Even when it came to a social custom Genesis didn't understand, the commander's internal sense of time was infallible. Judging by the angle of the sun overhead and how drunk the young men on the other side of the second large clearing were, they'd been waiting in a line a full hour before they had the opportunity to convey their well-wishes to the happy couple. And give them their wedding gifts.

  "Would you like me to go first, messire?" Mirk asked him in a voice too low for any eavesdropping human to hear, already unbuckling the flap on his satchel.

  Genesis only nodded, looking down his nose at the elderly couple ahead of them. They'd been chatting with Mordecai's grandparents for a good ten minutes. Mirk recognized the old woman who was currently browbeating Mordecai's grandfather as one of the pair from the bridal tent, his grandmother's sister. Mirk hadn't yet turned his translation charm back on, but he understood by feel what was going on.

  He could feel the chagrin bubbling off Mordecai, mirrored to a much less obvious degree by his grandfather. Though centuries must have passed since Mordecai's grandparents' wedding day, his grandmother's sister still hadn't come to terms with the fact that she'd settled for what she considered a reprobate.

  At least his grandmother didn't seem bothered by any of it. She laughed along with her sister’s jabs while grinning pointedly at her husband. "What are their names, again?" Mirk asked Genesis, in the same low voice. "Mordecai's grandparents?"

  "The grandmother is...Zora. The man is Abram."

  It was probably a futile endeavor, but Mirk felt he had to ask. "What are their titles?"

  Genesis adjusted his odd spectacles on the bridge of his nose as he thought. The commander had caved to circumstance after spending a half hour baking underneath the unrelenting sun. He’d made use of his magic just long enough to pull his ugly, flat-brimmed hat and darkened spectacles with the side-baffles out of the shadows. Mirk wished he'd just stuck to the hat. With the spectacles hiding his eyes and half his brow, it was more difficult than usual to judge what Genesis was thinking by his jumbled-up expressions.

  At least having Genesis’s eyes out of sight meant that the restless heat still gnawing at the back of Mirk's mind had abated a little. There was something about being locked in his clear-eyed gaze that put Mirk's heart in his throat under the best of circumstances. The exuberant springtime that reigned in the teleporting mages' vale would make it all but unbearable.

  "It has been...several centuries. But they were both once officers in the Fourth. I believe comrade will suffice."

  "Both?" Mirk took a harder look at Zora, who had finally stepped in to mediate things between her sister and her husband, drawing the quilt she'd brought as a wedding gift across the table and encouraging Abram to admire it. Mirk had assumed Zora must be a powerful mage, but he'd thought that women had always been barred from all the divisions other than the Twelfth.

  "Opinion has...changed regarding women since the City moved from east to west. With the ancient K'maneda, there was no distinction between men and women. Not as you understand it, in any case."

  "Methinks you'll have to tell me a little more about all of this sometime," Mirk said, as he went back to digging in his satchel for the potion he'd crafted for Danu. The fertility potion he'd been meaning to craft had exploded on him so many times that he'd given up on it, save for as the base for a different potion meant to help Comrade Commander Margaret. He'd settled for a luck potion instead. Most mages regarded them as little more than superstition, but they were much more forgiving than a fertility potion, though their components were much more expensive.

  Mirk felt uncomfortable giving Danu something so trivial when he had the means to give her so much more, something that reflected how much he valued her friendship and wanted to see her and Mordecai happy. But he sensed that it'd be a slight to the other guests to outdo them. And he'd already impressed on Danu a dozen times that he'd be happy to help her and Mordecai overcome any obstacles they might face that a bit of gold could take away.

  Genesis made a non-committal noise in response, his nose wrinkling, just slightly, as the couple ahead of them both tore large chunks from a braided loaf of bread in the center of the table that separated the happy couple from their guests. Dozens of them had been made for the occasion. As each guest departed the table and the canopy above it to join the feast on the other side of the clearing, it seemed to be tradition to take a bite of the bread and a drink from a common cup that had been refilled several times from the barrels of wine K'aekniv had come running with back in the City. Mirk wondered how Genesis was planning on navigating that custom, but decided it'd be better not to ask until the critical moment. The longer one argued with Genesis, the more likely he was to dig in his heels.

