Zuri hadn't thought Celandine Castle could get any more beautiful, but alas, it evolved at night. The high glass walls showcased a dark sky full of white-hot stars, rivaling the golden light of the five glittering chandeliers that hung from the ceiling of the ballroom. The marble floors were painted like frescoes: cherubic angels and ornate reddish suns beside cold, demure crescent moons. It was as though the hundreds of people gathered there for the banquet danced across the surface of the universe itself.
It was the second time Zuri had been forced to don an evening gown in the past month, and yet she still wasn't any more comfortable with it. This one—Kalindi had helped pick it—was deep sapphire satin, with bell sleeves and a neckline that formed the delicate shape of a heart. She lingered near the ivy-decorated fountain at one of the ballroom's far corners, her hands interlaced in front of her, her eyes tracing the decorous gowns and suits of the visitors around her.
It was supposed to be a celebration. Celebrating her, even. But instead Zuri just felt squeamish.
"Zuri?" It was Sorin, appearing at her side, two champagne glasses filled with something purple and fizzy in his hands. "Here. For you."
She took the one he handed to her, but not without frowning at it. "What is it?"
Sorin hesitated. "I'm not sure, but I think it's grape-flavored."
"You're just saying that because it's purple."
Sorin fussed with one of his cuff links, looking away. "Perhaps."
Zuri rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she leaned to set her glass down on the fountain's edge. "Come here for a second, you," she said, taking him by the shoulders and turning him towards her. "Your tie's awfully crooked. Did you tie it with your eyes closed?"
"Ha, ha. A natural comic," Sorin said, and Zuri felt his eyes on her as she reached up, unraveling the knot and tying it again, pushing it up closer to the collar of his dress shirt, also a sapphire blue. He'd borrowed it from Asante, who was mingling around the ballroom somewhere, though Zuri had lost track of him ten minutes ago.
"There," Zuri said, patting his chest. She looked up, combing back a strand of his hair that gone awry. "Now you look like a proper gentleman."
"Disgusting," he said with an exaggerated scowl, but soon his face was serious again. He leaned in, his lips hovering just above Zuri's ear. "You're breathtaking, by the way. I've always thought so."
He stepped back again, a smirk forming at his lips when he noticed the flush the words had brought to Zuri's cheeks. She should've known that was the reaction he was aiming for the whole time.
"What's the matter?" he taunted then, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead, his eyes round with a mock concern. "Are you feverish all of a sudden? Should I take you home?"
"Damn you, Sorin."
"Pardon me, miss," said Aldric, joining them with a pleased, albeit mischievous smirk on his face, his own glass of grape-flavored something perched within his fingers. "Is this guy bothering you?"
"Aldric!" Zuri said, unable to mask her excitement even if she'd wanted to. She hadn't seen him for a few days; apparently he'd left for Meathe to go see his sister. "Oh, you look great."
"Happier than usual, too. I wasn't aware you could look not depressed and sulky," Sorin observed, sliding an idle hand into the pocket of his slacks. He pointedly ignored the tired look Aldric was giving him and asked, "What's wrong with you? Are you drunk, or something?"
"No," Zuri said definitively, bumping Sorin's arm."You haven't seen him when he's drunk. He'd be half-asleep and drooling on your shoulder."
"Zuri, he didn't need to know that," Aldric sighed. He swept a long, blue-black strand of hair behind his ear, then leaned forward, as if he were sharing a secret. "If you must know, it's actually because of these guests I've brought along."
Zuri's eyes widened. "Guests?"
Aldric stepped aside, and only then did Zuri notice the two very obvious Meathean transplants that had been lingering in his shadow. One of them was a small, doe-eyed girl with gold flowers in her hair and eyes much like Aldric's, and the other was a man in a brown suit that was quite literally tall, dark, and handsome.
"Zuri. Sorin," Aldric said, gesturing at each of them in turn. "This is my sister, Aurora. And...an old friend of mine who helped save her, Wil."
Wil gave Aldric a weird look Zuri didn't know the meaning for, and curious as she was, she decided not to ask.
