belonged to a woman who had been on her feet since before dawn and would be on them until the last guest left. The detachable wings rose from her back with the structural ambition of something that wanted to be real and had almost achieved it. Her hair was done, her makeup was done, every detail was complete, and the reason was obvious: Ebony had gotten herself ready first so that when it was time to stand next to Holly, she would already be exactly who she needed to be.

Natty was there. Jess had followed her through the corridor. Three women formed a semicircle around the dress with the focused energy of a crew about to perform a technical operation that required coordination and precision.

Uno was there too, sitting beside the dress stand in a tunic that matched the wedding colors with the patient dignity of a one-eyed pitbull who had been dressed by professionals and was tolerating it with the composure of a dog who understood he had a job to do, even if the job involved wearing clothes.

“Arms up,” Ebony said, and the robe came off, and the dress went on.

The process of putting Holly into the dress was not simple. The corset lacing required two people working in tandem, Ebony at the back with the laces and Natty providing counter-tension from the front. Natty had the arm strength for it, her grip steady and unyielding against the pull, the kind of practical contribution that did not require theatrical flair but did require someone who wouldn’t buckle when Ebony hauled the laces tight. The pauldrons needed to be seated correctly on her shoulders before the bodice could be fully tightened. The skirt had to be arranged in layers that would drape correctly during movement. The sword holster had to be tested for accessibility, because Holly was not wearing a decorative weapon and the holster needed to function as designed.

During all of this, Jess fed her.

“You haven’t had breakfast,” Jess said, producing a container that held bite-sized pieces of croissant, sliced fruit, and small cubes of cheese, the kind of food that could be consumed by a woman whose arms were being positioned by two other women and whose torso was being progressively compressed into a corset. Jess held the food with the careful attention of a woman who had been entrusted with the sacred duty of keeping the bride fueled and was approaching the task with the same intensity she brought to everything Holly asked of her.

“I can’t eat while they’re lacing me.”

“You can eat between laces.” Jess held a piece of croissant to Holly’s mouth with the earnest determination of someone who was going to feed the bride regardless of the bride’s opinions about being hand-fed. Holly ate the croissant because fighting it would cost more energy than chewing, and the croissant was from Nevermore, which meant Ebony had baked it, which meant it was perfect.

“Tighter,” Holly said, and Ebony pulled the laces with the practiced confidence of a woman who had helped Holly into corsets at clubs and costume events for over a decade.

“If I go tighter, you won’t be able to eat.”

“Then feed me faster.”

Jess held up a piece of cheese. Holly ate it. Ebony pulled the laces. Natty held the front. The dress closed around Holly like a second skin that had been waiting to be worn, the black and silver settling into place with the particular rightness of a garment that had been built for exactly one body and was meeting that body for the last time before the aisle.

The final adjustments took several minutes. The skirt was arranged. The holster was tested. The lantern attachment at the wrist was checked. Holly stood in the center of the pavilion and felt the weight of the dress settle onto her frame with the authority of something that was not just clothing but identity, the physical manifestation of every version of herself that had ever walked a faire ground or stood behind an espresso machine or sat in Joseph’s lap and told him she wanted to be worthy.

“Out,” Ebony said to Natty and Jess, and the word carried the specific authority of a maid of honor who needed the pavilion cleared for a conversation that belonged to two people and no one else.

Natty and Jess fled through the canvas corridor to the bus to begin their own transformations. The pavilion flap fell closed behind them.

Ebony looked at Holly in the dress. Holly looked at Ebony looking at her. Ebony in her fairy god-bestfriend dress with the iridescent wings. Holly in her black and silver armor with the sword holster and the lantern. Uno sitting between them in his tunic, single amber eye watching both of them with the patient devotion of a dog who understood that these were his two favorite humans and whatever was happening was important.

The moment held the particular weight of two women who had been best friends for long enough that language was optional but still chose to use it because some things deserved to be said out loud.

“You look like a fucking queen,” Ebony said.

“Have you seen yourself? You look like a weapon that learned how to accessorize.”

