Got Lost

by Michael Darling

Genres: Private Investigators; Humorous Fantasy; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

"Got Lost is the funniest book in the series. A tour de force urban fantasy with more laughs, deeper emotions, and a sarcastic private detective who can burn with both magic and words." —Paul Genesse, bestselling author of Sakura: Intellectual Property

Goethe “Got” Luck hasn’t been to a lot of weddings, but it doesn’t take a detective to know it’s a catastrophe when the bride is weeping, the groom is bleeding, and the choir children have vanished into thin air.

When the FBI shows up at his door accusing him of kidnapping, Got knows something is vastly wrong. He’s done a lot of things, but stealing children isn't one of them. To clear his name, Got goes on the hunt for the missing kids and finds himself trapped in the realm of dreams. Ruled by a cunning goddess with her own agenda, the realm of dreams is filled with shifting realities and no way out. To rescue the children—and himself—Got must face the mysteries of this realm and its frightening adversaries head on. Even with all his magic, Got’s luck might have run out now that he’s lost.

Release date: September 3, 2019

Publisher: Future House Publishing

Print pages: 398

Sample

The girl with the sapphire eyes stood like a statue against the stones of the wall. She was alone on the far side of the room but didn’t seem to be lonely, staring straight ahead. Her feet were bare and filthy. Her dress was torn and frayed like she’d been chased by dogs and almost caught.

I tapped Fáidh on the shoulder. Side-by-side we stood patiently in front of an altar. The hall around us had been decorated for a wedding. The wedding was scheduled for the following day. Realistically, it was only fun because I was here with the woman I loved.

Fáidh turned in response to my touch. The hall was warm and her hair was pulled up off her neck. She was breathtaking enough to be the bride, although she wasn’t. I pointed behind us.

“See that girl over there?” I whispered.

Fáidh looked, then nodded. “She has beautiful eyes. A little young to be out with no escort.”

“She’s been standing there for a while, and she hasn’t moved a muscle.”

Fáidh kept looking. Then, “Are you sure?”

“I’m not even sure she’s breathing.” I replied. “She’s not watching anything going on. Or anybody. Just staring.”

Fáidh looked some more. “Her clothes are a mess.”

“Someone here should know her, right?” The group in our rehearsal party wasn’t very large. Only ten or so people, and I was acquainted with most of them. As far as I knew, none of them had a teenage daughter. The girl was shivering now. She was a hundred yards away, give or take, but my eyes were better than most and I could tell. “There’s something wrong.”

“The groom’s place will be closer to the end of the altar, sire.” A hand on my elbow demanded my attention, forcing me to look away from the girl.

Bromach, my valet, had the difficult and ever-thankless job of keeping me from embarrassing myself in princely situations. I moved to stand in the spot where he wanted me. The view from the altar was spectacular, looking out over the cliff to a forest far below and gray-blue clouds in the morning sky.

“Lady Fáidh, thy place is here.” Bromach pointed again.

Fáidh nodded and stepped to the corner of the altar opposite me. She caught my eye and winked. I tried to wink back but I’d never successfully disconnected whatever link existed between my eyelids and only managed an awkward blink that also twisted my mouth oddly.

The ladies-in-waiting behind Fáidh smiled shyly at me as Bromach guided them to their places. I nodded with a smile. Over the past hour, I’m afraid I’d given them rude nicknames. The lady nearest Fáidh had decided to resurrect the bustle, but it didn’t quite fit her frame and she was constantly hitching it up and adjusting it, which seemed to give her derriere a rebellious independence. The second lady, to whom I was apparently related closely, had a pallor fairytale writers would call “milky,” and was so pale that the morning sun reflecting off her face was like a searchlight. Or a bat signal. The third had taken a nearly fatal blow from puberty landing on her all at once, instead of spread over the course of a few normal, socially-awkward years. Her acne was closer to road rash.

Thusly, I had dubbed them Creeping Booty, So White, and Ziterella.

Biting my lips for the purpose of smirk control, I chided myself at the same time. They were very nice girls. Polite and graceful. I was only here out of duty and it was wrong of me to make my own fun while I was stuck here.

Yet, their nicknames remained locked in my dark thoughts.

My gaze strayed back to statue girl. The color of her eyes was that deep blue shade of an ocean sky at dusk. Each eye appeared to have a small star twinkling with its own light. She stared at an empty space six feet above the floor. Her hands clenched at her sides as if she were carrying invisible buckets of water. She was shivering harder now. Quivering. Pent-up energy, perhaps, from standing stock still for so long.

