Chapter Two: A Wedding Without a Bride

It sounded less like a wedding than an arrest operation. Mira did not touch the tablet. “Why me?” His eyes settled on the bandage over her shoulder. “Because when you see danger, you don’t scream. You change the schedule, preserve the evidence, and make the guilty walk your aisle.” Before she could refuse, reception delivered an unsigned black box. Inside lay an antique brooch, its silver bird stained dark brown. Beneath it was a printed note. DON’T PLAN A WEDDING FOR THE DEAD. Mira’s hand hovered. “Don’t touch it,” Adrian said sharply. “You know what it is.” “A staff brooch from the White Tern. Twelve years ago, the wedding ship burned on the night of my aunt’s ceremony. Twenty-seven died. Nine vanished.” “The report blamed faulty wiring.”