The maid slipped into Atticus's room early and threw the curtains open in one pull. Morning light slammed across the bed. The east windows of the palace had nothing in front of them, and English mornings don't show mercy.
Atticus grabbed a pillow and pressed it over his face.
"Come on, Atticus. Don't make me get Verona or your parents," she said, already heading for the closet. She had work to do, and he wasn't going to slow her down.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled, sliding back under.
"Fine."
Verona walked in.
"Is our prince still in bed?"
The maid pulled the sheets clean off. She didn't yank them. She did it gently and completely, like someone who had learned long ago that gentle and complete are not the same thing.
"Whyyyy," Atticus said.
"You are going to be late for breakfast," Verona said.
He rolled out of bed and went to the closet. The suit was laid out for him: dark and well cut, bought for today, and it was going to be in a lot of photographs. He put it on half asleep, his hands knowing the way before his brain caught up. Trousers, fine. Jacket, fine. The boy in the mirror looked a lot more put together than he felt.
The tie came last. He was fighting with it when he turned around and found the room fuller than he expected.
Rufus was there now, and Maren, and both of them had the careful blank faces of people handling something.
"Why is everyone so stiff?" Atticus said. "What's going on?"
"Nothing, my boy," Eldred said from the doorway.
His father crossed the room and tied the tie for him, standing right in front of him the way he had when Atticus was seven and ties were something to practice. This time there was something more in it than the tie, and Atticus could feel it even if he couldn't have said what it was. His father's hands were quick and steady. The knot came out right on the first try. Eldred smoothed the collar down, checked it, and was satisfied.
He stepped back and looked at his son. Just looked, one second longer than the tie needed. The suit. How tall Atticus was now. The last time they'd stood like this, he'd been a lot shorter.
"There," Eldred said. "Good."
They all walked out into the hall together, and then his parents turned off down a different corridor.
"Where are they going?" Atticus asked.
"I honestly do not know," Verona said.
He walked to the dining room with Verona and the maid. People from the day before kept passing them in the corridors: guests in various stages of getting ready, staff hurrying past, security in plain clothes who were bad at looking like they were in plain clothes. A few of them looked at Atticus as he went by. Not casually. They looked like they'd been told something about him and were checking.
He didn't understand it.
He sat down and the plates came out. Full English breakfast: eggs, toast, sausages, all of it. He ate his toast and looked around the table and tried not to notice that the room felt like everyone in it knew something except him. The conversations were normal. The food was normal. But every so often somebody glanced at him with that same look, and when he looked back, they looked away.
Then his parents walked in with Inkeri.
By the end of the day she would be Duchess of Cambridge. She looked like she'd been up for hours already and was running on nerves and focus, somehow anxious and completely calm at the same time. Her hair was already done. She wore a robe over what Atticus guessed was the start of the wedding getup. She sat down across from him, poured a cup of tea like she needed it before the day could officially begin, and looked up at him.
"Good morning."
"You look like you didn't sleep," he said.
"I slept fine. I was up at four."
"That's not sleeping fine."
"It's fine by my standards." She wrapped both hands around the cup. "How do you look so normal? You always look normal."
"I slept till seven fifty."
"He did not want to get up," Verona said from across the room.
Everyone glanced at Inkeri, then at Atticus, then away. He didn't know what that meant either.
He finished his plate.
"Atticus, we leave at nine," Maren said as he got to the door.
"Is it nine?"
"Eight forty-five," Eldred said, checking his watch.
"I'll be in my room," Atticus said, and went back out into the corridor.
The corridor was long. He took his time, fifteen minutes to kill and nowhere to be, past door after door: guest rooms, empty sitting rooms, a branch that led off to the east wing. The palace didn't show off how old it was. It just was old, the way stone is.
Halfway down, the flashes came back.
An alley. A figure in dark clothes. A man going down. And it was wrong. Too sharp, too close. Dreams were blurry. This had edges, like something he had actually seen. He'd been telling himself it was a dream. That was getting hard.
It had been getting hard since Philadelphia. The picture came at random times: at breakfast, walking between rooms, in the gap between one thought and the next. He couldn't trace it back to a night's sleep the way you can with a dream. It was just there on its own. An alley in Pennsylvania. Wet pavement, footsteps on stone. A man in dark clothes going down. The smell of something burning. He had never been in that alley. He had no memory of being there. And yet.
