Hawk glanced up from his soup. “I don’t think there’s any other option, is there?”
“Well, Orion doesn’t have wings,” Cosmo pointed out, and Corbin had another bite of sandwich as Hawk shrugged.
“Orion could have wings if he wanted to.”
“Then he would be like a unipeg,” Cosmo argued. “And he’s not a unipeg. He’s just a peg. I mean a uni.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of magical,” Hawk huffed, “We’re magical too.”
“You created a gargoyle.” Corbin had to wonder if Elliot was ever going to be able to fly. If he could fly, how big were his wings going to have to be?
Of course they didn’t really fly like birds; they flew like dragons. So maybe Elliot would will himself to be light, sort of like the way he willed himself to be heavy.
Maybe he would just go through the ground and move that way, like he was sliding through rocks.
Was it one of the boss’s house spirits who could do that—slide through rocks? In fact, he was sure it was one of them.
“Cosmo, do you remember when one of the Gavin’s guys got trapped in a pocket of stone or something before they crossed over to Lunastra?”
Cosmo nodded. “Puck, when he was pregnant, it was the kids. And yeah, he’s got rock gnomes.”
Corbin cracked up, tickled to death. “You say it like it’s a disease. He’s got rock gnomes.”
“Cosmo’s just irritated because Bakli got insulted.” Hawk pointed out. “It was an accident; it was just a miscommunication. But they can make life very difficult if they’re unhappy.”
That sounded awful. “Can’t you make it up to him?”
Cosmo nodded. “I’m trying. I left goodies and beer. Apparently, that’s a start. And I wrote a letter apologizing for doing whatever it was that I did.”
“It had something to do with forgetting to leave the flue open so he could get out when he needed to,” Hawk explained. “That’s very important.”
“Oh, man. That’s wild. I would always be forgetting it.”
There was a wild sound outside, the beating of hooves making Isabelle squeal and Elliot grunt and clap his hands.
“Ah, Ev is back.”
“Unca Vanderr,” Elliot intoned.
“It is! It’s Uncle Evander.” Corbin stood up and scooped little Isabelle. It was odd. He was noticing that the babies here in the house were growing slower than the ones that he’d known out in the human world.
They seemed to be maturing at the same rate as the dragons in Lunastra. Not as slowly as humans, but not quite as fast as they had before. It was fascinating.
Evander opened the door and stepped in naked and wet. He grabbed a towel as he walked in, absolutely unashamed. “Hello, family. Hello, my love.”
“Hi, I invited everyone over for the day. We just had lunch. There’s grilled cheese.”
“Excellent. I ate with my brothers. We feasted in the forest.”
Corbin held up one finger. “Don’t talk about forest feasting.”
“No forest-feasting talk here. Let me go get some real clothes on, and I’ll be down. We can sit. I can hold my niece and nephew.”
Elliot looked over from where he was rolling on the floor with Blaze, and he got a warm smile. “Love you!”
“I love you too, Elliot. Grandpa Archer says to tell you hello and that you should come and visit someday soon.”
Corbin thought that was so sweet, how Evander’s father had just wrapped all the children in. Not even Mom and Dad had really managed to do that somehow.
