From across the room where he’d been watching this entire disaster unfold, Mal’s shoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter.
“You think this is funny?” I called out, glaring at him with everything I had.
“You are very cute when you are angry,” he said, not even trying to hide his amusement.
“I will portal you into a lake.”
“You would have to succeed at opening a portal to a specific location first,” he pointed out with devastating logic.
Even Tyreen laughed at that. Actually laughed, her head thrown back.
“I hate everyone,” I declared. “Every single person in this room can go to hell.”
But I kept trying. Portal after portal after portal.
Wrong location. A forest, but the wrong forest. Then the right forest but three miles off. Someone’s vegetable garden, where an old woman threatened me with a rake. A very surprised fisherman on a boat who fell overboard in shock. What appeared to be a royal dining room in some kingdom I didn’t recognize, where several very important-looking people stared at me in horror before I slammed it shut.
“That one was particularly impressive,” Mal offered helpfully. “I think you interrupted a diplomatic dinner.”
“I hate you specifically,” I informed him.
“That was definitely Moonhaven’s royal family,” Casimya added thoughtfully. “We should probably send an apology.”
“Add it to the list of things I’ve ruined today,” I muttered.
Slowly, painfully, I started to get better. Each portal more accurate than the last. Five miles off. Three miles. One mile. Half a mile. A quarter mile.
“Better!” Tyreen called out. “Much better! Again!”
By the time Tyreen called a halt for dinner, I could consistently open portals to within a few feet of my target location. My arms ached. My head pounded, but I could do it.
Not perfect, but good enough. Good enough to get Mal there. Hopefully good enough to bring himback.
Dinner was subdued. The usual chaos was muted, everyone picking up on the tension that hung in the air like smoke. Even Killian was quieter than normal, sitting between Mal and me with his little face serious. He kept glancing between us like he was trying to figure out what was wrong.
“Are you going somewhere, Papa?” he asked, poking at his vegetables with deep suspicion.
Mal pulled him close. “Just for a few hours, pup. I will be back before you notice. I promise.”
Killian considered this, his expression calculating in a way that reminded me eerily of his father. “Can I have extra cookies when you come back?”
“How many extra cookies?”
“Three.”
“One and a half.”
Killian’s face scrunched up in confusion. “How do you have half a cookie?”
“You break it in half,” Mal explained seriously.
“But then I have two halves. That’s two cookies.”
Mal paused, clearly outmaneuvered by four-year-old logic. I watched him struggle with this mathematical conundrum presented by our son. The King of Ravenor, brought low by cookie fractions.
“Fine. Two cookies.”
Killian, having secured his cookies through sheer persistence and questionable math, returned to his dinner with the satisfaction of a successful negotiator. He even ate some of his vegetables, which I suspected was a strategic goodwill gesture.