And the other figure. Not the man who went down. The one who stayed standing. Atticus could never see the face, just the outline. Standing there like someone who'd done something and was waiting to see what happened next.
He stopped outside Rufus's room.
Through the door he could hear pages turning.
He went in.
Rufus jumped. Actually jumped. He stared at his godson like a man caught reading something he'd hoped nobody would ask about.
"What are you reading?" Atticus said.
"Ahh. Nothing." Rufus was at his desk with a book open in front of him and a stack of others at his elbow. He looked at Atticus, then at the book, then at Atticus again. You could see him doing math in his head.
"Oh boy," he said to himself.
"What?"
"Nothing. Come sit down, then."
Atticus sat on the end of the bed. Rufus rolled his chair around to face him and looked at him for a long time, with the face that meant he was deciding how much to say and in what order. He was about to start when a maid opened the door, took one look, and backed out.
"Are you all right?" Rufus asked. "For the wedding. For today."
"Sort of," Atticus said. "People keep looking at me and I don't get it. Everybody has the same face. Like they know something."
"And yesterday. At breakfast. Do you remember all of it?"
"I remember eating," Atticus said. "And then I was in bed. What else is there?"
He looked at the book. Rufus slapped it shut, too fast, before he'd even decided to.
Atticus blinked.
"What's going on?"
He looked around the room properly now. He'd walked in without really seeing it, and it wasn't what he'd expected. The walls were covered in paper. Symbols drawn in pencil, in ink, in what looked like charcoal, big and small, pinned and taped all over. Some were shapes: circles cut into sections, triangles inside triangles, spirals that turned into smaller spirals. Some were letters from alphabets he didn't know. Not Latin, not Greek. Something older. Some looked like writing that ran right to left, or maybe in some direction he didn't have a word for.
He got up and walked slowly along the nearest wall. Up close, some of the drawings had been done with real care, every line placed on purpose. Others looked rushed, like Rufus had worked them out right there on the paper.
"What are all these?"
"Protection symbols," Rufus said from his chair. "You know how I am. History, folklore, mythology. Mostly history."
"Protection from what?"
"General protection. It's something I do when I'm somewhere new."
"General protection against...?"
"Various things," Rufus said, in a voice that meant that's all you're getting.
Atticus stopped at the window. On the sill sat a row of white crystals, lined up neatly. He bent down to look. They weren't decoration. They were spaced too evenly for that. Somebody had thought about exactly where each one went.
"What are these? They look like salt." He reached out.
"Don't touch!" Rufus snapped, sharp enough that Atticus yanked his hand back.
"Why not?"
"Please. Just don't touch them." Rufus's voice was back to normal, but something under it wasn't.
"Okay." Atticus looked at him. "Why do you have salt on a windowsill in Buckingham Palace?"
"I just do. And yes, I've been on a Romanian culture kick lately. Native American too. Both very interesting traditions when it comes to this sort of thing."
"Romanian culture," Atticus said.
"What's wrong with Romanian culture?"
"Nothing. I just never thought of it as a place to get... whatever that is." He waved at the wall. "What's it actually protecting against?"
"Atticus," Rufus said, in the voice he used right before he didn't answer something. He checked his watch. "We need to get downstairs. The cars are probably waiting."
Atticus looked at the wall one more time and stepped back to see the whole thing at once. From back here it made a pattern. Thick in some places, thin in others, and some symbols seemed to answer symbols on the other side of the room. He couldn't read it. He could only tell it was there, and that Rufus had worked hard to put it there.
"Okay," he said. "I won't ask."
"Good lad," Rufus said, and meant it.
The cars were waiting, everyone already inside, engines running. The schedule wasn't going to wait for anybody. Daley and Inkeri were in the open convertible at the front of the procession, Inkeri in her wedding dress for the parade through London. Police rode on both sides. The crowd at the gates was already waving, and from the driveway you could hear them, a huge roar of people who had been waiting a long time.
Rufus caught sight of something across the street. He looked. Then he made himself look at Atticus instead.
"Come on."
They rode in a car several places behind the main procession and took a quieter route, arriving just before the bride and groom. Atticus got out and stood in front of the chapel.
