Chapter 2

Four hours to go.
And somewhere in the bridal suite waited a cursed brooch that had already changed everything.
I wasn’t sure I wanted it to change back quite yet.
The bridal suite smelled like fresh lilies, hairspray, and the faint metallic tang of champagne flutes that had been refilled one too many times. I slipped inside behind the last bridesmaidpretending to be Margaret checking on “something sentimental”and closed the door with a soft click. The room was a whirlwind of white tulle, scattered jewelry, and half-unzipped garment bags. Sophie was in the bathroom with the makeup artist, voices muffled behind the door. We had maybe seven minutes.
Margaretin my bodywas already there, rifling through a small velvet jewelry box on the vanity. She’d changed into the full tuxedo trousers and vest, shirt still open at the collar, sleeves rolled. The sight of myself like thathalf-dressed, purposeful, sleeves showing the corded forearms I’d spent years buildingsent another unwelcome pulse straight to where I was still tender and slick from the garden.
“Found it?” I asked, voice low, locking the door behind me.
She held up the brooch without looking back. Silver filigree, cloudy opal at the center, pinned to a scrap of black velvet. It looked innocent. Antique. Harmless.
Except it wasn’t.
She turned. Our eyes metmine in her face, hers in mineand the air thickened again.
“We touch it together,” she said. “That’s how it happened last night. Simultaneous contact. Should reverse it.”
I stepped closer. The carpet was thick under Margaret’s flats; every movement felt deliberate, weighted. My hearther heartwas thudding so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my wrists, between my legs. The orgasm in the garden had taken the edge off, but not the hunger. If anything, it had sharpened it. I wanted to know what this body could do when it wasn’t fighting to stay quiet.
Margaret set the brooch on the vanity between us.
“On three,” she said.
I nodded.
“One.”
Our hands hovered above ither strong fingers, my smaller, knotted ones.
“Two.”
I could smell my own cologne on her skin, mixed with the clean sweat of nerves and arousal. She smelled like me, but moved like her: precise, unhurried.
“Three.”
Our fingertips met the metal at the same instant.
Nothing.
No flash. No vertigo. No sudden whoosh of souls trading places.
Just silence.
We stared at the brooch. Then …