31. Mina

Time slowed down.

Air rushed around me. My legs wheeled and my arms clawed thin air, desperate to find something to cling to. As time slowed enough for me to contemplate the horrible death waiting for me in the church parking lot below, a hundred precious memories bloomed in my mind.

Heathcliff finding me hiding in a bathroom after some woman made comments about me looking too closely at the breakfast buffet. "Don't be driven low by petty people and their prejudice and hatred," he'd growled, clenching his hands into tight fists, so incensed on my behalf that I half-feared what he might do to them. "Don't take all that rage and turn it inward, until you hate yourself so much you become incapable of feeling anything else. You're no monster, Mina. This path is not for you. I'd leave you before I drag you down into the darkness with me."

Morrie lowering a blindfold over my eyes, telling me that I was the bravest person he'd ever met. "You fear the darkness. Not just the darkness that may eventually become your world, but also the darkness you see inside me. Inside Heathcliff and Quoth, too. But you fear your own darkness most of all." He leaned forward, pressing his lips against my forehead. He lingered there, the heat of his lips searing through my doubts. "Maybe if you learn that the darkness is nothing to fear, then you'll be able to unleash all that Mina fury I know is hidden inside."

Stepping into Quoth's attic room and seeing a painting of myself on his easel. The woman in the image had my features, but she looked less like a hot mess in her flatmate's borrowed tartan trousers and more like the heroine from a gothic romance book, all sweeping hair and come-to-bed eyes. The soft colors around her face brought out her delicate features. On her shoulder sat a raven, its head turned toward her, utterly adoring. The first time I'd ever felt that I was someone who could be adored.

Heathcliff, Morrie, Quoth, I'm so sorry.

I wanted to be your wife.

I was afraid, but I'm not anymore.

I love you.

I braced myself for the splat, the pain, the end of it all. Instead, a whoosh of air surrounded me.

Something silken touched my skin, wrapping around me. And the whatever-it-was carried me up, up, up, my body reeling from the sudden change in acceleration and direction.

Have I already hit the ground? Have I died, and I'm being escorted to heaven by an angel? But that doesn't make sense, because I've already died once and it involved a bright light and the poet Dante…

"Mina, are you…" a voice choked out.

Not an angel.

Quoth.

He held me wrapped in one wing, the way he did during our dancing practice. His cheek pressed against mine. My feet hung free beneath us as he used his other wing to keep us midair

My heart was still hammering against my chest, but despite the cold air, a warmth spread through my body – a fire that belonged to Quoth.

I thought, in that moment, that the world had been made so we could find each other within it. How else could I explain his presence, his steadiness, his protection?

Quoth dipped his wing, and over the feathered tip, I could just make out the shape of the steeple against the bright sky. And the sound of Mrs. Winstone yelling, and some more quacking, and Oscar barking, and Heathcliff shouting. "I've got her. Get the coppers."

"So they can send her back to that place that let her run free?" Morrie shouted back. "I don't think so. I have plans for this woman and they involve splinters underneath her fingernails and—argh, don't attack me, you stupid bird! I'm not the villain in this story!"

"QUACK!"

Panic seized me. "Morrie? Heathcliff? Are they…"

"They're perfectly safe." Quoth pressed his cheek against mine. His tears ran over my skin. "Well, they have neutralized Brenda Winstone, but I think James Pond is trying to help. And as we learned today, no one is safe from a horny drake."

I heard a scuffle, Heathcliff yelling, and more quacking.

"Quoth?"

"Mina."

"I'm sorry?—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for. We should have told you everything. But you're alive, and you will never be more precious to me than you are right now. Let's get you back on the ground."

I almost told him no, that I wanted to fly around a little more, nestled in the safety of his wings and the warmth of his embrace. But he kissed the top of my head with such tenderness that tears spilt from my eyes, and set me down on the soft grass in the church graveyard.

As soon as he retracted his wings, my legs collapsed. He caught me in his arms. Quoth's tears mingled with mine. "Mina, I'm so so sorry. We should have told you about the notes."

"Yes, you should have."

I could hear people shouting and car doors slamming as the churchyard filled with people, but I didn't care about any of that. My whole world had shrunk to this beautiful man holding me.

"It wasn't that we thought you couldn't handle it. It's the opposite – we knew you'd immediately leap into mystery-solving mode. You'd have thrown yourself into figuring out who left the notes, and we thought this time you deserved to have everything solved for you. We were trying to give a gift to the woman who had already given us everything."

He nuzzled against me, his hair falling over us in a curtain.