Bromach continued to direct the rehearsal, ordering people around, sighing when he wasn’t happy and nodding to himself when he was. He looked to be in his element, running the show in the delicately-appointed wedding hall filled with fresh flowers and lace.

Torn between duty and curiosity, I turned back to Fáidh for distraction. “Do you wish our wedding had been like this? With all the pretty decorations and food and people? And a church only slightly less modest than Westminster Abbey?”

Fáidh looked around, taking in the carved pillars and the crystalline ceiling, made entirely of faceted glass. She shook her head. “We got married under a cherry tree that never ceases to bloom. What could be prettier than that?”

“I’m glad our wedding was quick. It didn’t take a whole week like this one,” I replied.

“Our wedding was so quick, it ended before we knew it had begun.” Fáidh laughed.

Curiosity won out. Before I’d taken three steps in the girl’s direction, Bromach called after me. “Sire! Sire? Where goest thou?” He sounded borderline horrified that I was abandoning my post. “Prince Luck! Please!”

Make that full-on horrified.

Halfway to the girl, I paused to look back. “Hang on, Bromach. I’ll just be a minute.”

He sighed. “Thy cousin and thy father will be most displeased.”

“One minute,” I repeated.

Bromach watched me with impatience and pickleface in equal measure. When he saw where I was going he marched in the girl’s direction, determined to get to her before I did. Maybe he was thinking he could get me back to my post if he got rid of her. It was hard for me to be critical. Bromach took his work seriously and his attention to detail meant I owed him my life.

With Bromach ahead of me, I said, “There’s something going on with her. She’s been standing like a statue for half an hour. Maybe longer.”

Bromach slowed at my words and I caught up to him.

We stared at the girl. She stared past us. Standing at arm’s length, I could see she was maybe thirteen years old. No older.

A long moment passed. “She’s mortal,” Bromach said.

She was also Stained.

At some point, the girl had been touched by magic, and the magic had marked her. A shudder shoveled electricity down my spine. Mortals with Stains didn’t often live long. I checked the pattern. It had squarish sections with little points like tridents coming out of them. I’d never seen this particular Stain before. It was subtle, subdued, and almost hypnotic to watch as the wide band of translucent light turned slowly around the girl’s torso.

Bromach’s words were clipped as if by a knife. “What is thy name, child?” he snapped.

“Are you . . . Prince Goethe?” The girl continued to stare blindly at a point in the middle distance, somewhere in the vicinity of the little cupola draped with cream-colored roses. Her lips were pale and dry, struggling to push out the words.

“No, miss, I’m—”

The girl’s fist didn’t touch Bromach, but it snapped out like a python, flaring blue with power. Bromach shot away from her, his heels skidding across the stone floor as if giant hands had clapped on his shoulders and yanked him backwards. His eyes sprang wide in surprise and he grimaced from the acceleration. With a thump, he ran into the cupola. The force that held him must have let him go because he slid to the floor next, landing hard on his butt. A cascade of rose petals descended around him like floral snowflakes.

Fáidh abandoned her post too, along with the ladies in waiting. The girl blinked, and her fist drifted down, falling slower than rose-petal snowflakes.

If she’s mortal, where does her magic come from?

She’d remained in place and continued to stare past me. Past everything.

“Are you Prince Goethe?” Her voice was raspy. “I feel someone else there.”

“Me?” I swallowed. My own spit tasted sour. The power inside me stirred. Wary. Ready for me to use if I needed it. “Yes. I’m Prince Goethe.”

“Finally,” the girl replied. My heartrate eased. Maybe I wouldn’t go flying off like Bromach. Maybe I wouldn’t need to use my power.

The girl raised her other fist—the one that hadn’t sent Bromach sprawling—and held it out in my direction. Fingers down, she looked to be holding something. “Take this,” she said, her voice rough like sandpaper.

There was a certain amount of hesitation, I admit, but I put my open hand beneath hers, brushing her skin, which was ice cold.

Like a corpse coming out of rigor mortis, her fingers uncurled with effort. I waited for some object to hit my palm.

Nothing.

She wasn’t holding anything.

What the phantom menace?

Bending down a bit to better search her open hand, I checked to see if the item she wanted to give me was stuck to her palm.

Nope.

Deciding it would be best to play along with the crazy mortal girl with the lightning-fast power, I said, “I’m honored.”

“The dreamer must dream.”

What did she say?

Her next words almost slipped past me while I was stuck in thought.