Gothic. He knew the word, but the word wasn't enough. The whole front of the building climbed up toward a point like it was reaching for something. The closer you looked, the more there was: gargoyles, stone lace, carved figures you could study for an hour and still miss things. He didn't usually think about buildings. But he couldn't move.
It was old in a different way from most old things. It wasn't from one time. Every century had added something, and every addition had changed what the place meant. You could feel all of that weight from the steps. It didn't press down on you. It was just there, holding.
"Atticus," Rufus said. "Let's go in."
"One more second. The architecture is incredible."
"Gothic," Rufus said. "One of my favorite periods."
"You have a favorite period of architecture?"
"I have a favorite period of everything. Come on."
Inside was the long nave with its high vaulted ceiling, colored light falling through stained glass, and the organ playing something slow and formal that filled the space without drowning it. They walked down the aisle slowly, both of them with their heads tipped back. Some buildings make you do that.
The stained glass did more than decorate. It changed the light. The red windows turned the stone floor faintly pink. The blue ones made the air over the pews look cool. Walking down the nave meant walking through one color after another, each with its own feel. Whoever designed it had known people would walk through it section by section and had planned what each section would do to them.
Atticus felt like he'd just learned a new way of seeing.
"Rufus, why is the Pope here?" he whispered. They were near the front now, and the Pope was in a forward pew with his people. "I thought the English church split from Rome. The Reformation."
"Right. Very good. Henry VIII and his very particular problem with marriage."
"So why is he here?"
"Our family is friends with the Pope."
Atticus stared at him.
"Really."
"Why does that surprise you?"
"I didn't know that."
"Your grandfather and his brother. Old friends. Inkeri is actually the Pope's goddaughter."
They took a pew near the middle. Rufus closed his eyes for a moment the way he sometimes did. Not praying, exactly. More like checking on something inside. People came in in groups and the pews filled from the front. The organ kept going, each note floating up into the vault and fading before the next one came.
Atticus watched the room fill: diplomats, famous faces, royalty from other countries, family he knew and family he didn't. His family reached further than he had ever figured out. The groomsmen came in through a side door and took their places near the Archbishop, stiff and alert like people who'd rehearsed this. The Pope sat in his pew calmly. He went to a lot of ceremonies and somehow showed up all the way for each one.
His family came in. Maren first, then Eldred, then his brothers and sisters filing into the pew next to him and Rufus, everybody sliding down to make room. Zephyr squashed in on his left. Laleh sat on his right. He looked down the row at them: Holger reading the order of service, Destiney sitting perfectly still, Zephyr twisting around to look at the back of the chapel. Somewhere back there was Inkeri, and in a few minutes she'd walk the whole length of this place. All of it, the nave and the music and the three hundred people, was just the waiting before she got here.
He thought about her at breakfast, holding her tea with both hands. How do you always look so normal. He thought about Daley in the convertible, waving at the crowd and looking back at her every two seconds.
"How was traffic?" Rufus asked.
"The parade makes the whole center of the city impossible," Eldred said.
"My sister is marrying the Prince of England," Atticus said.
Eldred looked at him. "What were you two talking about when we came in?"
"The Pope," Rufus said.
"Why he's here," Atticus added.
"He's a personal friend of your grandfather," Eldred said. "And your sister's godfather."
"I thought he was going to do the ceremony."
"He was invited as family." Eldred got up and headed toward the back of the chapel to find Inkeri. A few more minutes as father of the bride, and then he'd be the father of a married woman.
Atticus watched him go. The organ changed. The chapel had filled all the way now, two families about to become one, three hundred people who had come to watch it happen.
Zephyr poked his arm and pointed. A man by the far wall was wearing a hat that, compared to everything else in the room, was spectacular. Not a small hat. A hat that had fully committed to being a hat.
Atticus looked at the hat. He looked at Zephyr. He looked back at the hat.
"Where does a person even get that?" he whispered.
"I don't know," Zephyr whispered back. "But I want one."
The bridesmaids came down the aisle one at a time. Then the maid of honor. Then the ring bearer and the flower girl, who threw rice and petals with the seriousness of a soldier on a mission. Then the organ changed.
Everyone stood.
