Ray stopped short, her flush deepening. “Well, you are,” she said, fidgeting. “Ellasbeth is nice and all, but you’re the one Dad loves.”
Meaning Trent, I thought, giving her a hug and feeling her strength and determination, happy that I might have had a part in that. “Your mother would be so proud of you,” I said as I dropped back, still holding her shoulders. “You have her stately beauty.”
Ray’s eyes dropped. “And my dad’s hands,” she said, meaning Quen this time. It made sense if you didn’t think about it too hard. “Mom, I can’t get married without my cap,” she said, her momentary calm gone as she began casting about for it again. “Where’s Jenks? I know it’s Jumoke’s kids. They were plotting to hide it as they did my hair.”
Of that, I had no doubt. The pixies had been in and out of the pavilion/stable all afternoon. Trent had banished them shortly before leaving with Quen, and smiling, I began taking out the pins holding my spelling cap on. “Jenks is doing a last security check in the woods. Here.” The last pin came out, and I shook my hair free. I wouldn’t be doing any magic today. “Wear mine. No one will know the difference.”
“I can’t wear yours,” she protested.
Eyebrow’s high, I smirked. “I can ask Lucy for hers. She’s sitting with Ellasbeth.”
Ray winced, her eyes flicking to the shifting walls as if able to see the large glen beside the river where her mother had last stood upon the earth. The last I’d looked, Lucy was sitting directly between Ellasbeth’s stately snobbery and my mom’s loud refusal to let anyone think Ellasbeth was better than she was. Takata was enjoying himself immensely, sitting back and watching the show before the show, as it were.
“Ahh, I’ll wear yours, thanks.”
My heart almost broke from happiness as she all but flopped onto a linen-covered bail of straw and I carefully used my hairpins to fix it among her elaborate braids. Ellasbeth was not happy, making no bones about her disapproval of Ray’s marrying a Rosewood baby, even if that baby had grown into a powerful demon who’d turned his thoughtful studies into researching aura mechanics. The field was relatively new and massively funded by an ever-decreasing but desperate segment of the old undead. It had never occurred to me that Ray might marry one of the kids that Trent and I had saved from Ku’Sox. Funny how things worked out.
But I think Ellasbeth’s disapproval stemmed more from the coming lack of grandbabies than from Keric’s being a demon. While elves and demons had finally learned to live together—in part because their new Goddess was a demon and she wanted it that way—the biology remained static. There’d never be a successful demon-elf pairing. The magic fought the science, and the science undermined the magic. There were some things, apparently, that even a crazy Goddess couldn’t fix.
Ray wound her fingers around themselves, fidgeting as she looked to the billowing drapes and the coming sunset. “Maybe I should’ve asked Loo to ride with me. Mom looks ticked.”
Mom meaning Ellasbeth this time, and I sighed, fixing her hair and knowing it would be the last time ever. “She’s not mad at you, she’s mad at my mom. To tell you the truth, I think Lucy likes sitting between them. If she can keep them from throwing curses at each other, then she can convince a hanging judge that the sun is black and the moon is green.”
Ray snorted, reminding me that under the finery and glam, she was the same little girl I’d spent the last twenty-seven years helping Trent and Quen raise, putting Band-Aids on cuts, making unexpected cupcakes at dawn before school, cheering from the stands in the rain, and drying tears when a boy was mean—missing her when she was with Ellasbeth. If that wasn’t being a mom, then nothing was. It had been glorious, even if Trent and I had never made it official. With Ray getting married, it felt as if a tie between us was being cut.
“I’m so glad you’re standing with my dad,” Ray rushed on, and I kept arranging her hair, knowing she needed soothing as much as that flaky horse did. “I can’t imagine Ellasbeth doing it.”
I laughed, but it sounded almost like a cry. “Me either.” I had to stop. I had to let her go. “Go on. You need to lose yourself in the woods. Keric knows where you’ll be, right?”
She stood, looking like grace given substance, breathless with action and promise coiled up in her, ready to be loosed on the world. “Yes. If you see Al, tell him if he doesn’t wear the pelt, I will turn his ears into snakes.”
I nodded, my hand trailing from her as she paced quickly to the back of the pavilion and slipped into the twilight. “Hi, Ivy!” she called, already out of my sight but heavy on my mind. “Jenks, your kids are butt-hats!”
“Yeah? Tell me something I don’t know, short stack!” Jenks shouted, and I spun to the makeshift door. Ivy? The sun was still up. I hadn’t expected her to make it until the reception when Nina could come with her.
Pulse fast, I wiped my eyes as she walked in, gray about the temples, wrinkles about her eyes, but moving as slinkily and smoothly as always. She made the fifties look good. Really good. “You made it!” I said, glancing from her to the saddle. I had to finish up and get out of here. I needed to be on the hill overlooking the glen by sunset, and it was almost that now.
Eyes glittering, Ivy pulled me into a quick, heartfelt hug. My eyes closed as the scent of vampire incense and contentment washed through me. Okay, maybe I needed some soothing, too, and I smiled as I pulled back, thinking she looked better than great. And she’d made it before sunset. I’d thought she’d be too busy.
“Rachel, you are as radiant as Ray,” she said, and Jenks hovered between us, his silver dust graying about the edges. He was due for another rejuv charm, but was resisting.
“You mean wild,” the pixy said. “Love the hair, Rache.”
I touched it, not caring that I’d ruined the elaborate upsweep by taking my cap off. It was frizzing already, and I took the last of the pins out. Trent liked it better wild anyway. Though I’d not seen or heard the Goddess since Newt had become her, Jenks said mystics still coated me from time to time as she turned her thoughts my way. I knew every time she did because my hair became impossible. It happened a lot, and maybe that’s why my life had been so perfect.
“You said you couldn’t make it until after sunset,” I said.
Ivy smiled as if knowing something I didn’t as she made kissy noises at Red and petted her soft nose. “Nina told me to leave. Apparently I was fidgeting. Getting the office excited.”