“Mark these steps. Do not forget.”

Do not forget? What . . . ?

The first little fist came up again. I felt a sudden solidity in the middle of my chest, a firm pressure that snapped against the inside of my ribcage. I barely had time to think about the odd sensation before I found myself taking steps.

“Three steps east,” said the girl.

Three steps east is what I took. I couldn’t help it.

“Turn north. Nine steps north.”

The pressure inside my chest twirled and I twirled with it. I had the same approximate ability to resist as a tealeaf in a tornado. The force pulled me forward again. Nine steps.

“Turn east,” the girl said. Her fist didn’t move but remained out in front of her.

I turned again, nonetheless.

This was making me nauseated.

“Eleven steps east.”

Uh-oh.

There were several rows of benches in front of me and I found myself stepping straight into them. One step.

Poodles.

Two steps.

With a grunt, I managed to step over the back of the bench and onto the seat.

Three steps.

The next step forced me to put my foot on the back of the next bench. Staggering, squatting, and scrambling, I make awkward passage over the next four benches.

I look like an idiot.

Panting, I came to rest. My head pounded as if the bones of my cranium had grown raw nerves. I looked around, glancing quickly.

Please turn south.

“Turn north. Seven steps north.”

Like a marionette in the hands of a sadistic puppeteer, I turned.

Poodle skirts.

I had a new problem. To the south was open space in the middle of the wedding hall. To the north—

“Wall!” I yelled. “There’s a wall!”

One foot was on the floor, but the other foot was on the seat. As I half duck-walked down the bench, I tried to gauge the number of steps to the wall. I might avoid having my face smashed into the stones, but it was going to be close. I shot a glance over my shoulder.

Bromach was passed out on the floor, surrounded by ladies in cream-colored gowns and more members of wedding retinue.

“Wake him up!”

At the end of the bench, steps six and seven. My face was close enough to the stone that I felt my breath curl back against my skin.

Too close.

I couldn’t be certain anything bad would happen going into the wall but the only way I was going to find out was a hard way. A hard-as-a-rock way. My imagination conjured up grisly details. Blood and bone on the wall of stone. The only way to be sure I’d survive being pulled any farther would be for Bromach to be awake.

“Turn west. Four steps west.”

The power in my chest turned me. Pulled me along the wall. If I went north again, irresistible force meets immovable object, with me as the consequences.

“I need Bromach!” Over my other shoulder, I saw Fáidh with her hand on his forehead, glowing blue with her power, her eyes closed.

With half of my attention on the unconscious Bromach, it was difficult to focus on where I was walking, although my body was on autopilot anyway. I lost track of the changes in direction, the near misses with solid pillars, and the number of steps.

When will this end?

“Ten steps north,” the girl said.

I’m doomed.

I faced north and walked. “Fáidh! Bromach!”

I heard, more than saw, activity on the floor behind me. The wall loomed close. I gritted my teeth and—blink—found myself on the other side of the wall.

Yes!

And then—

No!

The wedding hall stood picturesquely on top of a cliff and I was on the edge. No time to formulate a cry for help. A square of light unrolled in the middle of the air. From experience, I knew it was a conduit to what I thought of as heaven.

Angels are coming to take me.

I’m not ready to die. Nausea and vertigo swept over me. A woman descended from the square overhead, holding a sword made of light.

The pressure in my chest pulled me off the edge of the cliff.

My foot stepped out into space. Stepped down on the flat blade of the sword.

Holy wow.

The woman’s big soft eyes sparkled with an inner fire as she smiled up at me. I stopped, standing in what should be mid-air. I tried not to look down, although the woman who’d appeared at literally the last moment was mostly below me, holding her sword at the height of her shoulder, the tip of the blade on the edge of the cliff.

A long moment passed. Then another. The pressure in my chest evaporated. No more directions from the girl with the sapphire eyes.

Clearing my throat and then swallowing took every bit of my self-control. I managed to stammer, “What’s up, Hope?”

Hope gave me a dazzling smile. “You are, Got.”

Looking down brought more nausea. “Yeah. You’re right. Ha ha. I’m up. In the air.” I forced another swallow. “So. Were you just in the neighborhood? Flitting by on a cloud?”

Hope grinned some more. “Someone ordered a fresh helping of deus ex machina, so I thought I’d oblige.”

“That’s, uh, very kind of you.”

“You’re welcome.” She left me hanging for another eternity. “Do you want to scoot off the sword?” she asked.

Oh. She was waiting on me. “Yeah. Sure.”