"This is Zuri?" Aurora exclaimed, her eyes bright and childlike as she took Zuri's hand. "I've heard a lot about you. Ricky...Ricky thinks very highly of you, miss."
"Lovely to finally meet you. You can just call me Zuri," Zuri told her, and now her gaze lifted, holding Aldric's for a moment, a flicker of a smile at her mouth. "And is that so?"
Aldric's response was a subtle incline of his head.
"And you," Aurora said, shifting to look at Sorin. "You're the cat?"
Sorin let out a sigh of obvious dismay. "I'm not—well I am—ugh. Yes."
Aurora studied him a moment. Then: "Ricky had fewer nice things to say about you, I'm afraid."
"Okay, Rory, you've said more than enough," said Wil, tugging on the girl's ear until she giggled and swatted at him. Wil had such an interesting, insouciant warmth to him—something that emanated from his earthy brown eyes like a beam of light. Zuri had only known him but a few moments and she already liked him. "It's true, though. Aldric has said lots about all of you. Thanks for looking after him, by the way. I know this knucklehead must've been a lot of trouble out there."
"Knucklehead?" Aldric whined. "That's the best you could come up with? What are we, six years old?"
"Fine," Wil said, but his eyes shone with fondness. He slid an arm around Aldric's waist, as naturally as if it had always belonged there. A light bulb went on in Zuri's head. "Would you prefer bastard, then?"
"Harsh."
"You asked for it, dipshit."
"Harsh!"
Aldric and Wil glared at each other for just a few brief seconds before they collapsed into a bout of laughter, at which Zuri smiled. She didn't think she'd ever seen Aldric laugh quite like that before.
Aldric was half keeled over and clutching his stomach when Chike joined them, his kind face a map of confusion as he said: "Did I miss the joke?"
Sorin turned towards him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Chike. Good to see you moving around again," he said, and the smile on his face was authentic. "How's your recovery going?"
Aldric winced, as if that was a question better left unasked, but Chike just shrugged it off. "The shock was the worst part," he answered, "but I'm doing fine. Except for the phantom fingers. Has anyone ever told you about that? I know four of my fingers are gone, but sometimes, I swear I can still feel them."
Sorin blinked. "Sounds creepy."
"It is," said Chike, as he noticed the two strangers standing beside Aldric. "Are these friends of yours, Aldric?"
They were running the usual cycle of introductions, a conversation Zuri sensed she was going to have several times throughout the night, when suddenly an awed, respectful hush rushed over the crowd.
Zuri followed the gazes of everyone else towards the top of the grand staircase.
The princess was making her entrance, her knight at her side.
Kalindi wished this banquet indeed felt like a banquet, but instead all it felt was strange, as if she were trapped within a fever dream.
All she had done over the past forty-eight hours was talk. Talk with her mother, with the gentry, with the press. People wanted to know how a war whose tensions had been on the rise for months and months had deescalated in a second. They wanted to know how it was that the Celestials were more than a myth, but a true phenomenon birthed from the meteor's cosmic dust. They asked, too, about Vernon. Some questions she had answers to, but others she didn't: like what it meant that the meteor was stitched into the fabric of his tapestry.
If he hadn't been a Celestial, Kalindi wondered, what did that make him, then? A god?
Kalindi pushed the thought from her brain now, pressing out a few wrinkles in her gown: white and tinseled gold, a long tulle skirt.
Some knowledge was simply forbidden, Kalindi decided, and she'd exhaust herself reaching for it.
"Kali." Jem's hand, slipping into hers. Jem smiling at her beneath the hallway sconces. Jem. Say it enough and the name tasted like love. "Are you ready? Everyone's waiting."
Jem was beaming and bright, unstoppable, in a matching white and gold shimmering blazer set with padded shoulders that made her look like royalty, or perhaps even better, like the warrior she was.
Kalindi bent her forehead against Jem's. "The announcement my mother intends to make," she whispered. "What do you think it might be?"
"That's what you're getting all anxious about?"
"Anxious?" Kalindi said, standing up straight again. "I'm not anxious."
Jem poked her nose. "Right. And I'm not madly in love with you."
