Believe Me (Shatter Me, #6.5) (45)

The sound of his voice is a strange lifeline.

The more he speaks, filling my head with easily digestible nonsense, I feel my heart rate start to slow, the iron fist around my lungs beginning, slowly, to unclench.

I force my eyes open, and the scene briefly blurs in and out of focus, the pounding of my heart still loud in my head. I glance at Kenji, who is staring straight ahead, his face at rest as if nothing is amiss. This helps ground me, somehow, and I manage to pull myself together long enough to look down the petal-dusted aisle.

“So Juliette’s dress is, um, like, really glittery, but also really soft-looking? Winston and Alia had to come up with a new design on such short notice,” Kenji explains, “but they were able to repurpose some gown you guys got at the Supply Center yesterday. There was lots of, like, sheer fluffy fabric, I don’t know what it’s call—”

“Tulle.”

“Yes. Tulle. Yes. Whatever. Anyway Alia spent all night, like, first of all, making it nicer, and then sewing these little glittery beads all over it—but, like, in a nice way. It’s really nice. And it’s got, like, these little tulle sleeves that aren’t really sleeves—they sort of fall off the shoulder— Hey, is this helping?”

“Yes,” I say, drawing in a full breath for the first time in minutes.

“Great, so—nice sleeves, and, and um, you know, it’s got a long fluffy skirt— Okay, yeah, I’m sorry, bro, but I’m kind of out of descriptions for Juliette’s dress, but— Oh, hey, here’s a fun fact: Did you know that Sonya and Sara used to be, like, young virtuosos, way back in the day, pre-Reestablishment?”

“No.”

“Yeah—yeah, so they started playing violin when they were fresh out of diapers. Pretty cool, huh? Nazeera helped us confiscate the violins they’re using today from old Reestablishment holdings. They’re playing this song from memory. I don’t know what it’s called, but I’m pretty sure it’s something fancy, from some old dead dude—”

“Of course you know what it’s called,” I say, still staring straight ahead. “Everyone knows it.”

“Well I don’t know it.”

“This is the work of German composer Johann Pachelbel,” I explain, struggling not to frown. “It’s often called Pachelbel’s Canon in D, because it was meant to be played in the key of D major. Do you know nothing about music?”

“Yeah, I don’t even know what the hell you just said.”

“How can y—”

“All right, shut up, no one cares—the music is changing, do you hear that? When it goes high like that? That means she’s going to come out any second now—”

The audience rises almost at once, a rush of breaths and bodies clambering to their feet, craning their necks, and for a moment, I can’t see her at all.

And then, suddenly, I do.

Relief hits me like a gust, leaving me so suddenly unsteady I worry, for a moment, that I might not make it.

Ella looks spun from gossamer, glowing as she glitters in the soft light. Her gown has a corseted, glimmering bodice that flows into a soft, decadent skirt, her arms bare save delicate, off-the-shoulder scraps of tulle that graze her skin.

She is luminous.

I’ve never seen her wear makeup, and I have no idea what they’ve done to her face, except that she is now so beautiful as to be unreal, her hair in an elegant arrangement atop her head, a long veil gracing her shoulders, flowing with her as she walks.

She does not look like she belongs in this world, or in this dingy backyard, or in this dilapidated neighborhood, or on this crumbling planet. She is above it. Above us all. A spark of light separated from the sun.

A dangerous heat builds behind my eyes and I force myself to fight it back, to remain calm, but when she sees me, she smiles—and I nearly lose the fight.

“I told you it was a nice dress,” Kenji whispers.

“Kenji.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” I say, still staring at Ella. “For everything.”

“Anytime,” he says, his voice more subdued than before. “This is the beginning of a new chapter for all of us, man. For the whole world. This wedding is making history right now. You know that, right? Nothing is ever going to be the same.”

Ella glides toward me, nearly within reach. I feel my heart pounding in my chest, happiness threatening to destroy me. I’m smiling now, smiling like the most ordinary of men, staring at the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known.

“Believe me,” I whisper. “I do.”





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ONE




ALIZEH STITCHED IN THE KITCHEN by the light of star and fire, sitting, as she often did, curled up inside the hearth. Soot stained her skin and skirts in haphazard streaks: smudges along the crest of a cheek, a dusting of yet more darkness above one eye. She didn’t seem to notice.

Alizeh was cold. No, she was freezing.

She often wished she were a body with hinges, that she might throw open a door in her chest and fill its cavity with coal, then kerosene. Strike a match.

Alas.

She tugged up her skirts and shifted nearer the fire, careful lest she destroy the garment she still owed the illegitimate daughter of the Lojjan ambassador. The intricate, glittering piece was her only order this month, but Alizeh nursed a secret hope that the gown would conjure clients on its own, for such fashionable commissions were, after all, the direct result of an envy born only in a ballroom, around a dinner table. So long as the kingdom remained at peace, the royal elite—legitimate and illegitimate alike—would continue to host parties and incur debt, which meant Alizeh might yet find ways to extract coin from their embroidered pockets.