Turning around felt like a bad idea so I inched backwards, moving one foot and then the other. The fear of falling off the sword kept my pulse thrumming in my ears. Finally, when there was plenty of solid ground underfoot, I bent over, putting my hands on my knees and taking deep breaths.

“You seem tense,” Hope said. She floated up from the abyss and landed lightly in front of me.

“Well, yeah. It’s been a while since I was almost killed. I’m a little out of practice.”

Hope laughed. She let go of her sword and it instantly evaporated, sending motes of light floating away like sparks from a campfire. She wore golden armor with a design like feathers decorating it. Behind her, bands of light extended like rippling, ghostly strips of mist ten feet across. She also had a circlet of semi-transparent gold that surrounded the crown of her head.

It was good to see her again.

“You’ll have to let me borrow that sword of yours sometime.”

“Can’t. It’s part of my essence. I can’t give it away or drop it. If I let it go, it disappears.”

Oh. “Guess it can’t be used against you, at least.”

“Exactly.”

We stood for a moment, comfortably distant from the edge of the cliff. The sun felt nice. Hope asked, slyly, “Have you figured out who the girl is?”

“The little puppetmistress?” I replied. “No. But her parents are going to get a stern letter from me for allowing her to use magic out here during school hours.”

The music of Hope’s laugh adorned the air again.

“Do you know anything about her?” I asked.

“I know everything about her.” Hope’s eyes danced.

“Great. Gimme all the details while we go inside. We can make sure she doesn’t bewitch anyone else.”

Hope frowned. “She’ll be nothing more than a teenage girl again, in a minute.”

The furrows in Hope’s brow worried me. “What’s the matter?”

“My message is only for you,” Hope said. “You cannot share what I’m about to tell you with anyone else. Not even Fáidh.”

“What?”

“Promise me.”

I’d been through this before. Hope’s voice was urgent, so I had to agree. “I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

Hope nodded, relieved. “The girl’s name is Alyce.” She spelled it for me. “A-L-Y-C-E. You’re going to want to do the right thing and take her home. To her parents. You mustn’t do that.”

“They’ll be worried.” I shook my head in protest.

“You can’t let her parents know where she is. You must keep her in the Behindbeyond. Don’t let anyone change your mind. Not for a while.”

My mind tried to formulate a reason. “That’s like . . . kidnapping. Keeping her from her family.”

“You have to. The survival of all the Fae depends on it. In fact, don’t tell anyone that I’m here either.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You’ll go to investigate.”

“Will I go to the Dagobah system? Go ahead and say it. ‘You will go to the Dagobah system to investigate.’”

Hope blinked for a second. Even as an angel, I could still surprise her.

Heh heh.

“You haven’t changed, Got. I think I’m glad. Probably.” She shook her head at me nonetheless, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. “You’ll go to where she was taken to find out more. When you do, you’ll want to take everything you have received from the Fae with you. Including the Heartpiece I gave you. You’ll need it.”

Hope was so serious about this.

Who is this girl?

The urge to ask Hope the obvious question—why—was nearly impossible to resist but her expression was a wall of stone. Lips pressed together. Jaw clenched.

When she spoke, the words sent goosebumps into a tango all the way down my back.

“The dreamer must dream.”

Standing there with my mouth hanging open, goosebumps running amok, it felt like the controlling pressure from Alyce had come back and taken all the breath out of my body.

Hope put a hand on my shoulder. Different questions came to mind. “It’s going to hamper my investigation if I can’t tell anyone what I’m up to. Isn’t it?”

“I’m just here to get you started. As quickly as possible. There are . . . situations . . . about to get out of hand. Once you’re on the case, anything you find out independently you can share. Leave out the details of this conversation and how I helped and everything will turn out all right. That’s all.”

“Ah.” I thought about Alyce and where all this might lead if I was successful. “Will she ever be able to go home? Get back to her family?”

Hope glanced up and to the side, like she was looking for an answer in the clouds. After a moment, she said, “If there ever is a time that’s right, you’ll know when.”

That’s not very helpful.

I sighed, remembering to breathe again. “Can you tell me what all that other stuff was, at least? What’s up with the handful of nothing she gave me? And why did she drag me back and forth around the hall, through a wall, and over the edge of a cliff?”

“I can’t comment on that.” The gleam of mischief returned to Hope’s eyes. “But it was fun to watch.”

Someone inside the wedding hall screamed.

“That’s for you,” Hope said.

