There’s a queasy second where I think they might pass out before answering, but one of them swallows against his own spearpoint and raises a shaking finger. I thank them both sincerely before Brunhilda clangs their helmets together like brass bells. They slump against the wall and I think a little giddily of the versions of this story where the castle falls asleep with its princess, from kings to cooks to the mice in the walls.

Charm takes off down the corridor and I follow, and then the five of us are flying, running down toward the wedding like last chances or last-second miracles, like twist endings in a story you’ve heard too many times.

LOGICALLY WE COULD show up at the ceremony at the wrong time: ten minutes too early, when guests are still filing into the pews, or half an hour too late, when the chapel is emptying and the princess has already been swept away by her uncharming prince.

But we’re in a fairy tale, and fairy tales have a logic all their own.

We skid around a final corner and see a pair of arched doors standing open. Ceremonial-sounding Latin drifts through them, echoing off stone walls. I tiptoe to the doorway and peer around the corner. The room is smaller than I expected, with a dozen rows of pews lined up beneath a vaulted ceiling. Morning light falls through a single circular window, gilding the bride and groom on the dais below.

Princess Primrose looks literally divine, Boticelli’s Venus with clothes. Her hair is burnished gold beneath the thinnest whisper of a veil; her gown is a rich rose the precise shade of her lips. Her face is coldest ivory.

Prince Harold looks ridiculous. He’s wearing those embarrassing medieval pants that poof out above the knee and he’s looking at Primrose the way a man might look at his favorite golf club, fondly possessive.

Charm pokes her head around me and gives a silent whistle. “That’s her, huh?”

“Yeah.” I pull back from the doorway and chew my lip. “I can’t remember if they did the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ thing in medieval times, or if it’s one of those Victorian inventions, like brides wearing white, or homophobia. Should we wait and see or—”

But Charm isn’t listening, because Charm is already moving. She strolls through the chapel doors and down the aisle like a fashion model with a bad attitude, a deus ex machina in black jeans. “Hey!” Her voice shouts back at the congregation from the arched ceiling, redoubled. The Latin chanting stops abruptly. Charm slides her hands into her pockets and shrugs one shoulder, her chin high. “I object. Or whatever.”

The silence is broken only by the slide of satin as the gathered lords and ladies swivel in their seats to look at Charm. The Superman tattoo grins back at them.

Primrose turns slowly on the dais, her face filling with a desperate, painful hope, the kind of hope that has died at least once and is rising now from its own ashes. Her eyes fall on Charm and the hope ignites, blazing hot.