I reach out and touch one leathery wing, tracing a vein. “Bargainer, I would like to make a deal.”

Des stiffens. “Callie …”

He doesn’t need to say anything more for me to understand what he’s thinking about. The last time I bargained with our relationship, we lost seven years together.

“It’s a little request,” I say. One that should have no lasting repercussions.

The King of the Night waits, but there’s no mistaking how tense his body is.

“I want to get married somewhere special to you.”

Des touches my face lightly, his expression unreadable. I think maybe he’s wildly elated, but maybe that’s just hope talking.

Wrapping a hand around my waist, the Night King lifts us into the air, his wings billowing about him.

“Cherub, it’s a deal.”

The place Des chooses to marry me is not earth, but then, I didn’t think it would be.

We stand amongst the ruins of the temple of Lyra, some ancient fae goddess associated with new life. The carved marble archways and columns are now mere bones of what once must have been an extravagant building.

Time eats away at all things—not even the fae are impervious to that fate.

The wild grass has overtaken some of the fallen slabs of stone, its stalks swaying in the evening wind, the blooms of a thousand pearlescent flowers bobbing to and fro amongst it all.

Lyra’s undying flowers, Des told me when we first set foot in this place.

Temper and Malaki arrive shortly after us, I’ve got to hand it to the two of them—they clean up well considering we gave them such short notice.

Short notice as in, we dropped the news only a few hours ago.

“Well, well, well,” Temper says when she sees me, the train of her misty blue dress dragging along behind her, “there’s my best friend. Did you have fun boning Bat Boy while the rest of us were actually saving the Otherworld?”

I press my lips together to keep from smiling. “I wasn’t just boning Des,” I say. “We partied a little too.”

“Without me?”

“Don’t act like you were being held here against your will.” I found her in Malaki’s room, wrapped up in his sheets.

“Bitch, you don’t know what it’s been like here.” She side-eyes Malaki, who’s busy thumping Des on the shoulder. Temper lowers her voice. “He’s really freaking intense, which is awesome when he’s drilling me, but not so much when it leaves the bedroom. I get the impression that the dude wants commitment.”

Yeah, I’d gotten that impression too. Too bad Temper’s allergic to it.

She waves the conversation off and pulls me in for a hug. “I seriously never expected this day to come,” she says, holding me close. “You’re giving me faith that even we bad bitches can find love.”

I laugh in her arms.

My friend pulls away to take in my pale, glowing gown. The fabric is made from spun moonlight, the embroidery of it shining just a little bit brighter than the rest of it. At my throat is the necklace Des fashioned for me from moonbeams.

I feel like a fairy queen.

“You look beautiful,” Temper says. There’s no sarcasm, no joke, no usual barb to curb the sweetness of her words.

“Alright, Temper, you can stop being sentimental. It’s freaking me out.”

Malaki comes over then, pulling me in for a hug. “Desmond is a blessed man to be mated to a woman like you. Thank you for making him happy.”

Des’s general and I have never talked much, and to be honest, I always assumed he felt I was just some girl. So to hear him say that …

I don’t have the words to tell him how that makes me feel, so I simply hug Malaki tighter.

He releases me and steps back, placing a heavy hand on the back of Temper’s neck, his fingers idly rubbing her skin. She’s not batting him away, which she’d have no problem doing if she didn’t like the guy.

Hmmm …

A mystery for another day.

Des steps up to me, clad in the same glowing silks as I am, his bronze circlet on his head. He’s almost unbearable to look at; his inhuman beauty is almost painful to look at.

“Callie,” he says, “there’s something I wanted to show you.”

Des takes my hand and leads me away from Temper and Malaki, then away from the ruins themselves. Cool night air whistles through the flowers, and it’s all so very serene.

The Bargainer brings me to a small mound covered with flowers. He kneels in front of it, placing his hands on the earth.

“This might be a bit macabre, but I’ve wanted to bring you here for a long time,” he says. “This is where I laid my mom to rest.”

I start at that.

His mom, the one woman who’d sacrificed everything for him in the end, was buried here?

And Des laid her to rest? I try to imagine that—Des carrying his slain mother to this place, digging a grave for her. Had he been alone? The possibility itself is heartbreaking.

“Why here?” I ask.

It’s beautiful, but so are countless other places in the Otherworld.

“She used to tell me stories of Lyra, the goddess of new life.” Des nods his head to the ruins.

His eyes return to the grave. “Sometimes I come here to be close to her,” he admits. He glances up at me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make this about the past.”

“It’s not.” I take his hand and pull him to his feet.

The Bargainer has few important people in his life. Even in death, his mother is one of them. The first woman to care for him. It’s only appropriate to be here, where she can pass that torch on to me.

I give his hand a squeeze. “Let’s go get married.”

I begin to tug him back to Temper and Malaki when he resists.

“Wait, Callie, there’s one more thing.”

I turn just as Des reaches for the heavens. Far above us, the stars shine away, but as I watch, molten drops of starlight spin down from above, coalescing in Des’s palm. He whispers something in Old Fae. In response, the starlight jumps in his hand, moving around until it forms itself a delicate, twinkling circlet.

Des grasps it in both hands and places it on my head. “There.”

He steps back, the starlight reflecting in his eyes, and stares at me the same way he did all those years ago when he made me a crown of fireflies.

“In all the worlds and all the ages, there has never been another like you, Callie.” He clears his throat, like he’s remembering himself. “Now let’s get married.”

Des and I stand before Temper, our hands clasped. The sorceress’s usual attitude is gone. Here, with Des and me before her, she’s solemn. Among the oddities of the evening is that she’s our officiant. Malaki stands off to the side, the witness to Temper’s officiating.

Des runs his thumb over the skin of my hand as he gazes into my eyes. I’m not sure he’s ever been more handsome in his suit of spun moonlight. Standing across from him in my own glowing gown, the wind carrying my filmy train off into the night, I finally feel like this life fits.

My mate was right. I’m not normal, this is not normal. People don’t have claws and scales and wings and Otherworldly stalkers.

But normal people also don’t get to feel their soulmates magic move in them. They don’t get to be part of a fairytale. They don’t get the love that transcends time and worlds.

I squeeze Des’s hands.