"If I'd been involved, we would have figured things out much earlier. I hope you've learned your lesson," I whispered into his shoulder. "But I'm sorry I ran away. I've been all twisted up inside about the book launch. When I thought you didn't trust me to handle the fact that someone was after me, it felt the same as when Jen told me that my books weren't ‘relatable.' I overreacted. And I felt awful standing there, knowing this person had killed before and that all our friends were in danger. I couldn't do it, but I ran instead of talking to you."

"I have to tell you about the book launch." Quoth smiled. "It's all back on."

My heart stuttered. "It's…what?"

"That's what I was doing yesterday. I called those people Marjorie recommended. They're blindness and disability influencers. They have huge social media accounts that advocate for disability representation, and they're both coming along to cover your book and bringing a bunch of their followers with them! I ordered some catering from a place Oliver recommended, and Morrie helped me bribe the printer to do a last-minute print run. Four boxes. I hope you don't mind, but they don't include any of your recent edits, but I think at this stage you were just shifting commas around as an excuse."

"Aw, Quoth, you…I can't believe…"

"That's the kind of thing a husband does for his wife." His words caught in his throat. "That is, if you still want to be my wife?"

"Our wife," Morrie corrected him. He and Heathcliff slammed into us, crushing me in a fierce embrace.

"Mina, I'm so sorry. This is my fault and mine alone," Heathcliff's voice choked. He pressed his cheek against mine, and it was wet with tears. "Please, don't leave me in the abyss without you. I'll spend the rest of my life making this up to you, if only you'll consider marrying us?—"

Fresh tears flowed freely down my cheeks. "Of course I still want to marry you. But our whole wedding is ruined…"

"Not the whole wedding," Morrie said cheekily. "Just the parts the duck ate."

"I bet we can do something about—argh!" Heathcliff leapt away. "Keep that beast away from me!"

"QUACK?"

"That's James Pond!" I said. "I think he stowed away in the limo."

"QUACK QUACK."

James was waddling away from us. I broke free of my fiancés and followed him.

"Mina, I don't think you should wander around by yourself." Quoth jogged after me. "The ambulance is coming to check you out. You've got a nasty cut on your arm and?—"

"QUACK."

I stalked James behind a row of overgrown gravestones. "He's got something in his mouth. I just need to—Quoth, help!"

"QUAAAACK!"

My birdie lunged forward just as James Pond rounded on me, trapping the bird beneath him. He pressed James' back lightly into the ground so he couldn't move, and pulled the object from his beak. "This is a piece of fabric from our waistcoats. So James was the one who ate the holes in them. And I bet you were the one who destroyed the wedding cake, too."

"Brenda didn't claim either of those things," I said, shuddering at the memory of meeting Brenda on the roof. "She said that she cut up the chair covers, spoofed Heathcliff's phone, and killed Iwan. And today, she was pretending to be the limo driver so she could drive me somewhere secret after the ceremony and…and…"

"That's not going to happen," Heathcliff said fiercely. "She's going back where she came from, with stronger locks this time."

"At least this explains why the cake was smeared all around Oliver's kitchen," Morrie said.

I pointed to James' impressive webbed feet. "He probably chased some poor girl duck inside. James, you horny bastard!"

Quoth's next words were cut off by the wail of sirens as an ambulance and more police tore into the parking lot. Quoth placed his arm around me and led me over to where the ambulance had parked. They pulled me up onto a stretcher and started to treat the cut on my arm, which had splashed blood all over the front of my dress, and check me over for other wounds.

"Step aside," said Maisie from the crowd of journalists who were trying to get to us. "Mina's my friend, and she's not talking to anyone else. Mina, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I told her. "Thanks to my guys. They saved me. But be careful if you go over near those graves, because there's a certain yellow duck who is horny AF and he wants you to know about it."

"James Pond?" Maisie dropped her reporter's recorder onto the grass and ran towards him. "It's really you!"

"QUACK!"

"I can't believe you found him. I was so certain that I'd never see him again, and then he showed up at Lachlan Hall, but I lost him in the chaos and I thought he'd been trampled…" She hugged James to her chest.

"I think that James Pond has been trying to find a girlfriend," I said. "That's why he cut himself out of his cage, and he's been terrorizing the whole village and trying to ruin my wedding."

"Your wedding!" Maisie stood up abruptly. "Oh, Mina, I'm so so sorry. You're supposed to be getting married right now, and instead…"

"Oh, we're still getting married," a deep voice behind me said. Heathcliff.

"We can't get married now," I said. "Everything at Lachlan Hall is ruined. All of Quoth's decorations, the food…"

"Says who?" Heathcliff whispered back. "Do you still want to marry us?"

"Of course, but…"

"Then you get checked out by the paramedics, speak to Hayes, and let us take care of the rest." Heathcliff reluctantly unwrapped me from his arms and grabbed Morrie and Quoth. "Come on, you two. Stop lounging around. We've got a wedding to save."