I am not a fan of secrets. My profession requires me to keep them when I have to but in this case secret keeping felt underhanded and unnecessary. I’d just have to trust that Hope knew what she was doing.

A golden square of light unrolled in the air and Hope vanished into it. Setting off at a run, I headed for the door of the hall. Kudos to the genius who had invented doors, built for the express purpose of letting people go in and out of buildings instead of blinking through walls.

You must keep her in the Behindbeyond.

Hope’s words followed me into the hall.

The entire wedding rehearsal had come to a standstill. People had gathered in a circle. The ladies-in-waiting were clinging to each other but So White and Ziterella stepped to the side when they saw me, letting me through.

Bromach was vertical again, probing the back of his head with his fingers.

The girl lay on the floor. Fáidh held the girl’s head in her own lap, her hand on the girl’s forehead now, glowing blue. After a moment, Fáidh shook her head and her power trickled away.

“How is she?” I asked.

Fáidh moved a lock of hair from the girl’s cheek. “I can’t find her thoughts.”

“What does that mean? Her mind’s erased?”

“Not exactly.” Fáidh stared at me. Her eyes were the emerald shade that meant she was upset. “More like her mind is hidden. Her thoughts are there but I can’t get any details. Like they’re behind a wall. I can feel the presence of her mind, but I can’t reach it. I don’t think anyone can.”

Alyce. Down the rabbit hole.

Kneeling next to the ladies, I moved the girl’s eyelids back. She had standard-issue pupils and irises now instead of sapphires. Gray eyes with tiny scattered flecks of green and blue and brown like the last bits of confetti after the party was over. Her pupils were equal and not dilated so she was probably okay, but I would have been happier to have a doctor check her. She was definitely sleeping. Deeply.

“Can we do anything for her?”

Fáidh shrugged. “Keep her comfortable. She might come out of it on her own.”

“All right. Let’s take her to our chambers in the castle and make sure someone can keep an eye on her.” Fáidh and I had rooms in the castle of the Alder King, my father. “Maybe we can find out more about her.”

“We should find her parents,” Fáidh suggested.

Uh-oh.

Keep her in the Behindbeyond.

“Were you able to get any of her history when you touched her?” The Three Dread Princesses looked at me quizzically. To the nearest—Creeping Booty—I explained, “Fáidh is a Water Mage with the ability to see the history of an object. Who’s touched it, where it’s been. In the mortal realm, it’s called psychometry.”

“Very good,” Fáidh said.

So White stared at Fáidh and backed off. The color would have drained from her face if she’d had any color to drain. I stood and put a reassuring hand on her arm. She flinched.

“No need to worry, milady,” I said. “Fáidh has to touch the object to see its history.”

“Oh.” The girl’s hand fluttered against her chest like she was trying to keep a bird from flying out. It was all she could do to manage three-word sentences that didn’t make sense, taking a deep breath between each one. “I’m not really. It’s just that. Or nothing to.”

The private investigator side of me wondered what she was hiding.

Guess we know who’s going to have the most fun at the bachelorette party.

Fáidh paid no attention to the flighty lady-in-waiting. Instead, she fingered the ragged hem of Alyce’s dress. “The only item she has is this dress and it’s not substantial enough to hold on to much of where it’s been.”

“How’s that work?”

Fáidh considered a moment. “It would be similar to how certain objects hold fingerprints better than others. A bullet is very dense, since it’s brass, and there isn’t a lot of surface area, so I can easily get a magical reading on who touched it and where and when. This is a lightly-woven material that would never show a fingerprint, even if I knew where someone touched it. So it’s not going to have much substance for psychometry either.”

That’s good.

I think.

Fáidh shook her head and looked at me. Her eyes were losing their green, fading back to toffee brown. “Maybe we should take her to Miami, Got. You can check missing persons.”

Half nodding, half shaking my head, I replied, “It would be safer to keep her here.”

And why is that? I thought.

“Why is that?” Fáidh asked.

C’mon brain. We can’t say it’s because Hope told us to keep her here.

“People here are better equipped to handle her.”

Fáidh remained skeptical, eyebrows at full mast.

I’m going to need something more, brain.

“If we take her to a hospital, she might wake up and use magic again.”

Almost there, brain.

“And if she tells a doctor to walk into a wall, it’ll raise questions we can’t answer.”

Fáidh sighed. “You’re right. Better keep her here.”

Yes! Good job, brain!