Inkeri appeared at the back of the chapel on their father's arm, and Atticus understood why everyone always stands for this part. It wasn't manners. It was instinct. She walked the length of the nave slowly, the dress moving with her, the colored light sliding over the stone, and at the front Daley was trying to hold himself together and only half managing it, which was exactly right.
Eldred walked her to the altar, kissed her cheek, and put her hand in Daley's. Then he came back and sat beside Atticus, and Atticus looked at his father's face for one second before looking back at the ceremony.
His father was crying. Not so anyone would notice. Just something in his jaw, something around his eyes, working hard to stay shut. Atticus saw it and looked away, because his father wouldn't want him to see.
The Archbishop stepped forward.
"Praise, my soul, the King of heaven; to his feet thy tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, who like me his praise should sing?"
The congregation stood and sang.
"I am required to ask anyone present who knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare it now," the Archbishop said.
Silence down the whole length of the chapel. Three hundred people holding the same breath. Behind Atticus, one of his younger siblings shifted in the pew. Nothing else.
"The vows you are about to take are to be made in the presence of God, who is judge of all and knows all the secrets of our hearts. Therefore, if either of you knows a reason why you may not lawfully marry, you must declare it now."
Silence again.
"Daley, will you take Inkeri to be your wife? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"
"I will," Daley said. He was looking at her.
"Inkeri, will you take Daley to be your husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and protect him, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"
"I will," Inkeri said.
"Will you, the families and friends of Daley and Inkeri, support and uphold them in their marriage and in the years to come?"
"We will," the congregation said.
The ceremony moved on through its prayers and music the way ceremonies do when they've been done for centuries, every wedding before this one somehow present underneath it. A reading from the Song of Solomon. A hymn Atticus knew without knowing where from. Then a gospel choir that had come all the way from south London took their places and began to sing "Stand By Me."
And the chapel, which had been handling everything with very English dignity, finally let go.
It was the acoustics. The sound went up into the vault and came back bigger, as if the building had added something to it. The choir was already amazing. What the building did with them was something else. It stopped being a performance. It filled every corner, came through the colored light and up through the stone floor and into the air they were all breathing, and nothing in the room was left untouched.
There wasn't a dry eye in the place. That included Rufus, who would deny it until the day he died.
Even Zephyr, who'd been fidgeting since the flower girl, went still.
The vows. The rings, blessed and slipped on. The Archbishop joining their right hands and saying the words people had been saying over joined hands for centuries:
"Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder."
Atticus looked at his sister. She was crying, which was fine, everyone was. But there was something else in her face, under the crying. She didn't look surprised or overwhelmed. She looked like someone who had finally arrived exactly where she'd always known she was going.
He'd think about that later: the difference between ending up somewhere by accident and ending up somewhere you were always headed. Inkeri was the second kind. She'd never really considered any other direction. Getting here wasn't a surprise. It was just proof.
He held on to it. He didn't know yet what it was for.
The registers were signed. The organ came back in, grand and sure and almost happy. The newlyweds walked back down the aisle, the chapel stood again, and the colored light fell across the stone the same way it had on the way in: pink, blue, cool, warm, now in reverse.
Outside, Daley and Inkeri stepped out into the London daylight. The decorated convertible was waiting and the crowds behind the barriers were cheering. Atticus stood on the chapel steps with his family around him and watched his sister climb into the car and drive off. The cheering was very loud. Some moments arrive already finished, already part of history, and this was one of them.
Laleh came up beside him.
"She was incredible," she said.
"She's always incredible," Atticus said, and he meant it. Inkeri was going to be somebody. It was one of the first things he'd ever been sure of: his oldest sister moved through the world differently, she was headed somewhere the rest of them weren't, and whatever she did would matter beyond their family. He just hadn't known what that would look like.
Now he did. It looked like today. Three hundred people falling silent, a choir filling a Gothic vault, and his sister walking through colored light toward someone who'd been waiting for her.
"We'll see them at the palace," Eldred said, his hand on Atticus's shoulder. "Come on."
They went to the cars. The rest of the day was still ahead: the reception, the speeches, the dancing. A wedding day that wasn't over yet.
Getting into the car, Rufus glanced back across the street one more time.
Whatever he saw there, or didn't, he kept to himself.
