The day dawned with the manic energy of a civilization trying to compress a year of planning into twenty-four hours. The castle was vibrating. Servants ran through the halls carrying bolts of silk and crates of wine, their faces pale with the terror of imminent deadline. I stood in the center of the chaos, adjusting my cuffs. I was sweating.
“No,” I barked at a trembling florist. “Not lilies. Lilies smell like a funeral. I want roses. Red ones. Blood red. I want them to look like open hearts.”
The florist nodded frantically and scurried away.
“Milstead,” Devan called out. He was walking toward me, holding a swatch of velvet. He looked tired but happy. “The tailor wants to know if you prefer the midnight blue or the royal navy.”
“Neither,” I said without looking. “Navy is for sailors. Midnight is for secrets. White is for Kings.”
Devan grinned. He touched my arm. “White it is.” He walked away to deal with the musicians.
“Lord Milstead,” a soldier called out. “Do we have your approval on the seven cannon salute for after the ceremony?”
“Seven?” I scoffed. “Make it twenty-one or none!”
I watched Devan go, and the smile dropped from my face. My stomach roiled. I was spiraling.
The testosterone was giving me a headache. The scar tissue on my chest itched constantly.
I couldn’t marry him. It wasn’t just the dysphoria. It was the logistics. If I married him, I had to stay Milstead. I had to live as a man, rule as a man, and grow old as a man. Or, I had to reveal my true form.
I imagined the wedding night. I imagined the moment the glamour dropped or the potion wore off and Devan realized his rugged, father-figure husband was actually a voluptuous sea witch with tentacles.
There would be no swooning; it would only be harpooning. It would be a massacre.
“I have to fix this,” I whispered to myself. “I have to get him to the altar, and then I have to swap the bride. It’s the only way out.”
I turned to head toward the fitting room when I saw a flash of two-toned hair in the corridor.
Avis.
She was lurking behind a tapestry, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She looked like a raccoon that had broken into a bakery. She saw me and she charged.
She stomped toward me, her new legs moving with a jerky, furious rhythm. She grabbed the lapel of my coat and yanked. She opened her mouth and pointed a shaking finger at Devan’s retreating back, then at herself, then at me.
She mime-slapped me.
“Calm down,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “You are making a scene.”
She pulled her hand back and made a frantic cutting motion across her throat. Traitor.
I sighed. I pulled her into a small alcove, away from the prying eyes of the servants. I loomed over her, trying to look authoritative, but inside I was frantic.
“Listen to me, you little brat,” I hissed. “I am saving you.”
Avis stared at me. She looked like she wanted to spit in my face. She shook her head violently.
“Think,” I commanded. “Use that gray matter for something other than daydreaming. If I had said no yesterday, what would have happened?”
Avis blinked. She stopped struggling.
“He proposed, rewrote the laws of man, and put his heart on the table,” I explained, my voice dropping to a reasonable purr. “If I had rejected him, if I had laughed in his face... he would have broken. He would have closed off. He would have never looked at another person with affection again.”
I leaned in closer. “Especially not you.”
Avis’s brow furrowed. She was listening.
“I’m simply holding the door open and keeping his heart warm,” I explained. “I’ll get him to the altar and then get him ready to say ’I do.’ And then, at the last second, I am going to step aside. I am going to shove you into his arms. I’m only borrowing him.”
Avis looked at me. Hope is a dangerous drug, and she was an addict.
But she was suspicious. She pointed at her finger, where a ring would be.
“I promise,” I whispered. “I don’t want to be King, you idiot. I want to go home. I want my hips back. I want my breasts back. I grew those myself and I miss them. I am doing this for you. I am doing this so you end up with him.”
Avis hesitated. She looked at Devan across the hall. Then she looked back at me. She nodded slowly, pacified but unconvinced.
“Good girl,” I said. I patted her cheek. It was a patronizing gesture.
“Now run along. Go play with your crabs. Let me handle the groom.”
I walked away. I straightened my coat. I felt a flicker of relief. The plan was shaky, but it was still a plan. Get to the wedding. Swap the bride. Go home.
I found Devan near the entrance to the ballroom. He was arguing with the head of the guard.
“Milstead,” Devan said, looking relieved to see me. “Martan is worried about the guest list. He thinks the foreign dignitaries will be offended by the short notice.”
“Let them be offended,” I rumbled. “They will come anyway. They want to see the spectacle.”
Devan laughed. He leaned into me. “Is Avis okay? I saw her corner you in the hall. Looked... intense.”
I waved a hand dismissively. I needed to keep her in the game, but I needed to explain her behavior.
“Jealousy,” I said loud enough for the servants to hear. “She’s a simple creature, Devan. Sees a shiny thing and wants it. Sees a wedding and needs to be the bride. She doesn’t understand the complexities of statecraft or love. The poor trollop is confused. She simply wants to be where the people are.” I heard a gasp.
Avis had followed me. She had heard every word.
“Ignore her,” I told Devan. “She’s just acting out. It’s the brain damage.”