We sent for a litter to carry the girl back to the castle. It seemed like the safest way to take her since we weren’t sure what would happen if we used magic. Fáidh seemed content to remain on the floor with her. She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair, gently pulling through a million tangles a few at a time. The expression on her face was mostly one of concern, but something else colored the edges of her frown. I couldn’t read her further. It was as impossible for me to know her thoughts as it was, it seemed, for Fáidh to know Alyce’s.

Bromach stood near the altar, surveying the wreckage of his wedding rehearsal.

“It’s a pity things didn’t go the way you planned.” I felt sorry.

“It’s all right, sire,” Bromach replied. “They never do.”

“My cousin will be very pleased with everything you’ve done.”

“One hopes. The wedding is tomorrow, and we were unable to complete the rehearsal. What if someone is out of place? Or forgets their assignment?”

“It will be all right. We’ll just go with the flow.”

“Sire, that approach may work for thee. Respectfully, we are not all secure in ‘going with the flow.’”

The sour twist that appeared on Bromach’s lip made his views on flow-going quite clear.

A phalanx of guards appeared, bearing a litter. There were twenty men with six of them in armor. Seemed like a lot of men for one unconscious mortal. At the forefront stood the captain of the king’s guard, Sir Siorradh Fionnuar. I pointed at him in greeting as he approached.

“Dude,” I said.

“Dude,” he replied. He caught Bromach shaking his head, not violently, but enough to be noticed. Siorradh amended his greeting. “Or, as I should have said, Prince Dude.”

I liked Siorradh’s style.

We ignored Bromach’s eye rolling, which was nearly audible.

“The girl in Fáidh’s lap is a mortal,” I explained. “She stood by the wall for a while but when we tried to talk to her, she did some crazy magic stuff and then she passed out.” I kept the details to a minimum. Helping Alyce was the priority, not giving a play-by-play.

“Fáidh hasn’t been able to reach her thoughts. Could you take the girl to our chambers and make sure she’s comfortable?”

There was no sound behind Siorradh’s helm, which was perpetually closed. For a heartbeat or two, he might as well have been an empty suit of armor, he was so still. After a long moment, he asked, “Do you think your father will agree? We could take her to a healer in town.”

“I’ll talk to my father.” Dad was epically prickly about mortals visiting the realm of the Fae. The girl came here looking for me personally and poor Bromach got attacked. “I’d like to keep an eye on her. Stay close to her until she wakes up.”

Siorradh bowed. “As thou wishest.”

With the grace and ease of the world’s most gentle metal-clad nurse, Siorradh lifted Alyce out of Fáidh’s lap. He laid her in the litter, which was a small bed with a four-post canopy and long poles extending from the front and back. Siorradh closed the curtains to protect her. Four guards took up positions at the corners of the litter. They lifted together, carrying Alyce out of the wedding hall to the road.

I helped Fáidh to her feet. She gave my hands an extra squeeze and I squeezed back.

Thank you, the squeezes said. And I love you.

The warmth from her toffee-colored eyes threatened to spill out. Her glance still held the wistfulness she’d had looking down at Alyce.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Fáidh nodded.

The Dread Princesses accosted Bromach. Their duties as ladies-in-waiting required them to be elsewhere, attending to the needs of the actual bride and groom. The best man had other duties as well, but he hung back and let the gaggle of girls fight the battle with Bromach.

Bromach surrendered. Hands raised, he dismissed the party with a series of strident reminders: everyone was expected to arrive in their places in the wedding hall at least an hour before the ceremony in the morning and to not celebrate too far into the night or too fully as to make themselves late. Or incapacitated.

The best man gave a wave over his shoulder as he departed. The princesses were gone before Bromach had finished. Exasperated, Bromach gazed at me. I shrugged. Bromach sighed and turned to the cupola with the messed-up flowers. He busied himself with rearranging the vines that had come loose.

Fáidh took my hand as we walked out of the wedding hall. A carriage waited to take us back to the castle.

“Do we feel like walking?” I asked.

“Sounds great,” Fáidh replied. She had on heels, but they were sensible. She never seemed uncomfortable in her shoes, even walking up and down the occasional mountain. In her highest heels, Fáidh stood over six feet tall, which intimidated a lot of people. Not me.

I loved tall.

From the top of the cliff, we could see the castle, sitting like a polished stone gift box in the middle of a velvet green forest. Behind the castle, the ribbon of a river sparkled with flickering jewels of sunlight on its way to the falls that fed the last stretch of river before flowing into the Bay of Knives.

There would be postcards with photographs of this view in the castle gift shop. If the castle had a gift shop. And if photography