Kalindi stopped. She couldn't process the words; they had come too fast, too sudden, like an unexpected spring gale. She couldn't grab hold of them, so instead she just let them stir her, ripple in her heart like the wind through the waves. "You—?" she started. "Oh. Wait—"
"Nope. Enough waiting, Your Highness," Jem said with a vibrant laugh, grabbing Kalindi's hand and dragging her towards the ballroom before she could even begin to protest.
The guards pulled the doors wide, and the glittering Celandine ballroom opened up before her. Jem winked, offering her elbow. As Kalindi took it, she realized the anxiety wasn't exactly gone, but at least it was so much quieter.
The music stopped, the hum of mingling voices suddenly reduced to silence as hundreds of heads turned to watch Naino's Crown Princess descend the steps. One of those heads belonged to her mother, already settled in her pedestal upon the dais at the back of the hall, watching with an expression that was either disinterest or bitterness. Kalindi couldn't quite gauge it.
Kalindi's eyes raked the crowd as they made their way into the room. Most were common faces, ones she often saw in meetings or briefings but had little personal attachment to, and some she didn't know at all. She turned, and locked eyes with Zuri, who grinned and bowed her head. As if I've done anything, Kalindi thought, wishing she could hear it somehow. None of us would be here if it weren't for you.
She spared a nod each for Aldric, Chike, and Sorin. Jem boldly waved at them all like she hadn't just seen each of them days ago.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the guard once Kalindi and Jem reached the floor. "Crown Princess Kalindi of Naino, and her escort, Jem Okiro."
"I'm afraid that's incorrect," came a voice from the other side of the room, and Kalindi was startled to find it belonged to her mother.
The Queen rose to her feet, deep purple skirts brushing across the floor as she did. She had always been and would always be a beautiful woman, but even Kalindi noticed how worn she appeared: the wrinkles in her skin more acute, her eyes tired and faraway.
The guard blinked, clearly confused. "Your Majesty?"
The Queen left the dais, and the murmuring crowd split to clear her a path. A slow, rhythmic click punctuated each of her elegant steps as she approached Kalindi.
The Queen reached her, tilting Kalindi's chin up. Kalindi tried not to shudder.
The Queen's hands lifted. They trembled, slightly. She paused, then raised the crown of leaves off Kalindi's temples. "She is not the Crown Princess of Naino," said the Queen, "for as of today I've abdicated my throne. You look now upon your newest Queen of Naino."
Kalindi's heart dropped into her stomach. She was out of her body for a moment. She was someone else entirely. A ghost who'd stolen a stranger's skin.
But then sound and color and texture all washed in again like a slap in the face. Queen? She spoke: "Queen? I can't be queen!"
"You are," answered the Queen, removing her own gold, emerald-jeweled crown and settling it on Kalindi's head instead. "I cannot rule over a nation who no longer respects me. My own guards look at me like I'm the enemy. I'm not a fool. It is either this or death."
The Queen leaned in close then, her hands gripping Kalindi's shoulders just enough to prick tears in her eyes. "You've won," she whispered. "Is this not what you wanted, daughter?"
She pulled away again, and Jem rushed to Kalindi's side. Jem grabbed for her hand, fiercely, squeezing their palms together.
There was a moment of peaceful but stunned quiet, and then an eruption of revelrous applause.
Though the sky was a dim gray-black, the night was young.
Zuri and the others stood on the balcony, the ballroom's symphony of lights and music and voices behind them, the rest of inner Naino ahead of them. Zuri clutched the ivy-decorated rails, watching the bars and pubs throw their doors open, or a dog settling down for a nap on the corner, or an old couple, strolling through the street and stopping to admire the fountain in the center of the square.
Life back to normal. Or as normal as normal could be.
"It isn't that I didn't know this would happen," said Kalindi into the quiet. Jem's arms were around her, and Chike was frowning at her like he, too, wished he could help somehow. "It's just that I thought I had more time to prepare."
"You are prepared," said Aldric, his hair the color of ink in this lack of light. "There's no better leader for Naino than you, Kalindi. You know that. We all do."