  Mirk didn't have to work at all to find a smile for the happy couple once the last guests ahead of them climbed to their feet and headed off. Danu's relief at seeing a familiar face was more than enough to buoy Mirk's spirits. At least she had her parents beside her to keep her company now too, along with Mordecai. Laosie returned his smile, but Donn hunched over at the sight of him and Genesis standing just beyond the shade provided by the canopy over the gift-laden table, his crown of bone nearly sliding clear off his head.

  The reception from the other half of the bridal table was odd. Mordecai looked exceptionally nervous. And beside him, his grandparents both stared up at Genesis with hardened faces like Mirk wasn't even there. Mirk did his best to smooth things over, sliding into one of the pair of chairs in front of the table and offering everyone seated on the other side individual, polite seated bows, tapping on both the translation charm on his sleeve and his vocal translator as he addressed them each by their title and what he knew of their full names. Both of Mordecai's grandparents turned their skepticism on him when he made the choice to address them both as comrade, as Genesis had recommended.

  "I'm so happy for you both," Mirk said, refocusing on Danu and Mordecai. "It's not much, but..." He paused, eyeing Danu's crown of bone, threaded with dozens of dandelions. "...could I have one of your flowers, Danu? If it isn't too much. I'd never ask for such a precious thing, unless I thought it could help..."

  Shrugging, Danu plucked one from the rear of the crown, offering it out to him across the table. Mirk took it with effusive thanks — much more effusive than if they'd been at the infirmary, which made Danu chuckle — and plucked the silk-wrapped potion off the pile of other bottles inside his satchel.

  He talked as he unwrapped the potion, which he'd put into the prettiest bottle the Potionmasters Guild shop had on offer. Cut crystal, with a stopper that had a small silver bird attached to it. "I'd been trying to make a different kind of potion for you, but methinks this one is still good enough. Though, of course, if either of you ever need anything, I'm more than happy to help."

  "Mirk's a real noble," Mordecai said to his grandparents, hoping it might lighten their mood. "From his family, not from the guilds."

  "That explains the manners," Zora said with a snort.

  "Doesn't explain the rest of it," Abram added. He'd gone back to staring at Genesis after acknowledging Mirk with the slightest of nods.

  Mordecai gave an awkward laugh, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. "Well, that's a long story...not a great one for a wedding either..."

  The smell that wafted out of the potion bolstered Mirk's spirits — rosewater and mint, with the earthy undertone of a certain kind of lichen he'd needed to pay one of the men from the Irish company to teleport back home to fetch for him. It took him a moment to put the emotions of the revelers across the clearing out of mind once he lowered his shields, but once he felt the ringing melody of the potion, he calmed.

  The potion had taken hours at the desk in his quarters to craft, long nights spent stirring it while deep in meditation, half reciting the decades of the rosary under his breath and half thinking of all the things he wished for Danu and Mordecai, safety and happiness and prosperity. Mirk did nothing to the dandelion other than push it in past the bottle's neck, with a wish that the love her father put into her bridal crown would infuse itself into the potion. A prismatic glimmer flickered around the potion as the dandelion sank, then both the glow and the flower vanished.

  Coming back to himself and drawing his shields back up, Mirk gathered the silk around the base of the bottle and passed it across the table to Danu. "For good luck," he said. "If you each drink half, methinks that'll work best."

  Donn cringed away from the potion like it was a serpent preparing to strike, making an arcane gesture in its direction, though he still determinedly flashed Mirk a weak, toothy smile. "Very strong, to be expected. So much potential!"

  Laoise leaned over him, uncorking the bottle and wafting a bit of its scent over to herself. Her eyebrows arched, and she cast a cutting, sideways look over at Mirk. "Did you mix this with the branch?"

  "Euh...no? The usual stirrer...does something about it smell wrong?"

  After a long pause, she recorked the potion. "No. But that's interesting..."

