He grinned. “Bloodydamn right.” And I rumpled his hair, hoping beyond all hope that they can have this little moment of happiness and maybe more after that. It’s the best any of us can hope for, really. “Wish Pops was here, though.”

“I think he’s laughing his ass off somewhere that you have to stand on your tiptoes to kiss your bride,” I said.

“Always was a prick.”

Now Sevro shifts from foot to foot as I hand Victra over to him and he looks up into her eyes. I’m not even there. None of us are, not to them. The gentleness I see from the raging woman now is all it takes to know how much she loves him. It’s not something she’d ever talk about. It’s not her way. But the sharp edge she has for everything and everyone is dull tonight. Like she sees Sevro as a refuge, a place where she can be safe.

I rejoin Mustang as Mickey begins his flowery speech. It’s not half so grandiloquent as I might have expected. The way Mustang nods along to the words, I know she must have helped him edit it down. Reading my mind, she leans over. “You should have heard the first draft. It was a spectacle.” She sniffs me. “Are you drunk?” She looks back at the flushed Howlers and teetering Telemanuses. “Are they all drunk?”

“Shhh,” I say and hand her a flask. “You’re too sober.”

Mickey is finishing the ceremony. “…a compact that can be broken only by death. I pronounce you Sevro and Victra Barca.”

“Julii,” Sevro corrects quickly. “Hers is the elder house.”

Victra shakes her head down at him. “He said it right.”

“But you’re a Julii,” he replies, confused.

“Yesterday I was. Today I’d rather be a Barca. Presuming you don’t have problem with that and I don’t have to become proportionally diminutive.”

“It’d be lovely,” Sevro says, cheeks glowing as Mickey continues and Sevro and Victra turn to face their friends. “Then I present you to your fellows and the worlds as Sevro and Victra of the Martian House Barca.”

—

The ceremony may have been small, but the celebration is anything but. Fleet-spanning, even. If my people know one thing it is how to survive hardship with celebration. Life’s not just a matter of breathing, it’s a matter of being. Word of Sevro’s speech and his hanging spread through the ships, stitching the wounds back together.

But this day is the one that matters. The one that reaffirms the joy of life throughout my fleet. Dances are held on the smallest corvettes, on the destroyers and torchShips and the Morning Star. Flights of ripWings buzz bridges in celebratory formation. Swill and Society liquors flow among the milling crowds, which gather in hangars to sing and dance around weapons of war. Even Kavax, so stubborn in his fear of chaos and his prejudice against the Obsidians, dances with Mustang. Drunkenly hugging Sevro and Victra and clumsily attempting to forget the ballroom dreck of Gold dances and learn those of my people from a full-figured Red with a laughing face and a mechanic’s grease under her nails. With them is Cyther, the awkward Orange who so impressed me a year a half ago in the garages of the Pax. He only just finished Mustang’s special project this morning. Now he’s drunk and turning his ungainly body around on the dance floor as Kavax roars approval.

Daxo shakes his head at his father’s antics while sitting in reserve on the side, as always. I share a drink with him. “It’s wine,” I say.

“Thank Jove.” He replies, delicately taking the glass. “Your people keep trying to give me some kind of engine solvent.” He scans his datapad warily.

“I’ve got Holiday on security,” I say. “This isn’t a Gold party.”

He laughs. “Thank Jove for that then as well.” Finally he takes a sip from his wine. “Venusian Atolls,” he says. “Very nice.”

“Roque had good taste. Your father is a sight,” I say, nodding to the dance floor where the big man sways along with two Reds.

“He’s not the only one,” Daxo replies shrewdly, following my eyes to Mustang who’s now being spun about by Sevro. The woman’s face is aglow with life, or maybe it’s the alcohol. Hair sweaty and plastered on her forehead. “She loves you, you know,” Daxo says. “She’s just afraid of losing you, so she holds you far away.” He smiles to himself. “Funny how we are, isn’t it?”

“Daxo why aren’t you dancing?” Victra says, striding up to him. “So proper all the time. Up! Up!” She hauls him up and pushes him onto the dance floor then collapses into his chair. “My feet. Raided Antonia’s closet. Forgot she’s got pigeon feet.”

I laugh and Clown stumbles up to us, heavily drunk.

“Victra, Darrow. A question. Do you think Pebble is interested in that man?” he asks me, leaning against one of the tables as he chugs down another glass of wine. His teeth are already purple.

“The tall one?” Victra asks. Pebble’s dancing with a Gray captain. “She seems to fancy him.”

“He’s terribly handsome,” Clown says. “Good teeth too.”

“I suppose you could always cut in,” I say.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to seem desperate.”

“Jove forbid,” Victra says.

“I think I’ll cut in.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” she says. “But you should bow first. To be polite.”

“Oh. Then it’s settled. I’ll go right now.” He pours another glass of wine. “After another drink.”

I take the wine from him and push him on his way. Holiday appears in the doorframe to watch Clown’s awkward interruption. He’s bowing to Pebble and sweeping back his hand dramatically. “Oh, hell. He actually did it.” Victra snorts champagne through her nose. “You should do the same with Mustang. Think she’s trying to steal my husband away. Husband. That’s a weird word.”

“It’s a weird world.”

“Isn’t it, though. Wife. Who’d have thought?”

I look her up and down. “On you, it seems to fit.” I put my arm around her. “It seems to fit perfectly.” She smiles radiantly.

“Sir,” Holiday says, coming up to us.

“Holiday, come to have a drink?” I glance over at her, smile dying when I see the expression that marks her face. Something has happened. “What is it?”