“I’m not going to give you wedding logistics.” Ebony smoothed the front of Holly’s dress with both hands, adjusting something invisible. “You don’t need to know where everything is or what’s happening or which vendor confirmed what. That’s my job and it’s done. What I want to say is that you are getting married today.”

“I am aware.”

“You are getting married today. Before me.” Ebony’s voice carried the particular blend of pride and indignation that only a best friend who had been in a committed relationship for years could produce when watching someone else walk down the aisle first. “I’ve been with Christopher since before you and Joseph even started whatever the hell that crocodile head thing was, and you’re beating me to the altar at a Renaissance faire in a dress with a sword holster. Do you understand how ridiculous that is?”

“You could have proposed to Christopher at any time.”

“I could have. But I didn’t, because I was too busy planning your wedding, which is the most Ebony thing I’ve ever done, and when it’s my turn you better build me a wedding so spectacular that people forget yours existed.”

“I will hire someone.”

“You will do it yourself or I will haunt you.”

Holly laughed, and the laugh was the unguarded kind that she only produced around Ebony, the version that came from somewhere deeper than the persona and sounded like a woman who was not performing toughness but had simply set it down because the person in front of her had earned the right to see what was underneath.

“Do you remember when I told you I’d never get married?” Holly said.

“You told me that at least twice a year for a decade. You also told me you’d never fall in love, never trust a man, and never let anyone see you cry, and you’ve done all three with the same man in a crocodile head.”

“The crocodile head is not relevant to our relationship.”

“He wears it every day he’s at the faire. He wore it to your Save the Date photoshoot. He wears it to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. The crocodile head is foundational to your relationship.”

“The crocodile head is a character choice.”

“The crocodile head is a man who built an entire persona around not showing his face and you married him anyway, which is my entire point.” Ebony stepped back and looked at Holly with the full-body assessment of a woman evaluating her own work. “You found the person who gets to see all of you. The scary parts and the soft parts and the parts that talk to cardboard cutouts. That’s not nothing, Holly. That’s everything.”

Holly felt her throat tighten and refused to let it progress further because forty-five minutes of professional makeup application was a significant investment and she was not going to destroy it before the ceremony.

“Ebony, I need to tell you something.”

“If you’re about to thank me, save it for the toast.”

“I was going to say your wings are crooked.”

“My wings are not crooked, you absolute nightmare of a bride.” Ebony reached behind herself to check the attachment points with the reflexive alarm of a woman who had spent ten minutes securing iridescent fairy wings and was not prepared to hear they were misaligned. They were fine. Holly grinned.

Ebony opened her mouth to say something that was probably deflective and funny, but the pavilion flap opened and someone walked in, and whatever Ebony was going to say died on her lips.

---

The woman who entered the bridal pavilion was tall enough that the canvas flap brushed the top of her head as she ducked through it. She was built with the substantial, confident physicality of someone who spent significant time with heavy things and had decided that her body would reflect that investment. She was wearing the wedding colors: a black and purple kilt that fell to her boots and a fitted top in the same palette, the combination deliberate in its refusal to compete with the bride while still commanding the kind of attention that a woman her size could not avoid commanding even if she tried. The outfit was more warrior than court lady, practical and sharp, the kind of thing a woman wore when she had duties to perform and wanted to be able to move. A leather bracer on each wrist. Her hair, streaked with silver threads that caught the filtered light, was pulled back from a face that had aged with the particular grace of a woman who had never apologized for a single year of it.

She was carrying a wooden box.

Holly recognized her immediately, not from the costume, which she had never seen, but from the way she carried herself, the way she occupied space with the unapologetic presence of a woman who had been commanding rooms since before Holly was born. Holly had grown up watching this woman in Wendy Worthington’s videos and magazine features, had memorized her face from DVD covers stored in plastic sleeves. Then the green rhinestone dress at the first holiday party, the first time they had actually met. The red cowboy hat with white fur trim at the second. The woman Wendy Worthington had trusted enough to run an entire coast of her empire. The woman Holly’s brain had once, without permission, labeled Muscle Mommy and then immediately pretended it hadn’t.

Sandra Saxx.

“Oh,” Holly said, and the single syllable contained an entire deduction collapsing into an obvious answer.