  After cinching the silk bag tight, Danu reached across the table and took both of Mirk's hands, the warmth of her appreciation a good antidote to the badly-masked fear on her father's face. "It's lovely, Mirk. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us."

  "I'm always here," Mirk replied, squeezing her hands. "Anything you need, all you have to do is ask. Methinks I can't do much for magical things, but if you and Mordecai are ever in need...or your families..."

  Donn gave a weak laugh, still leaning as far away as he could from the potion between Danu's arms. Laoise rolled her eyes. "Don't be a baby," she said to him in a low voice, elbowing Donn in the side. "Neither of their names are in your book. We already know that."

  "...Kou was so put out he hid in that cave for a week after the second time..." Donn mumbled under his breath as he forced himself to straighten up and reapplied his smile.

  It all came together then — Donn's anxiousness, the way he'd avoided so much as looking askance at Genesis, how he'd treated him all afternoon, half terrified and half in awe, like an oblate who'd been called on to assist at the Abbess's Masses on their first week at the abbey. Mirk turned his smile on Donn. The Death winced away, but smiled back at him.

  "I apologize if I've caused you and your family any trouble, Seigneur Donn. It...it was all very complicated. I'm doing my best to make sure it doesn't happen again. And I don't have any bad feelings toward you and your brother, of course. We're all just doing our best."

  Zora cuffed Mordecai on the shoulder with an expectant tisk. "He beat up Danny's uncle," Mordecai explained, trying to keep his voice low and failing. "Twice. When he tried to come for Gen."

  Even if Mordecai had managed through some miracle to keep his voice low, the secret was ruined when Zora cackled. Donn hunched miserably in his chair and offered a jumbled attempt at reassurances, while Abram cast a wary look in Mirk's direction. It was the first time Mirk felt like the old man had even seen him across the table.

  The best way to ease an awkward situation, Mirk knew, was to carry on fast. That and he was sure that Genesis's gift and the expectation attached would make everyone forget about Donn and what Mirk had done to his brother in an instant. Mirk nudged the commander underneath the table, the signal they'd agreed upon earlier to mean that it was time to offer out the wedding present he'd brought for Mordecai. Though that gift wasn't entirely of Genesis's making.

  Reluctantly, Genesis took off his hat and spectacles, laying them down on the table, though he couldn't help himself from first making sure there weren't any errant crumbs or wine or dirt on it. Another recommendation of his that Genesis had wearily accepted — when discussing important matters with someone else, it was important to meet them openly, bare-headed, as a sign of respect. The commander summoned a small silver button into his hand from the shadows with a twist of this wrist, sliding it across the table to Mordecai.

  "While you were...otherwise occupied, I organized the election to determine who the men of your company would prefer to take K'aekniv's position. As he was chosen to replace me as captain. You have been voted in as his lieutenant."

  Genesis paused, thinking, as Mordecai excitedly showed the button first to his grandfather, then his grandmother. "The vote was conclusive. Of note was your ability to coordinate and plan. And your...agreeable personality. Additionally, as you are now the only...married individual among the company, it was thought that you would most benefit from the increase in contractual benefits. You were voted one and a half shares. The same as K'aekniv."

  Genesis didn't avoid Mordecai's embrace when he lunged across the table and wrapped him an effusive, back-slapping hug. But he did close his eyes, as if that made it easier to bear up under Mordecai's enthusiasm. "I'll do everything I can, Gen, you can count on me. I'm serious! No more weekends in the Watch brig or the guild lockup from now on, I swear! I'm a married man," he added, turning a lovestruck eye toward Danu as he released Genesis from his embrace. "Thank you. I’m honored."

  "You are not in my debt,” Genesis said. “This was the result of a fair election. Your responsibility and...thanks is owed to the others."

  "Is this common practice now?" Abram asked, finally deigning to address Genesis outright. "Voting on officers?"

  Genesis shook his head. "The other divisions do not conform to the proper practices. However, the commander of the Seventh is...uninterested in how we manage our own affairs, as long as the contracts are filled. Thus, I have returned to the proper practice rather than continuing to select officers based on...payment or favors."

