Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The Good Wizard arrived with more fanfare than the prince. Despite it being high noon, fireworks lit up the skies, their booms subdued so as not to startle anyone. The bright, colorful flashes created fanatical shapes like dragons, griffins, and unicorns. Then a carriage pulled by six gleaming white flying horses burst through all the noise and chaos, doing five or six laps over our heads.

I felt a little bad that Brendon had missed it. But as soon as I thought about him, I remembered the way he’d pressed into me from behind and decided it was probably a good thing the prince wasn’t here, or I would have missed the show. Sporting an erection in front of my family would only add to the embarrassment.

The horses finally came in for a landing, gently stopping right before me and my family—and Kit. The carriage door opened with no assistance, and the Good Wizard flung himself out, large blue sleeves covered with shimmering golden stars billowing in the wind. A disembodied voice echoed all around us. “Presenting The Good Wizard, Protector of the Desolated Lands and the Savior of the Five Kingdoms of Woe, Bane, Gloom, Calamity, and Misfortune.”

I expected a name to follow at some point until I realized that the reason we all called him ‘the Good Wizard’ was because that was the only name we would get.

As my parents greeted him, the carriage and the horses disappeared with a gentle puff of glitter washed away on a breeze, leaving behind only a set of patched up, barely-held-together suitcases.

“Ah, here is our groom,” the Good Wizard said, his voice somehow both breathy with age and strong enough to fill the whole courtyard. Instead of stepping before Kit, he took my hand and shook it vigorously. “A pleasure to meet you.”

I blinked at him, horrified by the implication. “I absolutely am not!”

His brow furrowed, two bushy white eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I replied, my face heating from embarrassment. “I’m the bride’s brother. That is the groom.” I pointed at Kit, standing a few steps behind us in the full glory of their armor.

The Good Wizard stared at Kit for a long moment, blinking owlishly, before announcing, “No it isn’t.”

Oh fuck.I hadn’t predicted that the Good Wizard would be able to identify the imposter at a glance. A few days ago, it would have been perfect since Brendon’s disappearance would delay the wedding. But it was not the time for all of that to come out. I needed to talk to the Good Wizard first.

To my surprise, Franny intercepted him, laughing lightly as she looped arms with the Good Wizard. “Of course it is, good sir, though I’m not surprised you can’t recognize him with the helmet on. There’s a custom in Bane where it’s bad luck to see the groom before the wedding.”

“No there isn’t—” He cut off with a slight oomph as he tripped over something.

Franny’s smile remained serene and perfectly poised, or I would have suspected she’d stepped on his foot. She was acting odd, which wasn’t right. I was the one who had reason to act odd and suspicious.

“You’ve had such a long journey. Please, come inside for some tea. Brendon, why don’t you join us, darling? We can all have a lovely chat.”

Since I also wanted to speak to the Good Wizard, I followed behind them, but at the castle entrance Kit stopped me. “Rick, I received a notice from Madame Trousers’ that your order was ready.”

“My order?” But I’d already taken the clothes I’d purchased.

“Yes, you should go get it, since it’s important for the wedding.”

Dammit, was Kit treating me like an errand boy now? “I have plenty of time to go get it. The Good Wizard just got here, it’d be rude for me to leave.”

“Nonsense, Fred. Brendon and I have last-minute wedding preparations to discuss, you’d only be bored silly. This is the perfect time for an outing,” Franny said, stubbornly waving me off.

“But I—”

“Children, stop arguing in front of our esteemed guest,” Mother murmured, her smile wide but her eyes narrowed in warning.

“Yes, Mother,” we said in unison. Then Franny pulled the Good Wizard into the sitting room. Before I could follow, Kit stood in the way, their hulking form completely blocking me.

“Please,” they begged, “I’ll be so busy with wedding preparations, I won’t be able to get away.”

Wedding preparations my ass, you imposter! Why were you buying a gift for someone else’s fiancée anyway?“I—”

“Thank you so much!” They closed the door in my face.

I turned to see if my parents were as shocked by their behavior as I was, since they had also been locked out of this conversation with the Good Wizard. Mother only smiled and patted my hand. “Let them have their privacy.” Then she and Father glided away to see to whatever royal business would keep them off the page today.

“And then they kicked me out!” I complained to Madame as she wrapped up the box in pretty golden paper. “Can you believe it?”

“They probably wanted to discuss intimacies,” Madame replied, waggling her eyebrows significantly. “You don’t want to hear about your sister and her fiancé planning their visit to the honeymoon suite, do you?”

It made a sort of sense, but since Franny still thought Kit was Brendon, and Brendon was a man, and to my knowledge, Franny had zero sexual interest in men, I couldn’t imagine her being eager for that discussion. Unless it was ‘do we have to consummate the marriage to make it official’ or something along those lines. That would explain why it needed to be a private conversation. Even if the subject was ‘how long can we go without fucking,’ it wasn’t something I needed to be a part of.

“Since you’re here,” Madame said, focusing intently on tying a beautiful bow, “would you like to hear some juicy gossip?”

Arching a brow, I leaned forward on the counter. Madame heard all the best news from her clients, but unlike Griffin, she didn’t typically share. If anyone tried to ask her, she tapped her lips and winked—if she liked them—or scolded them about what kind of business they thought she was running—if she didn’t. If she was bringing it up now, it either had something to do with me that she wanted me to know, or it had nothing to do with any of her paying customers, making it fair game. “Do tell.”

“An unknown Lord and Lady are staying at The Moonbeam and Starlight Inn.”

The celestial inn was the most expensive establishment in the kingdom, attached to a five-star restaurant—that cost more per dish than my family typically spent on a meal for the whole castle, staff included—with a team of masseuses on call twenty-four hours a day, and enchanted tubs with settings like bubbles and jet streams, colored waters, and customized scents. The inn was so expensive and exclusive that it only had three rooms and was the kind of establishment a couple would only go to on their twenty-fifth anniversary after scrimping and saving for the entirety of their marriage. Even my parents would have to save for years to afford it on their salaries.

“They might be wedding guests,” I suggested. “I haven’t seen the guest list.”

Madame nodded along. “That was my first thought. Until”—she leaned forward, and I also leaned closer so she could whisper in my ear—“I saw him for myself.”

“Him?”

“The lord. Or should I say”—she looked both ways three times, triple checking that no customers had snuck into the shop while we’d been chatting—“the mage.”

Dread shivered down my spine. “Was it the Good Wizard?” I’d assumed he’d flown all the way here from … wherever, but maybe he’d spent the night at the inn and then just flew from there. That would use a lot less magic. Except, she’d mentioned a lady as well …

“Of course not! I know what the Good Wizard looks like. I attended the last wedding, between Misfortune and Gloom. He’s quite the character, with that beard of his,” she said, pretending to stroke a beard at least two feet long. “This man looked nothing like that.”

“Then how do you know he was a mage?”

“He snapped his fingers,” she said, demonstrating, “and the shadows around him took form. I couldn’t hear what he said to them, but then they disappeared, and he went back into the inn.”

Fuuuuuuck.Talking to shadows was not good. That didn’t just sound like a run of the mill mage. That sounded downright, stereotypically evil.

I couldn’t wait around for Franny and Kit to finish whatever bullshit discussion they needed to have with the Good Wizard. I started to run from the shop, then turned back to get the gift and called out a rushed farewell to Madame before hurrying back to the castle. I needed to fix this mess now,before the evil mage enacted whatever he was planning.