Page 56 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

“This is my dress codpiece,” he murmured back. “And just wait till you see what’s under it.”

The woman—Ethan had called her a herald?—waiting to officiate at the not-legal, just-for-the-party-of-it ceremony rolled her eyes as Mara fell into her husband’s arms, laughing.

“Perhaps,” Ofelia said after a moment, “you should get on with it?”

Ethan’s sister nodded and grinned, catching the best man Javier’s eye. “Get on with it,” they said loudly in unison.

As if on cue—though a poorly rehearsed cue—half of the audience shouted, “Get on with it!”

“Well,” Ethan murmured in Mara’s ear. “Shall we get on with it? After all, we have a wedding night to look forward to.”

“Very well,” Mara said. “But this doesn’t mean you have won.”

“I think we both won,” Ethan said, and there wasn’t much argument to be made to that.

They got on with it.

“And so it is,” cried the herald as they walked hand in hand down the aisle, “that Mara, the Keeper of the Secret Garden of the East, and Sir Ethan, Tenured Professor of the Western City, have pledged their troth before friends and family, fae and man. Let us have three cheers for this newest husband and wife! Hip, hip—”

“Huzzah!” shouted the joyous throng.

And as the cheering continued, Mara and Ethan stopped outside to kiss, surrounded by the flowers of their new home, which had somehow burst into ecstatic bloom without Mara even trying at all.

For a moment—just a moment—Mara was terrified. Which was foolish. They had been living together for months, and the marriage here was all for show. Just an excuse for food and drink and music. Someone had already started to play the drums over in the corner.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked, slipping his hand into hers and drawing her away from the hubbub.

“Nothing is wrong,” she said. “It is just… I spent five years alone. And I am not sad that it is over—not at all—but it is sometimes…”

“A bit much?” he said gently, kissing her ear.

“Yes.” She laughed ruefully. “I must confess, I am feeling the urge to run away again.”

He was silent for just a moment, then drew her into his arms. “Where will you run to?”

“I will not run,” she said, a little annoyed. “I just married you.”

“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her throat. “But if you ran, where would you run?”

“I do not know.”

“If you don’t tell me,” he said, “how am I supposed to follow you?”

“You have your satellites,” she said, giggling.

“I do,” he agreed.

“What if I do not want you to follow me?”

“Do you not want me to follow you?”

“No. Yes. I— Why are we even having this conversation?”

“Because,” he said softly. “I want you to know that I would go to the ends of the earth for you. Climb every mountain, swim every... However the song goes.”

“And if I don’t want you to?”

“Then I won’t.” He kissed her earlobe. “But you want me to.”