  "And what would you do if it was up to you across the board?" Abram asked, propping his elbows on the edge of the table and leaning across it, staring hard up at Genesis. "Give the people what they want, eh?"

  The intensity of Abram's stare, the weight of his words, the tension in his shoulders, all of it was undeniable. Mirk would have wilted under that much scrutiny. But Genesis answered the question without pause in the same methodical way he handled everything, his face blank as he met Abram's gaze.

  "There are...essential agreements one enters into when joining the K'maneda. Included in this are...certain rights. One has the right to change divisions freely. One has no right to force another K'maneda out, unless they have...infringed upon the freedom of another. In violation of the Five Laws. And in that instance...it is my belief that it should be made public what has been done. So that those who see clearly can...counterbalance any personal grievances."

  "Fancy words," Zora said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. "Don't mean anything at the end of the day, though, do they?"

  "Correct. Words are...immaterial when there are actions contrary to them. This is why I took the vote rather than handing your grandson the position. And this is why Mordecai has been chosen by his comrades as lieutenant. He has earned his rank through merit and loyalty to the others. Even from those who...initially had doubts about his capacities."

  Abram turned his head, watching the party that was growing more rambunctious by the minute on the other side of the clearing as he thought. The K'maneda who'd come from the City had initially kept their distance from Mordecai's kin. But good food and drink, as always, tended to blur the lines between people.

  That and K'aekniv's enthusiasm for everything and everyone, as long as there was fun to be had. The half-angel had been the first one to go up to one of Mordecai's cousins or uncles and offer them a drink, along with asking a question about some dish or song. Since then the lines had collapsed further, and all the men had gathered together to take part in some competition to see who could hurl a rock past the magicked boundaries of the teleporting mages' vale. Most of them were already too drunk to put on a good showing, but that didn't seem to matter.

  "Always knew that boy would end up a terror," Zora said with a sigh, following Abram's gaze. K’aekniv was taking his turn at the game, hurling himself in dramatic circles as he wound up to throw. "But he gets people to go along. Like most angels do," she added, her eyes flicking back toward Mirk.

  Abram shook his head, focusing back across the table on Genesis. "Noticed there aren't any Bavarians around. Couldn't talk any of them into joining your little experiment?"

  "Eva's half!" Mordecai butted in, pointing across the clearing at where Eva was interrogating the aunt who'd stood guard outside Danu's bridal tent. Not about the meat that’d been turning on a spit over the open fire, but about the knife she was using to carve it.

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  His grandfather ignored Mordecai. "And the only English one here is you. Sort of. Don't think you really count as coming from anywhere, to be honest."

  "I was not involved in recruitment for this event," Genesis said, still refusing to flinch away from Abram's judgment. "I was told by the others that it was a matter of...closeness. As for in the City...headway is being made with North. Or...Nitzsch, as you may have known him. I believe he favors the former name for ease with the English."

  Abram's expression hardened. "That bastard didn't lift a finger to help anyone when the cards were down the last time."

  "I will not...speculate on that matter. As I was not present. However, I...understand your distrust. I do not fully trust him either. But the position of those who wish to stand against the direction the K'maneda has taken since you left is growing in strength. Others are beginning to understand that this is not the way things have been. Or must always be."

  "Not due to much help from you, I'd imagine," Zora cut in. "Maybe for the magic half, but the rest of it, that's people like our Mordka. And your half-angels."

  "We're always the ones who pay the price. Not people like him," Abram said, still staring fixedly across the table at Genesis.

  Mirk knew it wasn't his place to intervene, that this was a conversation that really ought to have taken place in private. Donn looked profoundly uncomfortable, his grin frozen on his face, looking very much like he wanted to dive behind his wife for cover, while Mordecai opened and shut his mouth like a fish out of water, eventually turning hopelessly to Danu for guidance. All she could do was shrug, shifting her hand over on the tabletop to clasp his.

  He couldn't stand it. And the press of the rioting springtime that filled the vale against his mental shielding set the small part of him that always rankled when others judged Genesis for his blank expressions and cold words aflame. The words were tumbling out of him unabated, in French, so at least the translation charm on his sleeve might make him sound more polite than he really was.