Devan nodded sympathetically. “Poor thing.”
I felt a disturbance in the air behind me, a wave of concentrated rage, and then the sound of running footsteps fading down the hall.
Avis ran until she stumbled through a set of double doors.
Once we had finished with the guest list, Devan was ready for the next step in our preparations. In the ocean, we don’t do big displays for our weddings. The ocean itself is a display of beauty and grandeur. Weddings are a few close fish and sometimes a band. You say your vows and then everyone dances while the married couple simply consummates. Surface weddings require so much more work.
“The flowers should be ready for inspection,” Devan said as we walked down the corridor. “I ordered red roses. Thousands of them. Just like you wanted.”
“Like beautiful hearts,” I noted. “I love it.”
He pushed open the doors to the Conservatory.
We stopped.
The room was filled with thousands of flowers. Roses, lilies, orchids, hydrangeas. But the room looked like a battlefield.
The floor was a sea of decapitated flowers. Broken glass glittered in the afternoon sun. Water pooled around our boots. The air smelled of crushed stems and rage. They had been waiting to be arranged for the ceremony.
In the center of the room, sitting in the middle of the ruined wedding cake, was Avis.
She was covered in frosting. The raspberry filling of the cake looked like entrails. Her two-toned hair was matted with white icing and berry slime. She was holding a chunk of cake in one hand and a crushed rose in the other.
She looked up. Her face was smeared with sugar and blood. She looked feral. She looked like a demon that had crawled out of a bakery oven.
I can only imagine the level of betrayal that she felt. She had no reason to believe me, despite my intentions. Despite the truth that I was only here for her. There truly is no telling what her father had told her about me. She probably convinced herself that this had been my plan all along.
She had taken all of her rage and all of her pain and all of her betrayal and she unleashed it upon a thousand flowers. The innocent plants had no defense.
She had probably imagined each stem that she snapped was one of my bones.
Devan made a sound. It was a low, strangled noise of pure horror.
“My god,” he whispered.
Avis saw us. She didn’t look ashamed. She didn’t look sorry. She hissed.
She actually hissed at the Prince. She threw the chunk of cake at him. It hit his shoulder and exploded in a puff of crumbs.
“That’s it,” Devan said. His voice was cold. He had run out of patience. “Guards!”
The doors burst open. Two armored men rushed in. They stopped when they saw the devastation. They looked at the girl in the cake.
“Take her,” Devan ordered. He pointed a shaking finger at Avis. “Get her out of my sight. Put her in the dungeon.”
My stomach dropped.
The dungeon?
If she was in the dungeon, she couldn’t interrupt the wedding. She couldn’t be the bride I swapped in at the last second. If she was locked away, I was the only one standing at the altar.
“Devan,” I said, stepping forward. Panic flared in my chest. “Wait. The dungeon? Isn’t that a bit extreme? The girl is clearly... unwell.”
“She is dangerous,” Devan snapped. He pulled his arm away. “She destroyed the wedding cake, Milstead. She has a knife in her eyes. I will not have her roaming the halls while we sleep.”
He looked at me, and for the first time, his eyes weren’t filled with adoration. They were filled with steel.
“But…“ I stammered. “If we lock her up, we... we can’t help her. Maybe she just needs to be confined to her room? Under guard?”
“No,” Devan said. He turned to the guards. “Take her. Lock her up. We will deal with her after the wedding.”
The guards moved forward. They grabbed Avis by her frosting-covered arms. She didn’t fight. She went limp. She stared at me as they dragged her away.
Her eyes were dead. She had accepted her fate. I watched them drag her out of the room. I watched the trail of frosting and blood she left on the marble.
I looked at Devan. He was shaking. He was furious.
“I’m sorry,” Devan said, turning to me. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. I tried to be kind. I tried to help her.”
“You did what you had to do,” I said slowly.
My mind was racing. This was a disaster. If Avis was in the dungeon, I was trapped. I had to walk down that aisle. I had to say the vows. And once I was married... once the sun set… I would be King. I would be powerful. But I would be living a lie that could shatter at any moment. One slip, one accidental transformation, and they would hunt me down.
“It’s over,” Devan said. He kicked a broken rose across the floor. “We have to get new flowers. We have to get a new cake.”
He looked at me. “It was supposed to be at sunset. Can we still do it tomorrow at noon? Can we still get married?”
The next day at noon was day six. I looked at the mess. I looked at the desperate man begging me to fix his life. I had to say yes and keep the charade going. Then find a way to break her out before the ceremony and get her to the altar.
“Yes,” I said. I brushed a smudge of frosting off Devan’s lapel. “We can still do it.”
“Good,” Devan said. He took my hand. “Let’s get out of here. I need a drink.”
We walked out of the ruined room, leaving the wreckage of Avis’s hopes behind us. I was going to be a King. And I had twenty-four hours to figure out how to break a mermaid out of maximum security without blowing my cover.
Details, I told myself, feeling the sweat trickle down my back. Just details.