I look past the princess to the throne where her mother sits. The Queen looks suitably shocked, her hand held primly before her open mouth, but behind the shock I see an echo of the same hope that burns in her daughter’s face, like reflected flames.

The guards stir against the walls, their polished armor clanking awkwardly. I guess guard training doesn’t cover bleached blonds interrupting royal weddings, because they all look helplessly up at the dais for direction.

The King recovers his voice. “What are you waiting for? Seize this trespasser!”

I nod to the other beauties still hesitating with me, just outside the door. “That’s our cue, ladies.” The ’90s heroine tosses me a spear she stole from the dungeon guards and braces her sword crosswise. The space princess draws her blaster and does something complicated with the dials and buttons on the side. Brunhilda cracks her neck to one side and gives me a small, ominous smile.

We pour into the chapel after Charm, a horde of misfits bristling with weapons. I swing my spear with all the enthusiasm my scrawny, oxygen-starved muscles can muster, which isn’t much, but it doesn’t seem to matter—the guards are so thoroughly taken aback by our arrival they appear frozen in place, their jaws hanging loose.

“Primrose, come on!” The princess gathers her vast skirts in two hands and makes it one step down the dais before Prince Harold catches her wrist. The fabric of her sleeve puckers beneath his grip, crushed tight.

Primrose spins back to face him, golden hair arcing behind her, crown askew. The perfect porcelain princess has vanished, replaced by someone angrier and wearier and far less inclined to tolerate bullshit. “Let go of me,” she spits.

If Harold had the sense God gave a dachshund, he would listen to her. He doesn’t.

Primrose closes her eyes very briefly, either gathering herself or abandoning herself, before she punches him in the face. I don’t know much about hand-to-hand combat, but it’s pretty clear that she’s never punched anyone in the face before. It’s equally clear that Prince Harold has never been punched. He reels back with a profoundly unmanly squeal, releasing her wrist to press both hands to his face and bleat.

Primrose looks sick and giddy as she turns away, even paler than usual. Her feet tangle in the vast drape of her own dress and she topples forward, but Charm is somehow already at her side, arms outstretched. She catches the princess as she falls, a knight catching a swooning damsel in a cheesy Hollywood movie.

Charm looks down at Primrose, her arm wrapped tight around her waist, and Primrose looks up at her, one hand resting delicately on her breastbone. The two of them remain that way so long I suspect they’ve forgotten the crowded chapel around us, the impending guards, everything in all the infinite universes except one another. I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight in the real world, but we’re not in the real world, are we?