  "No one can be everything for everyone, comrades. From what I understand of Comrade Genesis's people, that's why they liked to do everything together instead of alone. That aside, Comrade Genesis has given everything for the good of all the people he looks after. I fought death twice so that he could stay, like Mordecai said. Without him, everyone would be lost. And because of that, we're all more than happy to trust his judgment on the things he knows best. Like he trusts Mordecai and K'aekniv with things that they know better."

  Abram continued to stare across the table at Genesis, both of their expressions unreadable. But Zora softened a little, a wry smile coming onto her face as she shrugged off Mirk's words. And their tone, which had come out far harsher than Mirk had intended. "I suppose if you're convincing enough to get this rich boy hot, there has to be something there."

  "When that half-angel came the first time, I said I'd give the K'maneda one more try. Just one. Your rank pins and your Russians aren't enough. What's in it for me to help you? When our family’s already given the K’maneda so many sons and daughters for nothing in return?"

  Genesis's brow pulled down as he grimaced in confusion. "I don’t want any more people from you."

  Abram leaned further across the table. "Bullshit."

  "A K'maneda must join of their own free will. Not due to...obligation," Genesis said. "If I were to ask you to...order any of your people to join, I would be no better than the ones who have corrupted the K'maneda. This is the First Law. Make a slave of no one."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "He's my friend, papa," Mordecai interjected, finally seeing an opening. The translation charm on Mirk's wrist gave Mordecai's words a strained tone, though Mirk could feel that the emotion behind them was genuine. "I'd never not invite him."

  Abram cast a tired eye toward his grandson, sighing. "You've always been soft. Just like your father. That's what got us into this to begin with," he added, expression hardening once more as he turned back toward Genesis. "If you didn't come to take more of us, what did you come for? You're the hardest bastard I've ever seen. You didn't come out of love for any of us."

  Mirk wanted to protest again, but managed to bite his tongue that time. Genesis didn't seem bothered by Abram's accusation. If anything, he only seemed more deeply puzzled than before. "The book," Genesis said. "You were the last caretaker. You must have the T'akakk Ras'kesk."

  The translation charm on Mirk's wrist couldn't make sense of the title Genesis named; from the look of confusion on Abram's face, he wasn't familiar with it either. "What?"

  "The...caretakers' book. Perhaps you know it by a different title. It will have many diagrams. And...narratives discussing the maintenance of the City of Glass's magic."

  Zora's eyes flashed with recognition. "Oh? That thing with all the chicken-scratch writing in it and the pictures? You've been using it as a doorstop, Aby."

  Abram shot Genesis an incredulous look. "That thing? No one's written in it for centuries. No one's even been able to read it since we took it. It's useless."

  Genesis looked aghast in his own way at the thought of one of his precious books being used as a doorstop, his face still blank but his fingers twitching on the edge of the table. "I will return it to you. But...allow me to take it to make a copy. The knowledge in it is priceless. I have been attempting to understand the magic channels for fifteen years. All of the scrolls left in the library have been...inadequate. As have experimentation in the channels themselves."

  "You can read it?"

  "C'ayetnak was my...first language."

  "Would he really do all this for some book?" Abram asked, turning to Mordecai.

  Mordecai's worry and panic was soothed by the fact that his grandfather finally saw fit to turn to him for advice. "Oh, yeah. Gen's always stabbing someone for some book. Takes half his contract loot in books and gives the gold to us. Not that he'd do that to you, papa! He's asking and everything."

  Genesis nodded. "I believe knowledge should be free to all. However, if you do not consider it an appropriate offer, I am willing to...negotiate for a further exchange of information or material."

  For a moment, Mirk saw a glimmer in Abram's eyes, one not all that dissimilar from the one that came into Mordecai's whenever he came to visit Danu at the infirmary and saw that one of the aides had left a supply closet open and unattended. But he nodded, warily, as he gave out one further caveat. "You're serious about not coming here to recruit?"

  "No. I...do not believe the K'maneda is an organization that should be...recruited for. One should join of their own free will. Because they believe in the mission. Anything else is...exploitation of another's vulnerabilities."

