“It doesn’t have to. These two have real love, not imagined love. I think they’re going to be just fine after all this goes away.”

Helena and Maxine hugged, and the guests broke into riotous applause. The Others cheered, too, toasting the brides as they waded down the steps and into the crowd’s loving embrace to receive all the blessings the world had to offer.

The applause grew louder, tripling as Kane brought the scene to a close. He found there was little for him to do to unravel this. Resolved, Helena’s and Maxine’s reveries simply dispersed. There was no violence in this collapse. Just relief, and a touch of homesickness as the applause echoed across the stoic walls of the Cobalt Complex re-forming around them. Everything—the garden, the great hall, the mishmash of reveries—was gone now, evaporating against the sun rising over the river. Morning, actual morning, had come to East Amity, and it found a small group of sleep-deprived teenagers standing near a burnt-out mill, clapping and cheering as two old ladies looked around in shy bafflement.

A swarm of iridescent knots danced through Kane’s fingers—the reveries he’d unraveled. He urged Sophia’s back toward her and, reaching her nose, it flickered into her. He did the same with Maxine and Helena, who held hands in their daze. Then Kane took off the crown, wincing as old scars reopened, and handed it to Dean. The ground glittered with the remaining charms. Ursula picked them up carefully, and Dean handed Kane the broken remnants of Poesy’s bracelet, the whistle still as cold as ever. Adeline was the one to find Poesy herself.

“You turned her into a cricket?” she asked, showing Kane the small metal bug. The pearlescent wings twitched, like it might take off.

Elliot cleared his throat. “A cicada, I believe?”

“He’s right,” Kane said before anyone started with the eye rolling. He didn’t dare touch the bug, in case it pulled upon the magic hiding in his skin. Instead, he closed Adeline’s hands over it.

“Keep her safe, okay?”

Adeline had no love for Poesy, but she trusted Kane. She nodded.

Elliot had his phone out. His eyebrows jumped. “It’s the same day as when we left. It’s only just past seven o’clock. We can still make it before first bell.”

Everyone groaned. There was no way they were going to school, not when Maxine and Helena were going to need help getting their lives back together. Not when Sophia would snap out of her daze any second and begin asking a million questions. They needed to be present for all of that. School was simply not a reality they could belong to right now.

Elliot grumbled. Ursula strode up to Dean, pulling him and Kane into a rough huddle.