Sandra smiled. It was the warm, steady smile of a woman who had been keeping a secret and was genuinely happy to stop keeping it. “I’m here as Joseph’s best woman.”

Holly stared at her. Of course. Of course it was Sandra. Who else would Joseph choose to stand next to him on the day he married the woman who had worshipped his grandmother since college? Not a faire regular, not a college friend, not some mystery person plucked from his sparse social life. Sandra Saxx, who had known Wendy first and Betsy after, who had shown up at the house thinking Joseph was just a groundskeeper and stumbled into a truth that rewired everything. Sandra, who ran the West Coast office with the particular authority of a woman who had been trusted with half an empire because she had earned it.

A faire regular who wasn’t actually a faire person. Someone who attended in period-appropriate clothing but was someone else entirely outside the gates. With a plus one, a partner, a husband.

“You flew in,” Holly said. “Yesterday. He picked you up at the airport.”

“He did.”

“You sent me sushi.”

“Joseph gave me your order and the restaurant. I just placed it.” Sandra’s smile carried the warmth of a woman who had enjoyed being part of the conspiracy. “He was very specific about the piece size for the dog’s tempura.”

Holly exhaled. So Joseph’s misdirect had been the truth after all. He had told Sandra what restaurant to order from. Holly’s deduction that the best man had known the restaurant independently had been wrong, and Joseph’s seven-word text had not been a lie but a straightforward fact delivered with the calm of a man who understood that the truth could be more disorienting than a misdirect when your opponent was already overthinking.

Behind Holly, Ebony made a sound that fell somewhere between vindication and fury. “The best person, place, or thing. The blank RSVP. The months of not knowing. All of that was to keep me from finding out it was Sandra Saxx?”

Sandra turned to Ebony with the measured calm of a woman who had spent decades managing volatile personalities and found this one adorable. “Joseph knew that the first time you called me about a bachelor party, I would have made you regret it. I don’t plan bachelor parties. I don’t coordinate groomsmen. And if you had pushed me on it, I would have dommed you so hard the wedding would have been ruined, and neither of us wanted that.”

Holly laughed. The laugh came from the place that only Ebony usually had access to, the deep, real, unperformative laugh that made her sound like a person who was having the best morning of her life.

Ebony had the courtesy to blush. It was a thorough blush, climbing from her throat to her hairline with the total surrender of a woman who understood that the threat was not hypothetical and that she would, in fact, have pushed, and that the outcome Sandra described was not only plausible but probable.

“So,” Ebony said, with the dignity of a woman regrouping after being publicly threatened by a retired adult performer at a Renaissance faire, “that’s why Joe couldn’t tell me.”

“That is exactly why Joseph couldn’t tell you,” Sandra confirmed.

Holly was still laughing when Sandra lifted the wooden box in both hands and turned to her with an expression that shifted from warm to something quieter, something that carried history in it.

“I don’t know if you’re doing the something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” Sandra said. “But this is something old. Wendy gave this to me before she passed. Before anyone knew she was sick. Before everything changed.” She paused, and the pause carried the specific gravity of a woman making a decision she had thought about for a long time. “It was a gift. She didn’t tell me to give it to anyone. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it would be better with you.”

The pavilion went quiet. Ebony’s blush faded into stillness. Outside, the faire sounds continued, the distant clank and murmur of a world being assembled, but inside the tent the air held the particular silence of a moment that understood its own weight.

Holly took the box. It was wooden, dark, polished with age, the kind of box that had been built to hold something that mattered. She opened the lid.

Black diamonds. Not the engagement ring kind, not the small accent stones that appeared on jewelry designed to be tasteful. These were statement stones set in a tiara that curved with architectural precision, the black diamonds catching the canvas-filtered light and holding it in facets that glowed like dark fire. Smaller gems flanked them, dark sapphires and black opals in settings that made the piece look like it had been forged rather than designed, as though someone had taken the concept of a crown and filtered it through the aesthetic of a woman who believed that power and beauty were the same thing.

Holly knew this tiara.