  "And what is the mission, huh?" Zora asked, leaning forward, her eyes shining with that same look of focused interest that Mordecai shared with his grandparents.

  "Liberation."

  Silence fell over the table. Mordecai couldn't let it stand. He talked into the gap, trying to smooth things over, letting his enthusiasm flow into the tension between his grandparents and Genesis. "It's really been great, papa! The K'maneda is the best thing that ever happened to me! Of course I miss everyone, you and granny and all my aunties, but I've seen so many things I never would have seen before! Even when it gets hard, I don't regret it. Besides. If I hadn’t gone with Niv, I never would have met Danny," he added, turning back to Danu, squeezing her hand.

  Zora laughed again, getting up from the table with a dismissive wave of her hand. "That's the only thing that ever gets men going. If you really want to get more people to join, Comrade Genesis, you'll be smart and let the women back in."

  The pointed slant to her comment, predictably, sailed clear over Genesis's head. "You are correct. Women belong in every division. I do not understand the...emphasis on the current distinction. I assume it must be an Earth-based custom."

  "You would say that," Zora said, shooting Mirk a pointed look before she turned and walked away, toward a path through the woods behind the canopy under which the table full of gifts was situated. "Stop dragging your feet, Abram," she called back over one shoulder. "Give him the book and we can be done with it."

  "Break bread, drink, and it'll be done," Abram said, making a dismissive gesture at the half loaf of braided bread in the middle of the table between them.

  The bread was a formality. The sort of offhand, traditional gesture that most people didn't even think twice about. But it was the sticking point for Genesis. The commander looked down at the bread and the common cup, his disgust plain to be seen in his rigid, defensive grin.

  Abram took Genesis's backward gesture the wrong way, as an expression of triumph. He muttered something under his breath about how he should have made Genesis give him more, that he didn't deserve to break bread to begin with. Before Genesis could accept that backhanded offer he wasn't meant to hear, Mirk nudged him underneath the table to draw his attention, murmuring his own aside to the commander in a voice low enough that only someone with inhuman senses would be able to pick out his words

  "These things are important, messire. I brought the stomach potion that works on you."

  Which was a bit too high of an estimation of his potion crafting skills — at best, it worked one time out of ten, and it mostly only served to make Genesis ill in a way that he found somewhat less objectionable than the agony that came over him when he ate something that disagreed with him. Inhuman senses weren't required to hear Genesis grinding his teeth as he delicately took a ghost of a sip from the common cup.

  "Go on, finish it. There's a whole barrel left," Abram said, as Genesis moved to put down the cup.

  Genesis choked his way through nearly a full glass, in one long gulp — the common cup had just been refilled from the barrel for the guests two places in line ahead of them. But the worst of it, the bread, remained. Genesis separated the barest morsel of bread from the loaf with the very tips of his fingers. At another pointed nudge underneath the table, he tripled the portion to a satisfactory mouthful, then shoved it into his mouth before he could talk himself out of it.

  Mirk felt a shudder go through Genesis as he swallowed. Though he managed to keep his disgust from reaching his face, Mirk could feel it in Genesis's magic, in how the shadows underneath the table thickened and seethed on a wave of static that pressed hard against Mirk's shields. Instinctively, Mirk reached out to him, putting a hand on his knee for lack of other options, as Genesis's hands were still clenched atop the table, to prove he wasn't doing anything deliberately with his magic.

  "It'll be all right, Genesis," Mirk said in a low murmur. "Do you want the potion now? Methinks it might work better in advance..."

  Laughing to himself, Abram got up from the table and headed off after his wife. Mordecai and Danu exchanged an anxious look — they both knew very well how Genesis reacted to alcohol and food he was unaccustomed to. Usually, someone got hurt if the right preparations weren't taken in advance, even if it was only someone's feelings rather than their body. Though usually the commander himself was in too much pain or too oblivious to those around him, sunk in his own misery and thoughts, to do that much harm.

