“I’m so glad you’re standing with my dad,” Ray rushed on, and I kept arranging her hair, knowing she needed soothing as much as that flaky horse did. “I can’t imagine Ellasbeth doing it.”

I laughed, but it sounded almost like a cry. “Me either.” I had to stop. I had to let her go. “Go on. You need to lose yourself in the woods. Keric knows where you’ll be, right?”

She stood, looking like grace given substance, breathless with action and promise coiled up in her, ready to be loosed on the world. “Yes. If you see Al, tell him if he doesn’t wear the pelt, I will turn his ears into snakes.”

I nodded, my hand trailing from her as she paced quickly to the back of the pavilion and slipped into the twilight. “Hi, Ivy!” she called, already out of my sight but heavy on my mind. “Jenks, your kids are butt-hats!”

“Yeah? Tell me something I don’t know, short stack!” Jenks shouted, and I spun to the makeshift door. Ivy? The sun was still up. I hadn’t expected her to make it until the reception when Nina could come with her.

Pulse fast, I wiped my eyes as she walked in, gray about the temples, wrinkles about her eyes, but moving as slinkily and smoothly as always. She made the fifties look good. Really good. “You made it!” I said, glancing from her to the saddle. I had to finish up and get out of here. I needed to be on the hill overlooking the glen by sunset, and it was almost that now.

Eyes glittering, Ivy pulled me into a quick, heartfelt hug. My eyes closed as the scent of vampire incense and contentment washed through me. Okay, maybe I needed some soothing, too, and I smiled as I pulled back, thinking she looked better than great. And she’d made it before sunset. I’d thought she’d be too busy.

“Rachel, you are as radiant as Ray,” she said, and Jenks hovered between us, his silver dust graying about the edges. He was due for another rejuv charm, but was resisting.

“You mean wild,” the pixy said. “Love the hair, Rache.”

I touched it, not caring that I’d ruined the elaborate upsweep by taking my cap off. It was frizzing already, and I took the last of the pins out. Trent liked it better wild anyway. Though I’d not seen or heard the Goddess since Newt had become her, Jenks said mystics still coated me from time to time as she turned her thoughts my way. I knew every time she did because my hair became impossible. It happened a lot, and maybe that’s why my life had been so perfect.

“You said you couldn’t make it until after sunset,” I said.