The small apartment attached to the rectory felt different when we entered it as husband and wife than it had during our brief tour the week before.
The space wasn't large—a modest sitting area, a compact kitchen, a single bedroom with a narrow bed that suddenly seemed to loom with significance—but it would serve as our married quarters for however long this charade needed to continue.
The air practically hummed with unspoken tension as we stood there, still in our wedding attire, facing the reality of what came next. Mikael had loosened his clerical collar but hadn't removed his formal vestments. I could see the careful way he was holding himself, like a man braced for impact.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with expectation and uncertainty, until I decided to address the elephant in the room with characteristic directness.
Someone had to, and it clearly wasn't going to be him.
"So," I said matter-of-factly, settling onto the edge of our bed and smoothing my silk skirts around me. "Wedding night."
Mikael's face flushed crimson so quickly I thought he might actually faint. He turned away, ostensibly to examine the bookshelf, but I could see the rigid tension in his shoulders.
"Will people expect… evidence of consummation tomorrow?" I asked, keeping my tone conversational. "Should we expect Sister Agnes to be changing the linens? Because I'm sure she's not naive about these things, despite her motherly demeanor."
I didn't try to hide the fact that I was experienced in ways he clearly wasn't.
I remember our conversation in the car weeks ago, but the knowledge was also written in how he avoided my gaze when I spoke plainly about physical intimacy.
In the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides like he was fighting some internal battle.
"That won't be happening." His response was immediate and firm, delivered with the weight of absolute conviction even as he kept his back to me. "My vows of celibacy still mean something to me, even if everything else about this situation is..."
He paused, struggling for words that could encompass the complexity of what we'd created. "Compromised."
"Then how do you propose we handle the expectations?" I asked, genuinely curious about his solution. "Ketchup?"
I tried unsuccessfully to ease the atmosphere with a joke, but this was also a practical problem that required a practical answer. And I was interested to see how his priest's mind would navigate it.
"I mean, I'm pretty sure no one thought I’m a virgin after all at this point, but still... Aren't you supposed to fall for the wholesome, pure-hearted maiden type? You know, for the optics? Gotta stay on brand and all."
Without hesitation, Mikael moved to his belongings and produced a small dagger with a sharp, thin blade. When he drew the metal across his palm with clinical precision, his expression never changed despite what must have been considerable pain.
What the actual..?
Blood welled from the cut, bright red against his pale skin, and lifting the blanket off he let several deliberate drops fall onto the pristine white sheets of our marriage bed.
"There," he said, finally facing me with a blank expression. "You have your consummation evidence now."
The gesture was both practical and deeply symbolic—his refusal to truly consummate our marriage while still providing the necessary deception. It was also, I realized, exactly the kind of solution I should have expected from him.
Clever, principled, and slightly self-punishing all at once.
"Efficient," I observed, watching him tend to his self-inflicted wound with the same careful attention he'd shown when treating my injuries that first night. "Though I have to say, most people find the traditional method more enjoyable."
His jaw tightened, but he didn't rise to the bait.
"This marriage isn't real, Wren." He turned to face me fully, his expression resolute and carefully controlled. "What happened during the ceremony—that was a performance for our audience. The moment we shared in the chapel the other night..."
He paused, as if the memory itself was dangerous. "That was a moment of weakness that won't be repeated. Ever."
I could see him rebuilding his walls even as he spoke, reconstructing the careful barriers he'd maintained during our three-week engagement.
The vulnerable man who'd promised to be my shelter in every storm was being locked away again, replaced by the controlled priest who saw our arrangement as a necessary evil.
Is he still mad at me for what I’ve done?
"We'll share this space because we have to." He continued, his voice carrying the authority he used during sermons. "We'll perform our roles publicly because we have to. But privately, we maintain appropriate distance. I've already violated too many of my principles getting us to this point—I won't violate this one."
He moved to the bedroom doorway, his bandaged hand resting on the frame.
"I'll sleep on the sofa tonight. Tomorrow we can discuss more permanent arrangements, perhaps a screen or some other way to create separation in here."
I studied his resolute expression, noting every micro-detail of his body language.
The careful way he held himself. The rigid set of his shoulders. The deliberate distance he maintained even while explaining our domestic arrangements. He was trying so hard to establish control, to create rules that would keep me at arm's length… It was almost endearing, really.
Like watching someone try to hold back the ocean with their bare hands.
"Understood," I said simply, rising from the bed with fluid grace. "Thank you for clarifying the expectations. It's helpful to know exactly where we stand."
My compliance seemed to surprise him—he'd probably been expecting an argument, some kind of pushback against his boundaries.
Instead, I began moving through the small space, examining our new living situation with apparent acceptance while internally already planning my next moves.
If Mikael thought cutting his palm and declaring boundaries would keep me at bay, he was more naive than I'd given him credit for.
The game was far from over—it was just entering a more interesting phase.
We were married now, bound together by law and the expectations of everyone around us. He'd committed to spending his life with me, to sharing this intimate space, to maintaining the performance of a loving husband indefinitely.
He had no idea what he'd actually signed up for.
As I unpinned the orange blossoms from my hair and began the process of changing out of my wedding dress, I caught him watching me with an expression he quickly suppressed.
But I saw the hunger, raw and involuntary, it was there for exactly one unguarded second before Mikael locked it away and fixed his gaze somewhere safer—the window, the bookshelf, the middle distance of his own willpower.
I said nothing. Didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge him at all.
I simply reached up and began working the first button at my nape with careful, unhurried fingers, as though I were completely alone. As though the air in this small apartment hadn't just changed into something dense and close and difficult to breathe.
I felt his attention the way you feel sunlight through glass. Indirect. Concentrated. Warm in places it had no business being.
The second button. Then the third.
I moved to the vanity mirror, not because I needed it, but because it meant my back stayed turned to him—which meant he could look without knowing he was being seen looking.
I watched his reflection in the glass as I reached for the fourth button, tilting my head to one side so my hair fell forward over my shoulder. The motion was slow and considered, the kind of unhurried ease that only comes from perfect comfort in one's own skin.
He hadn't moved back to the bedroom. He hadn't moved at all.
"There's a hook I can't quite reach," I said mildly, without turning. "The last one."
A long pause. "I'll… Sister Agnes could—"
"Sister Agnes is asleep, Mikael." I kept my voice pleasant, utterly unconcerned. "It'll take three seconds."
Another long pause before I heard the sound of his footsteps crossing the floor until he stopped right behind me.
He was careful about it—I'll give him that.
When his fingers found the hook between my shoulder blades, his touch was clinical, deliberate. The way you'd handle something sacred that you weren't entirely sure you were permitted to touch. He freed it without so much as grazing my skin.
"Thank you," I said as he stepped back immediately, but I didn't rush.
I reached up and let the silk fall from my shoulders slowly, the bodice loosening around my ribs as I exhaled. I reached back to gather my hair and lift it off my neck—another unhurried motion with my arms raised, the line of my spine curving slightly in the mirror's reflection.
When I finally glanced up, he was looking at the floor—jaw set, hands clasped behind his back like a man in prayer.
Or like a man who didn't trust what his hands might do otherwise.
"You can use the bathroom first if you'd like," I offered, not even hiding the double meaning and folding the dress over my arm with domestic simplicity, as though I hadn't just left standing before him only in my wedding lingerie. "I don't mind waiting."
He was out of the room in under two seconds.
I looked at the closed bathroom door for a long moment, listening to the sound of the lock clicking into place—and then, alone, I let myself smile.