  "No," Genesis said, letting out a deep, shuddering breath as he stood. "I cannot waste time. If the wine has its...intended effect before Abram is dealt with, I am certain I will not have anything charitable to say."

  "Do you want me to go with?" Mordecai asked, as Genesis circled around the table.

  Genesis didn't reply. He vanished down the path through the forest without another word.

  "Don't worry about it, Mordecai," Mirk said, offering the teleporting mage an encouraging smile. "This is your day, after all. I'll take care of him. Methinks if that book is as important as he says it is, he might be too distracted to pay attention to anything else."

  Mordecai slumped over, unabashedly leaning against Danu's side. "At least it's over..."

  "I think it all went well," Danu said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "And you got promoted!"

  As quick as Mordecai was to wilt, he bounced back again. He straightened up with a grin, but didn't push his way out of Danu's half-embrace. "That's right! And now that this bullshit is done with, we can actually go have fun!" He looked across the clearing, perking up at the sight of K'aekniv and his aunt arguing over a dozen skewers of meat fresh off the fire. "Let's go eat before Niv takes everything."

  Mordecai was out of his seat and dragging Danu off toward the party on the other side of the clearing before she could get a word in edgewise. Donn and Laoise followed suit, after exchanging a knowing look and a laugh. Mirk couldn't help but get the impression that Donn was as relieved as Mordecai that the ceremonial part of the wedding seemed to be over, if only so that he had a better excuse to stay away from Mirk and his magic. Mirk wasn't put out by it. It was understandable, all things considered.

  Before Mirk rose to join the others, he decided to sample the bread for himself, to see what he might be dealing with whenever Genesis returned to the clearing. Or what he might find waiting for him in his quarters, if the commander elected to abandon the party, now that his obligations were fulfilled. He tore off a hunk and popped it into his mouth.

  Mirk was accustomed to Genesis making a lot of fuss over nothing when it came to food. He grinned and hissed and complained over perfectly good food all the time, cutting the slightest imperfection out of everything he ate before grudgingly forcing it down. The bread was a rare exception.

  It tasted as if every spice that'd ever been discovered, both on Earth and the nearest realms, had been thrown into the dough, spicy and bitter and sour all at once. Reflexively, Mirk reached for the common cup and raised it to his lips before he remembered it was empty. Instead, he dug in his satchel for the flask of brandy he'd taken to carrying with his potions and healing supplies, just in case he stumbled into an emergency and he needed something to take the harshest edge off an unexpected patient's pain.

  "Quelle horreur," Mirk mumbled, crossing himself before putting the cover back on the flask and tucking it back into his satchel. If even his mouth was still burning from the bread after sucking down three measures of brandy, he could only imagine how terrible the experience must be for someone with Genesis's delicate sensibilities.

  But there was nothing to be done for it, not then. Genesis would come to him in his own time, once his and Abram's business was settled. And in the meantime, there was a party to enjoy.

  Mirk got up from his seat underneath the canopy, surveying the gift-laden table a final time, smiling to himself. Mordecai's kin seemed to be a bit better established than most of the Easterners who came to the City. The gifts arrayed at either end of the table, there for guests to come and admire, were better than the plain odds and ends that the Easterners offered each other on saint's days. But they were also a far cry from what he was accustomed to seeing offered to new couples at noble weddings.

  Among the French noble mages, the occasion of offering a wedding gift wasn't only a chance to show one's affection for the bride and groom. It was a chance to display to the other nobles what means one had to make those affections matter beyond the private realm of the household. An opportunity to pledge one's loyalty, or to remind the families behind the happy couple to who they owed their prosperity.

  Enchanted items were the done thing, along with precious metals, fabrics, and gems. Jewel-studded hairpins that could keep a towering coiffure in place for hours, brooches and buckles that could add fleetness or glamours or defensive magic to the wearer. Linens that cleaned and repaired themselves, little gilt boxes to keep one's daily spell papers safe. Picture frames that incorporated memorial stones, exotic plants that had been tended to for months by an earth mage so that they were guaranteed to flower for months, little porcelain figures that danced on their own across bookcases. Grimoires or wands were especially bold gifts, an open display of the transfer of power from one family to another.

