Chapter 1935: Preparations Underway

The Hexwitch came out of the heap on the rug like a thrown blade, crossed the floor in two steps, and slammed into her mentor’s chest hard enough to move anyone who was not Black Fang.

"You have to help me! Hubby just proposed to me!" the Hexwitch was about to explode with worry. "I must be perfect for him! What should I wear to bring out my best features, how should I behave to appear as ladylike as possible, is there a-"

"I have never attended a marriage..." Black Fang whispered, taken off guard by her disciple’s expressiveness. Then, for correctness, the Venomborne Terror added, "Not without being there to kill someone."

Vex stopped. Then her whole face lit up.

"Perfect! Then you have experience!"

"...I can offer my opinion," Black Fang finally relented.

"!!!!!!!!" Vex beamed like the happiest woman ever.

Because that was exactly who she was in this moment.

"Will you walk me to the altar?" Vex decided to push her luck.

"..." Black Fang looked uncomfortable with the question. This was not her world one bit.

But staring at the woman’s pleading gaze she had known since she was a ten-year-old farmer girl, she nodded. "Yes."

Vex hugged her so tight Black Fang felt proper strain in her bones. But she did not tell her to stop.

...

The estate came apart in the coming minutes, and the noise went with it.

Serika ran the east stair three times shouting a measurement she kept getting wrong. Rosie had flowers coming up through the floorboards of two corridors and a stairwell, already practicing her job as the flower girl.

Aurora had a sheet of paper, a working quill, and the only actual plan in the building.

"Okay girls, listen to me. We’re doing fittings one at a time," she announced to the corridor. "Rosie stops growing things in the stairwell. Nobody asks Lucille another question until she has eaten something. And we will do it all efficiently, there’s no time-"

The house ran past her in both directions.

"..."

Blossom had rushed to her mother as soon as she realized she was in deep trouble, and was taking emergency lessons about the upcoming event so she didn’t embarrass her Master.

"Blossom must say yes before it’s her turn!!" Blossom recited from the kitchen table. "Blossom must not kiss Master too long!! Blossom must not- what was it again?"

Kitsara was using her tails to become copies of herself, and frantically tried a hundred dress combinations on them all, using them as props. Several maids were dragged in to help her and offer their opinion.

"Higher," said Anna.

"Lower," said Beatrice, the quieter of their twin maids.

"Stop messing with me you damned brats!" shouted three Kitsaras at once, in three slightly different octaves, and received Anna’s loud laughter and Beatrice’s sly smirk.

Then the others realized how useful their foxy was, and Kitsara spent the next hour standing in as every bride’s mirror, model, and second opinion.

Iris made it as far as the east corridor before the second-in-command caught her.

"Iris."

"No."

"You haven’t heard the question." Ayame fell into step beside her.

"You want me to marry him?" Iris asked, suspicious.

Ayame’s eyes widened.

"So I can hear you hiss at me even in the bedroom?" she smirked. "Goddess, no."

"..." Iris’s eyes narrowed. "You want to know what a bride does. I’m the only one in this house not screaming, so you think that means I know something." Iris kept walking. "I know nothing, midget."

Ayame’s smugness increased to dangerous levels. "Of course you know nothing. For all intents and purposes, you have been a homeless vagrant for most of your adult life before we adopted you like a puppy, barely getting by on stale bread. I was raised as a noble duchess, I know a lot more about this. Why would I ever ask your opinion?"

Iris formed a fist and lunged, ready to shatter a certain snob cunt’s skull into a thousand pieces. "Die!"

"Will you walk me to the altar?" Ayame asked just before Iris hit her. "That’s what I wanted to ask."

The Demon of Vengeance stopped.

"Hah?"

...

Downstairs, with the house still screaming over their heads, Vex had her mentor by the wrist and was towing her through the main hall. Black Fang was allowing herself to be towed, which was its own kind of answer.

"White or red?"

"White with red accents."

"Do I wear the horns?"

"No."

"Why not???"

"You’ll appear as though you’re desperate to outshine the other women."

"But I am desperate to outshine the other women!!"

"You can’t be obvious about it or you’ll fail."

"Ohh!!" Vex’s eyes brightened. "Master, you’re so helpful! Thank you... I would be lost without you."

"...There’s nothing to thank me for."

"Master, did you just smile? I saw a faint movement at the edge of your lips!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"...I’ll leave."

"Aww!! There she is, using blackmail to get her way!" Vex pouted, then gave up.

If she had kept watching for a second longer, she would’ve seen a much bigger curve on her master’s lips.

...

Serika gave up on the east stair and came back to the sickroom. It was the Solar Fist, planted in the middle of the rug, who asked the question that actually mattered.

"Where do we even hold it?!"

"Miri Town," Quinlan said, from the foot of the bed.

Serika opened her mouth to ask the next question, and never got to it, because Jasmine had gone completely still.

The governor sat against her pillows with one hand flat on the seal below her navel. Her eyes had gone gold, the bright unnatural gold of new coin, and they were not looking at anything in the room.

They were reading the realm, every road, record, and border of it laid out under her palm like a page.

"There is a building on my square," said the Tyrant of Commerce.

"Is there?"

"There is a building on my square that was not there when I went under." Her gold eyes narrowed. "It is very large. It has dwarven foundations. And why are there so many elves?! Quin, explain!"

The room had stopped panicking to listen.

That was the something he had done.

"I asked Myra and Isveth, Felicity and Alexios, and the dwarves last night, after I started your trial and before I walked the beastkin pass. They’ve been busy organizing the event ever since."

Jasmine was still reading. Her mouth had begun to thin, as it did over a fraudulent ledger.

"Twice," she said. "Beastkin lords on my road and a hall on my square. Twice in one day, you did something to my town while I was unconscious."

"I might’ve made a little mess in your absence," Quinlan grinned, entirely unapologetic. "That much I’ll admit."

"How big."

"Big enough."

"How big, Quin."

"The dwarves were told ’make it perfect.’"

Jasmine sat there with her hair down and her hand on her seal, and somewhere in the middle of looking at the man at the foot of her bed the Tyrant of Commerce began, very slowly, to smile.

"...Somebody find my signet. And a quartermaster. And my slippers."

"Slippers first," said her mother.

...