Chapter 4: The Brooch

The day before the wedding, our house hummed from dawn.

Florists carried white roses through the front hall.

The Guard checked the guest list for the third time.

In the living room two press aides took one call after another.

I sat in my room beside the wedding dress on its rack and the diamond comb on my dressing table.

Bridie knocked and came in with a dark blue jewelry box.

"Garrick asked me to bring you this," she said. "It's his last gift for the day. He hopes you'll wear it."

I opened the lid.

A brooch lay inside, a sprig of heather cut in mother-of-pearl and edged with tiny diamonds. It was beautiful and it was old.

I turned it over.

One letter was engraved on the back. B.

I shut the box.

"Please thank him."

Bridie's eyes stayed on the box a beat too long before she looked away.

She did not leave.

She started sorting my earrings into velvet trays for the morning, quick and neat.

She had clearly done it in her head for her own wedding a hundred times.

"The King is really coming tomorrow," she said.

"Garrick won his commendations in the north, and His Majesty wants the day to show the Guard is loyal."

"He's going to give the toast himself."

King Corwin Castleton ruled all of Westland, every Pack from Greenvale to Ironridge to Southbay.

If he stood up for the wedding, it would stop being a family event and become a state occasion.

The press office had already written the story.

A hero lost for five years comes home to marry the woman who never gave up on him.

Everyone in that story was playing a part. I was the only one who had really waited.

"Bridie."

"Mm?"

"Do you love Garrick?"

Her hand jerked. A gold earring fell from her fingers onto the carpet.

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