Right before the ceremony, Nikolai had sent Pasha off with an embrace and an old Kazakh proverb:

Nothing is more remote than yesterday;

nothing is closer than tomorrow.

Vika smiled at the wisdom of the words. For although the past would always be a part of them, it was, in truth, the past. What they had to look forward to was the future, where anything was possible.

Anything.

And there was no greater magic than that.