  Most of the gifts on Danu and Mordecai's wedding table were enchanted as well. But they weren't enchanted to impress the newlyweds or their family, or to posture to the other guests. All the gifts on the table were intensely practical, the same as those that'd been laid out in the bridal tent. The magic on them wasn't meant to catch the eye, to perform for others. Mirk didn't know most of the spells stitched onto the linens, or those engraved on the cookware and little boxes, but he could feel it. Old magic. Patient magic. Imbued with love and dedication, crafted with the memory of long-ago weddings and brides and bridegrooms who’d already passed.

  There was so much hope there, Mirk thought. So much honesty, so much affection. So much love. Slinging his satchel over his shoulder, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat and wandered over toward where the other guests were now feasting, letting the barrier around his mind slip lower as he went.

  All those emotions were amplified the closer he drew to the other guests. Now that the bride and groom had arrived, the party really seemed to have kicked off. No one was excluded — while Danu and Mordecai tucked into their meal, with scores of helpful aunts and cousins at the ready to scold them both for being too thin and bring extra delicacies to their heaping plates, the younger crowd, most of it already fed and well on their way to drunkeness, set to dancing. To amuse themselves, and to entertain the couple, along with those too old or too full to join in.

  The band that had been hidden behind the bridal canopy had shuffled over from the larger clearing struck up a sprightly tune. Finally the men and the women were allowed to mix, even though they only seemed to come together at certain parts of the song. In between, the men showed off their prowess with acrobatics, with dance steps that involved jumping high or moving in fast circles low to the ground. And the women matched them point by point, with steps meant to highlight their grace, their fine sense of rhythm. Not to mention the numerous flashes of stockinged ankle and plump calf they put on display.

  Around it all hovered a sense of oneness, of unbridled joy and excitement that Mirk had never seen at a wedding before. Noble weddings were much more restrained. Calculated. Preening. There was none of that in the clearing in the teleporting mages' hidden vale. There was only warmth. Acceptance.

  Again, a stab of coldness pierced deep into Mirk's chest, hard enough to take his breath away.

  He knew what it was now. Mirk hadn't felt that sort of warmth, that tender solidarity and unconditional acceptance, since the night his family had been murdered.

  They'd joined hands at the dinner table after the servants had brought the platters and had been dismissed, to say a prayer of thanks. A humble request for health, for good fortune. Mirk remembered thinking at the time that their circle around Jean-Luc's table had some sort of unspoken magic in it. It so rarely happened that all of his family gathered together without exception, that no one was called away on war or business. And that unity, that concentration of all the d'Avignons into one room, had nearly meant the death of all of them. Now no one was left from that gathering other than Uncle Henri and his young cousins. And him.

  His family would never be together like that again. His grandfather would never smile benevolently at him from the sidelines like Abram was then, returned from his meeting with Genesis and leaning against a tree at the edge of the clearing, unwilling to interrupt his grandson's moment of happiness, content to observe from a distance and marvel at what had become of his kin. Kae would never huff and roll her eyes at his silliness, the way Mordecai's serious hoard of aunts did, or Danu's mother. His father would never beam down at him the way Donn did Danu, fit to bursting again with pride and affection. His mother would never scold him and tuck an errant curl behind his ear again, the way Zora did Mordecai, as she smiled and offered him and Danu a fresh loaf of bread to split.

  Not to mention the fact that he'd never marry anyone. Not like this, not surrounded by affection and care and support. He could only imagine horror. And disappointment. If anyone even chose to attend to begin with.

  Mirk did all he could to battle back the aching in his chest. He pulled his shields back up but instantly regretted it, the coldness in his mind intensifying as soon as he was separated from the warmth of the other guests across the clearing. In the end, he allowed himself to steep in it, to mourn that closeness, as he crossed over to the party just long enough to find one of the bottles of liquor the Easterners had brought with them and cram it in his satchel.

  Then, before anyone could notice him or try to stop him, Mirk hurried down the first path out of the clearing he could find and vanished into the forest, as the tears he'd been battling against finally spilled down his cheeks.