The morning of the wedding dawned overcast and humid, but the scene inside of Jane’s suite was so hectic that the weather was at the absolute bottom of her list of worries. Lynne was on the warpath because something was wrong with the flowers (“I quite clearly stated, ‘Nothing whatsoever involving hibiscus,’ so I simply do not understand why you’re standing there like the village idiot holding that awful bouquet full of them when you could be taking this opportunity to redo the centerpieces”), the brass octet were stuck in heavy traffic on the George Washington Bridge, and the couturier just would not stop fussing.

Jane could only assume that no one had yet wondered where the Dorans’ personal driver was. All of this frivolity on the heels of a violent death felt obscene and ghoulish to her, but no one else seemed bothered in the slightest that Yuri had never shown up for work. While two women and a very skinny man clumped around Jane, curling bits of her hair, pinning others, and spraying makeup onto her face before carefully sponging most of it off again, it was all Jane could do to not explode out of her seat and flee from the chaos. Why had she ever agreed to any of this? Twisting her silver ring around her finger, she reminded herself that it would all be over in a matter of hours. Those hours couldn’t pass soon enough.

“Well, I have no idea why anyone would have told you that, but now I’m telling you to turn yourself back around and get those over to the Met where they belong,” Cora McCarroll screeched, sounding nearly unpleasant enough to be mistaken for her twin. “Alicia’s there with the seating chart.” There was a brief pause before she added, “Is there any reason you’re still blocking our doorway?” and then a door slammed shut and Jane could only conclude that the place-card debacle was on its way to being resolved.

The couturier stabbed Jane in the ribs with a pin and she jumped, causing one of her hairstylists to burn her own wrist with a curling iron. “Sorry,” Jane mumbled, but noticed the couturier didn’t seem the least bit contrite, even though it was all his fault. Instead, he was muttering something about Mrs. Doran having promised that Jane would cut out carbs entirely between the last fitting and now, and who could blame him for believing it, when any sane person would want to look good in a one-of-a-kind haute couture masterpiece like this one?

“I’m sorry, but all of the press invitations went out last—” Sofia’s voice wafted down the hall with barely enough force to make it to Jane’s ears, but she sounded desperate. “I understand that,” she went on miserably, “but I have the list right here, and it says . . . No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you: Mr. Lavandeira simply isn’t on the list . . . I know . . . I know . . . I’m sure that if it were an oversight someone would have caught . . . No, I know . . .” She drifted out of range, and Jane sighed. She felt horrible that otherwise normal people had to be sucked into the massive tornado that was The Wedding.

And speaking of tornadoes . . . she thought confusedly as the four people working on her swirled into some new and mysterious configuration. They formed a human shield in front of her, her stylist actually brandishing her curling iron. What now?

“No! You’re not allowed to see her yet!” the makeup artist squealed. “It’s bad luck.”

“Well, now.” A molten-gold voice rumbled through the air between them. “We certainly don’t need any of that.”

“Malcolm,” Jane exclaimed, the breath rushing out of her in relief. Her entourage was crowded around her, blocking her view, but he was there. He had come back, and they would get away from all of this insanity, and everything would be all right again.

“I want to talk to him,” she announced in a loud, firm tone. “Figure something out.” She realized that she sounded alarmingly like Lynne or Cora, but she didn’t care: they got results and she wanted some now.

It worked. Seconds later, she was shielded by a carved-rosewood screen, and the room was empty except for her and Malcolm. She could feel the heat of his body radiating through the wood, and she seriously considered shoving the stupid thing out of the way, but he was right: today, of all days, they needed luck on their side. “I missed you,” she said instead, and tried to put all of her longing into the words.

“I missed you, too,” his hoarse whisper came back. “I’ve been worried sick about what was happening to you. Are you okay?”

“I’m—” Jane hesitated. She’d been about to say “fine,” but Yuri’s final snarl, Charles’s constant lurking, and Lynne’s terrifying scheming all flashed in her mind at once. “Well, I’m still in one piece. But so much has happened . . .” She trailed off helplessly, unwilling to risk sharing the details, with so many of his mind-reading relatives around.

“I know,” he murmured. “It’s just a few more hours. Can you make it?”

“Of course,” she assured him softly, but a grim part of her wondered how he’d react to knowing everything she’d done in the month since he’d been gone. The prank on Madison, the pyrotechnics in front of Lynne, the killing . . . she shuddered and the scrambled eggs she’d eaten that morning flipped in her stomach. She closed her eyes. “You saved my life,” Dee’s voice rang out in her head and she forced down the wave of nausea. As horrible as it was, she had done what she had to do.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she whispered. The screen moved a bit and she knew he was resting a hand against it. She raised her own, guessing where his might be so they would almost be touching through the thin layer of rosewood.

“I have to go,” he told her after a silent minute. “The guy from Valentino is freaking out and my dad looked like he’d cry if we didn’t have a scotch-and-cigar moment, so . . .”

“Get through the day,” she reminded him. “Everything else can wait.”

“Right,” he said, but then paused. “Oh! I almost forgot: there was this girl outside who said she knew you. She didn’t want to come in, but she gave me this.” His golden-skinned hand appeared over the screen, holding a small packet of waxed paper. “I wasn’t sure if I should check it first, but I figured you’d know if it was something . . . um, dangerous.”

Jane sliced through the tape with a Goa Sand fingernail, not caring that the fresh polish chipped in protest. She doubted she would recognize a magical booby trap any more readily than Malcolm would. But considering that all of their enemies were currently inside the house, it didn’t seem efficient to worry about an attack from some random person on the street. When the packet unfolded, she began to giggle in relief. “The girl outside—dark hair, kind of tall, with a hoarse voice?”

“Sounds about right.”

Jane broke one of the chocolate-chip cookies in half and passed it back over the screen. She wished Dee hadn’t risked coming up here, but at least she knew her friend was okay.

“This is our unofficial wedding cake. I made a friend while you were gone.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She felt a genuine smile come to her lips as they chewed silently on opposite sides of the screen.

For the first time in a month, Jane knew deep down in her bones that everything really was going to be all right.