She had seen it on a magazine cover that she had kept in storage since college, protected in plastic sleeves because the paper was too precious to risk. The second issue of Worthy Girl. The first cover that featured Wendy Worthington herself rather than one of her models. Wendy in black, Wendy in leather, Wendy looking at the camera with the expression of a woman who had built an empire and was daring the world to question it. And on her head, this tiara, catching studio light in exactly the way it was catching the canvas light now.

The cover line had read: The Queen Has Arrived.

“My makeup,” Holly said, and her voice broke on the second word. “My makeup is going to be ruined.”

Ebony moved before the first tear could fall. A fan appeared from somewhere, because of course Ebony had a fan, because Ebony had anticipated every possible emotional contingency including the one where the bride received a priceless heirloom from the woman who had taken Joseph’s virginity and started crying in a bridal pavilion at a Renaissance faire. The fan worked Holly’s face with the urgent precision of a woman who understood that the makeup had taken forty-five minutes and could not be sacrificed to sentiment.

“Don’t you dare,” Ebony said, fanning. “Do not cry. Think about something boring. Think about inventory spreadsheets. Think about tax season.”

“I’m thinking about Betsy,” Holly said, and her voice was thick with the particular emotion of a woman who had talked to a cardboard cutout for years and left flowers at the wrong grave and was now holding a crown that the real woman had worn, a crown that Sandra had decided, on her own, belonged here.

Sandra stepped forward and lifted the tiara from the box with the careful reverence of a woman who understood what she was holding. She settled it onto Holly’s head, and it fit.

Holly went still.

“Ebony.”

“What.”

“I’m sorry about whatever headpiece you had planned.”

“There wasn’t one.”

Holly blinked. “Then why did you measure my head?”

“To distract you from asking about something else. You were getting too close to figuring out the sword holster modification and I needed you to stop talking for thirty seconds.” Ebony was staring at the tiara with an expression that Holly had never seen on her face before, the particular look of a woman who was encountering something for the first time and was recalibrating everything she thought she knew about how this morning was going to go. “Holly, what the fuck is that?”

“It’s from the second Worthy Girl cover,” Holly said. “The first one with Wendy on it.”

“I know what it is. I’m asking why it’s on your head.”

“Because Sandra just put it there.”

Ebony turned to Sandra with the wide-eyed recalibration of a woman whose carefully orchestrated wedding morning had just been interrupted by a variable she had not planned for, and Ebony did not enjoy unplanned variables. Sandra met her gaze with the calm of a woman who had been in the industry long enough to be unbothered by anyone’s surprise.

Holly turned to Sandra and opened her arms and Sandra stepped into the embrace with the easy strength of a woman whose hugs felt like being held by someone who could bench press you but chose to be gentle instead. Holly held on for longer than she would have held most people, because this was not most people, this was the woman who had been Wendy’s closest friend and Joseph’s first and the keeper of a crown that had been waiting for this morning without knowing it.

“Is your husband okay?” Holly asked when they separated. “You couldn’t make the holiday party last year because he was hurt.”

Sandra waved a hand with the dismissive ease of a woman whose husband’s injuries were apparently a resolved matter. “He’s fine. He’s sitting in the front row next to Amelia.”

“Of course he is.” Holly could picture it, Sandra’s husband in whatever faire costume he had been put in, and beside him Amelia in her carrier, the elderly Siamese presiding over the proceedings with the ancient indifference of a cat who had belonged to the woman whose tiara was now on Holly’s head. Kit was out there somewhere wrangling all three cats and probably regretting every life decision that had led to this moment. “Tell him Amelia bites.”

“He knows. Joseph warned him.” Sandra straightened her bracers with the professional efficiency of a woman who had duties to attend to. “I have to go be the best woman now. Joseph is probably standing somewhere being very tall and very calm and pretending he’s not losing his mind.”

“He’s losing his mind?”

“He ironed his kilt three times this morning. Three times. The man irons once. He is not okay.” Sandra ducked through the pavilion flap with the parting energy of a woman who had completed one mission and was moving to the next. The canvas fell closed behind her.

