“No,” I said. Telling him to hurry would only worry him.
Since I was most familiar with Hayden’s magic, I also joined their circle when Teddy wasn’t sure how to contact him and Ximena. It only took a few minutes, but by the time they finished, dark circles lined under Teddy’s eyes. When I tried to encourage her to lie down, she shook her head.
As everyone settled back into their regular chairs from their position on the floor, Teddy’s voice whispered in my mind.
“Javier’s present,”she said.
I pointed at Javier, instructing him to stay where he was while I darted into our room, where we kept the gift-wrapped present in our closet. At school, Javier hadn’t just shown an interest in archery but excelled in it.
Several times, when I was home long enough to do so, we practiced with my bow and arrow. Now, he’d have one of his own.
Back in the living room, he took the proffered package with a reluctant smile. The gift wrapping paper gave a softtear beneath his unsteady fingers, each careful pull betraying the tremor he couldn’t quite hide. Slow and precise as if each fold hid something fragile.
“We’re aging here, Javi,” Aidas said. “You can tear through it a little rougher than that.”
At his friend’s urging, he tore the last of the paper away and froze. The bow gleamed in his hand and the sound he let out was half-breath, half-disbelieving laugh.
“You got me a bow and arrow?” His gaze darted to me, then to Teddy, like he was trying to figure out if this was real.
Kieren took the bow while Javier stood to hug Teddy. When he turned to me, the hug was a little stiff so I gave his back a good-natured pat.
The bow was a work of art in weapon form. Sleek and lethal. Patterns curled along the limbs with threads of ancient runes worked into the grain. The string thrummed softly under his thumb. The matching quiver held a dozen arrows, each fletched with the iridescent feathers from the thunderbirds.
It wasn’t just a weapon. It was a promise of victory, forged by fae hands that understood war.
“Not just any bow and arrow.”Admiring the craftsmanship of the weapon, Kieren trailed a finger down it.“This is a warrior-grade weapon.”
“You know your bow and arrow,”I said, impressed he’d recognized it for what it was.
“My father got me one for my last birthday.”
“With your father’s permission, you should bring it out here for target practice,”I offered.
His expression fell, but he nodded, and I wondered what I’d saidwrong.
“We need to eat,” Teddy said, pulling our attention to her.
“Do you want us to buy pizza to bring back?”Kieren offered.
“God, no,” she said, pressing her lips together as she touched her stomach.“While the pizza wasn’tbad, it’s not exactly supposed to taste like that.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, but it didn’t live up to my expectations,” Delaney said, choosing to speak aloud rather than through the mental connection Kieren kept open for everyone. “Not after Javier kept raving about it.”
“Nate’s gonna start working as the cook there, but I’ve been going through old recipes on my phone, and I think we have everything we need to make some pizzas for us another night,”Teddy said.
“What can we bring back for tonight?”Javier asked, also using Kieren’s mind-speak connection.
It warmed me to see the way Javier and his friends looked out for Teddy. Knowing our friends did the same made it a little easier to think about leaving again. When everyone settled on whatever the tavern was making, the older younglings headed out while the girls went to their playroom.
It was a good thing we’d planned for several rooms when we first built our home. We’d need it desperately with our family growing. And it wouldn’t be long until Javier’s friends wanted to spend the night.
I wondered if they would bring as much madness into our home as George, Brenton, and Everly had. Teddy seemed to thrive on the chaos that came with so many children. If our gods willed it, I’d happily fill each room with babes. It shamed me that even after several months of research in our public library, Brenton still couldn’t name who our gods were. But if our people didn’t know the truth, it made sense that our libraries wouldn’t carry information about them.
“Elias,” Alastor said, drawing my attention to him. “As we discussed, I asked the living book about the orb and how we can siphon specific magic from it.” He sighed. “The book refuses to answer me, but I’ll keep trying.”
I nodded. “Do you think it would answer you if you had the orb in your possession?”
While I didn’t like the idea of giving the orb to someone else, I trusted Alastor.
