ELEVEN

White Wedding

Where to next? Is there a map?” Oliver asked.

When he saw the look on Mimi’s face, he felt chastened.

“Okay, I promise to stop asking stupid questions. I’m just making conversation.”

“There’ll be a second checkpoint or something,” Mimi explained. They were still driving through the desert, but after a few miles, Oliver noticed the road was now along a seashore, and he could see the blue waves of an ocean, and a breeze blew. If they were descending deeper into Hell, it was getting nicer instead of worse. Mimi drove until they spotted an elegant hotel by the beach.

“Am I dreaming? It looks like martha’s Vineyard,” Oliver said. He recognized the hotel. It was a famous one on the island. He half expected a group of inebriated teenagers to walk out wearing Black Dog T-shirts.

Mimi pulled into the driveway and looked around expect-antly. When no one came to park the car, she sighed. “In Hell there’s no valet?” she asked, driving into the parking lot.

Oliver chuckled. “Isn’t that just like the Vineyard? What is this place?”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Mimi said. They got out of the car and walked toward the resort entrance. There was music playing from a string quartet, and a waitress in a crisp white shirt and black pants appeared carrying a tray of champagne. “The party is in the back. Come join us.”

Oliver took a glass. The champagne smelled delicious—buttery and bubbly, with a hint of apple and strawberries, along with a musky undertow of something earthy and delightful. He was not surprised to find he was wearing a khaki suit and a pressed white shirt, while Mimi was now wearing a plain linen dress and sandals, and she had a flower in her hair. “If this is what life is like in the underworld, it doesn’t seem too bad,” he said, clinking Mimi’s glass.

“That’s what you’d think, of course,” Mimi said, rolling her eyes. “But wait till you’ve seen Paradise.”

“What’s that like?”

“It’s been so long I don’t even remember anymore. It was just—different. Peaceful,” she said wistfully.

“Boring.”

“No. It wasn’t like that. Of course people think it would be boring, but it’s not. It’s like the best day of your life, for the rest of your life,” Mimi said. “Anyway, it looks like we’re here for some sort of wedding.” They’d followed the crowd to the back of the hotel, by the beach, where white wooden folding chairs had been set up, and a sandy aisle led to a flowered trel-lis. The guests were a ruddy-cheeked New England bunch—the men in seersucker, the women in modest day dresses. Children ran round blowing bubbles. It was beautiful and festive, and not too hot.

Yet there was something about the scene that felt familiar, that felt too close to something that Oliver did not want to acknowledge, and he never took a sip from his glass. “Whose wedding is this?” he said, gritting his teeth, as the string quartet began to play “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” his favorite hymn.

“Ours, of course.” A girl appeared by his side. She looked exactly like Schuyler. She had Schuyler’s long dark hair and bright blue eyes, and she was wearing her bonding dress, the one made of the palest blue silk that hung off her shoulders.

She had a spray of freckles on her cheeks that she always got during the summers, which they used to spend together right on this beach.

Oliver did not know what to do or where to look. His cheeks burned, and he felt as if his heart had been put on display only to be humiliated and broken.

“Ollie, what’s wrong?” She looked and sounded exactly like Schuyler. What was this— who was this? A true mirage.

What devilry had created this doppelganger, Oliver thought, trying to move away from her. Where was Mimi? He looked around wildly but could not find her. Not-Sky took his arm and linked it through hers, the way she used to, and rested her head against his shoulder.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I did too,” Oliver replied, without thinking.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.

He took back his words. This was Hell. He knew exactly where he was now, and exactly what this was. This was his deepest desire, his deepest secret, which he had buried deep inside his heart so that he had been able to fully celebrate with his dearest friend on her special day. Now, to see his desire so cruelly made real, forced him to acknowledge that even if he was healed, even if he did not ache for her anymore, even if he was no longer her familiar nor her Conduit, and merely her friend, he still loved her, and would always love her.

How was it possible to feel love and desire but no pain?

Freya, the witch he had met in the East Village, had healed his blood of the familiar’s mark, but his heart would always remember and would always yearn. As long as he lived, he knew he would love Schuyler Van Alen.

“Don’t hate me, but I don’t think I can go through with it.

I love Jack. I do. But seeing you today… Ollie… I’m so sorry.”

The girl who wasn’t Schuyler looked deep into his eyes, and it took his breath away.

“About what?” he asked, and it was then that he realized they were replaying the same conversation they’d had the night before her bonding—but it was going a different way, and he knew exactly what she would say before she said it, because they were the words he had wanted her to say.

“Making the biggest mistake of my life,” she said huskily, tightening her grip on his arm. He could smell her perfume.

She had started wearing it only recently, she’d explained back then. A scent made for Catherine de médicis that she’d bought from the convent of Santa maria Novella.

“Don’t,” he said in a strangled voice, and he pulled at his collar, as he had found it suddenly hard to breathe. “Don’t do this. You’re not Sky. Leave me alone.”

“No, you have to hear it,” she said, and put her mouth right on his ear. He could feel her soft breath as she whispered the words he wished she’d said to him on that fair day in December, in Italy. “I should never have left. I love you. I love you more.”

Then she was kissing him, and it was Schuyler’s lips, and she smelled just like Schuyler, and her hair was silky and soft like Schuyler’s, and he knew that when her back was turned, he would see a mole right between her shoulder blades that was just like Schuyler’s. She was Schuyler, and she returned his love, and Oliver did not see why he had to pretend he did not want this, did not want her, did not want exactly what was happening right now.