The pavilion was quiet again. Holly stood in her dress with a sword holster on her back and a lantern at her wrist and a black diamond tiara on her head that had belonged to the woman who had built the empire that her future husband now ran, and she felt every one of those elements settle into place like parts of an identity that had been assembling itself for years without her permission.

Ebony was still holding the fan.

“You can stop fanning me,” Holly said.

Ebony lowered the fan slowly, studying Holly’s face with the particular intensity of a woman performing a damage assessment on forty-five minutes of professional makeup application. “You held it together. Mostly. I’ll need to touch up your left eye.”

“You know how to touch up makeup?”

“I know how to do everything. Have you not been paying attention for the last decade?” Ebony produced a small kit from somewhere on her person and stepped close, dabbing at the corner of Holly’s left eye with the focused precision of a woman who was not going to let a single tear track survive to the ceremony.

Holly stood still and let Ebony fix her face and felt the tiara on her head and the dress on her body and the boots on her feet and the weight of a day that was about to begin, and the feeling was not nervousness and not excitement but something between the two that did not have a word because the word had not been invented yet for the specific emotion of a goth woman standing in a tent at a Renaissance faire wearing a dead legend’s crown and being repaired by her best friend.

“Ebony.”

“Hold still, I’m blending.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Hold still.”

“You’re my best friend and you built me a wedding and you measured my head for a distraction and you’ve been carrying all of this for a year and I don’t tell you enough that you are the most important person in my life who isn’t Joseph.”

“Holly, if you make me cry, I will kill you, and I just got my wings attached and my makeup is perfect and I will not ruin either of those things committing murder.”

Ebony finished the touch-up and stepped back to evaluate her work. She nodded once with the satisfaction of a professional who had successfully defended her investment against an emotional insurgency. Then she set down the kit and the fan and looked at Holly with an expression that Holly had seen exactly three times in their friendship: once when Holly signed the lease on Abyss, once when Joseph proposed, and now.

“Things are going to start soon,” Ebony said. “When I come back, we’ll line up and I’ll walk you through the order.” She paused. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I know.”

“Joseph is going to cry.”

“I know that too.”

“I’m going to cry.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Ebony stepped forward and took Holly’s face in both hands with the gentle authority of a woman who had earned the right to touch this face without asking permission. She kissed Holly on the lips, a brief, warm, deliberate press that carried friendship and history and the specific weight of two women who had survived everything together and were about to survive the happiest day of one of their lives.

Ebony pulled back. Her eyes were bright. Her hands were still on Holly’s face. The fairy wings caught the light behind her like something that wanted to be real.

“I’m pregnant,” Ebony said. “Come on Uno.”

And then she turned and ran.

She ran through the canvas corridor with the speed of a woman who had just detonated a grenade in a bridal pavilion and had no intention of being present for the blast radius. The corridor flap swung behind her, and the iridescent wings caught on the canvas for a fraction of a second before tearing free, and the sound of her footsteps disappeared into the faire grounds with the particular velocity of a five-foot-two fairy who could outrun the consequences of her own timing. Uno gave one look at Holly before slipping out after Ebony.

Holly stood in the pavilion.

The tiara was on her head. The dress was on her body. The sword was in its holster. The lantern was at her wrist. The sounds of her wedding being assembled played through the canvas walls like a symphony tuning up for its final movement.

Her best friend was pregnant.

“Wait,” Holly said to the empty tent.

The tent did not answer.

“What?”

The faire sounds continued. Holly stood in the bridal pavilion with a dead queen’s crown on her head and the word pregnant expanding in her brain like a detonation that kept detonating, each ripple producing a new question that she could not ask because the woman who had detonated it was gone, vanished into a Renaissance faire at full sprint in fairy wings, and Holly was in a wedding dress and could not chase her.

She couldn’t chase her.

She was getting married in minutes and her best friend was pregnant and she couldn’t chase her.

Holly looked at the canvas ceiling and exhaled and felt her face do something that could not decide if it was a laugh or a scream and settled for both simultaneously, a sound that the bridal pavilion absorbed into its fabric walls and kept.

“Ebony,” Holly said to no one, “you absolute fucking menace.”

Then she straightened the tiara, adjusted the sword, and waited for someone to come tell her it was time.

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