Page 151 of Go Luck Yourself
Iris and Coal get me ready, because apparently it’sunacceptableto confront someone you’re in love with while wearing a half-wrinkled suit that’s been stuffed in the bottom of your closet for three months.
They wrangle up a pressed forest green suit, low-slung boots, and a white shirt with no tie because I refuse to feel like I’m being strangled for this. My own anxiety will do that well enough for me. Iris and Coal fight about whether my hair should be up or down—down, they finally decide, and Iris does this thing to it with somevolumizing spray so it’s intentionally messy, not theI got out of the shower and let it dry and this is what you get to look atstyle I usually go for.
I focus on being simultaneously annoyed and impressed by their easy styling to distract from how nervous I am.
So I’m going to show up at his coronation. And… say what? I don’t even know. I should write something down. But there’s no time—I’m late as it is, so I’ll have to speak from the heart, and we all knowthatwill go over oh so well.
This is such a bad idea.
Iris hooks her arm with mine and we follow Coal down to the foyer of Claus Palace. Hex is there with Wren, and the two of them look surprised to see me out of my room.
Hex immediately guesses why with an abrupt grin.
“Good,” he says as Coal hands me mistletoe.
“Kristopher?” Wren cocks her head, searching through her tablet like an answer will materialize.
“Kris is going to St. Patrick’s Day for me,” Coal tells her.
He stops me as I head for the door.
“And if anything… unfortunate happens again,” he says, “you can inform the new king that I do have a foolproof way to kill him, and no one will ever find his body in a fjord.”
I hug him. “Thank you.”
He clutches me tight before smacking my shoulder blade and pushing me away. “Now go. No stalling. I know you and I know your overthinking—Iris, don’t let him stall.”
“Wait—you’re coming?” I look at her.
“Of course I’m coming.” She hooks her arm with mine again. “You think I’m going to miss you crashing Loch’s coronation with a declaration of love? Over my dead body.”
Coal throws his head back with a groan. “Ugh, don’t make me play hooky from my own event!”
“I’m not going todeclare my love.” Am I?
My face is on fire.
“Nicholas”—Wren says his name in a chastising rush, like she’sterrified he is going to fuck off and go to Ireland—“you are needed in the ballroom. Now. Please.”
“I wasn’t going to—fine, fine. Okay. Kris—tell me what happens.Like themomentit happens. Or maybe Iris,someone,update me, okay?”
I think I promise to, I think I say something else, but I’m at the door and using magic to take us to Ireland and oh, this was such a bad idea.
Iris drags me onward, and I go.
The foyer of Castle Patrick is packed with people. People I don’t know, who likely don’t know who I am, either—St. Patrick’s Day’s court and their extended families, I assume.
Seeing them warms a new emotion in my chest. Pride.
He did it. He really did get them to side with him. They’re here, in support of him.
Fuck Malachy.
Servers rotate through the crowd, and from somewhere farther in, fiddle music plays.
Iris rejoins me from talking with a server. “Okay, they said the coronation happened already so this is like celebratory dancing and stuff. Loch’s in the ballroom.” She grimaces at me. “Good lord, Kris, your face matches your suit. Do not vomit.”
“This was a mistake,” I choke out. “I can’t—I should call him. This is insane, right? Barging in here—”