She looked at him, her mouth half-open. Then her eyes drifted towards the ground again. "I'm scared of messing up."
"Who isn't?" Jem said. "Everyone's scared of messing up. But then they do, and they live through it, and they realize it's not so bad."
"Jem's right," said Zuri, turning to face Kalindi. She was standing just before the balcony's entrance, her silhouette outlined in the gold light that bled from within the hall. "This is why we fought so hard to save this world, this reality. So we could continue our lives how we want. So we could make mistakes, and learn from them, not erase them. I think that's the part Vernon didn't understand."
Sorin sighed, leaning his elbows back upon the railing, the wind blowing his hair into his face. "That's no one's fault but his own, you know. He just wanted to be right so badly."
"Kalindi," Chike said, and though he hesitated, he seemed to jerk himself forward, as if freeing himself from a curse. He smiled, then rested a hand on her shoulder. "You will make a powerful and gracious Queen. And I don't just say that because you're my friend. I'm saying it because it's true."
Kalindi sputtered. Starlight reflected in the tears that gathered along her lash line.
"Chike, you lovely asshole," Jem said after a moment, punching him in the shoulder. "Now you're gonna go and make everyone all emotional."
"What's wrong with that? We've been through a lot. It's good to feel things."
"No, I agree with Jem," Sorin said wearily. "It feels like I've been feeling too many things."
Zuri pivoted. "What's that supposed to mean?"
It took him a moment, and then his eyes flashed. "I don't mean about you, mindreader. Well yes about you. But good things! Only good things. And some other things—"
"Oh by Kiro, enough," Jem said, releasing Kalindi and clamping her hands over her ears instead. "Forget I said anything. You two disgust me."
"Look who's talking," said Aldric, raising an eyebrow at Jem and Kalindi. "You two's entrance had the whole room in awe."
Kalindi flushed. "Can we please talk about something else?"
For a moment, none of them said anything at all. Then Chike said, "I'm going back to Sinje."
Everyone whirled to face him.
"You're—" Aldric nearly dropped the drink he was holding. "You're what?"
Zuri expected sorrow on Chike's face, perhaps out of selfishness. Instead, he was smiling, with that gentle aura that always poured from his being, that always put everyone else at ease. What a gift it was. She would miss it. She would miss him.
"I've been away from my family for too long," Chike said, shoving his hands in his pockets and shifting his weight. "I realized that when I went back. I just want to be close to them, for as long as I've got. I know I won't be much use to them as a tailor anymore, but I don't know. I want...I want to try."
"Fair," Jem said, folding her arms, "but you're going to visit, right? Every now and then?"
"No." He wiped the smile from his face instantaneously. It was quite impressive. "I'm never visiting you, Jem. Everyone else, maybe."
Jem's jaw dropped, and then she was pummeling him with punches, none of which seemed to hurt him. "Evil! Villainous! I should murder you!"
"No more murdering," Aldric said. "Please."
Zuri sighed, dusting her skirt and placing her hands on her hips. "You know what this calls for," she said with a wink. "Don't you, Jem?"
Jem looked at her blankly, but Sorin let out a theatrical groan, hiding his face in his hand.
Zuri grinned. "A group hug."
"That's a terrible idea," Sorin said, at the same time that Jem exclaimed: "That's a fantastic idea!"
Once the idea was in Jem's head, it was no longer up for discussion at all, which Zuri had counted on. Soon enough, whether willingly or not-as-willingly, they were a close, six-person huddle, a muddled array of body heat and limbs, and while it should have been uncomfortable, somehow it wasn't at all.
She had the odd yet undeniable feeling—an intuition, an unspoken truth—that as quickly as they'd collided, they would split again, like atoms catapulting through space. They would bump into each other again, certainly, but always as they followed their own paths.
Zuri was okay with that; after all, that was what she and everyone else had fought for. All she could do was hold them all close while she could.
"About Sinje," Sorin said to her when the group broke apart again, his hand mindlessly pinching the sleeve of Zuri's dress. "I might have to take a trip back, too. There's something I need to take care of."
Zuri studied his face, and then she understood.
"We," she corrected. "I'm coming with you."