“Oh, I think we’ll have time for a word or two before they go.” Another voice, creamy and rippling with fury, spoke just after her. “Leander, my dear, what I have I told you again and again about the dangers of being too soft-hearted?”

“Carmilla!” He swung around, his voice cracking for the first time. “What are you doing here?”

Magnificent in a blood-red cape, a necklace made of knives, and her finest ruby and bone rings and bracelets, the Countess Cardenza smiled affectionately at him. “Where else would I be when I was told you were in danger?”

Thank goodness. The note I’d sent her through Eliza had worked.

“Andrew!” Anne Forbes lashed her voice like a whip as she started forward. “Who is this utterly vulgar person?”

The Countess, who had acted more like a mother to Leander than anyone else in the world ever had, snarled like a wolf as she answered, “The one who will summon your bones from your body while you sleep if you ever dare to threaten my family again!”

The color drained from Anne’s face as their gazes held. She stumbled back a step into her husband’s furiously stiff and unwelcoming body. Standing just beside Carmilla, Eliza gave me a smug wink of satisfaction.

I gave her a nod of deep appreciation. Leander would never have asked the Countess to push past her own discomfort and share space with her ex-lover, and Dad couldn’t have summoned her in time by post—but I’d known that fierce and fearless Eliza would find a way to make it happen.

As we watched Leander’s first parents flee into the darkness, I no longer had to fear that my fiancé would feel alone or abandoned by their loss. He and I were both surrounded and supported by our true families now—and by the whole community that stood with us, too.

Dad stepped up to sling an arm around me as the Larimont city guards began to march away, pushing their unnatural machines before them, under the supervision of Uriah and dozens of other respectable townsfolk.

“I hate letting them take those away with them,” I muttered.

“There’s no help for it, love.” Dad sighed. “They can’t attack us here without a mandate—but if we try to steal their machines, they can act in self-defense against us all.”

“At least they won’t have the Forbeses to lead them anymore.” Surely not every possible hired consultant could be quite so clever and manipulative? I bit my lip, worrying at the image that wouldn’t leave me. “I can’t stop thinking about the poor metal-magicker who made all of those.”

“Hmmph.” Eliza sniffed. “You don’t know they were forced into it.”

“But if they were...”