I loved them all.
I never thought myself capable of loving anyone but Ivy. She had always been my heart, my resilience, my need to fight. She was my reason for living, for surviving, and all I’d ever cared about was returning to her. But even I could admit there was a part of me that adored the children we already had. And I knew I would do anything in my power to protect them.
Ivy nodded slowly. Her end of the bond still gave me no impression of what she wanted, though I wasn’t sure I needed it to know her thoughts were potentially spiralling.
“I was thinking perhaps we could transform it into a family crypt, if you would like. Something that will house our dead and protect them. Keep them close,” I murmured. “Like my mother. And your own.”
Ivy found my stare, tears brimming her dark eyes. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said finally, smile timid.
I bowed my head and stepped towards her, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I will handle it with Rhadamanthus,” I murmured. “When you are ready, we will bring them home. All of them.”
The evening wentby with Ivy quiet and lost in her own thoughts, while Arthur, Rowan, Elias, and I worked to finish the nursery. Although I’d put time into it during my personal renovations of the manor, there was still work that needed to be done. Ivy wanted the door leading to the balcony gone; her fear over someone using it to enter the room was enough to have us putting a thick, impenetrable window in its place.
We also needed to add a door between the main bedroom and the nursery. A hidden one, we’d negotiated. Even though the twins would be staying in the main room for however long Ivy needed them to be there, the nursery would eventually be used. Either by them, or by the ones that come after.
Ivy was terrified of them not being close, so we were taking the necessary steps to ease some of that fear. It wouldn’t all just go away; even though the immediate threat against them was gone, there had still been a threat, and even Ivy’s magic continued to react to the potential harm that could come to them.
“You know, I’ve heard some things about that brother of yours that would put you to shame,” Rowan said as he hung the last of the prints Thea helped us create for the space. Although Ivy had a hand in everything, there were still small things we were doing to surprise her. “Apparently, he’s awful.”
I shook my head as I carefully put the folded baby clothes away. “I highly doubt that.”
“Man, he’s at the academy right now, and he’s taken up your mantle—but worse.” Rowan stepped back from the wall with a sigh. “I think those are straight. But anyway, I think you need to have a word with him.”
I snorted as I finished with the yellows. Ivy had colour co-ordinated everything. There were pinks and greens and blues, yellows and oranges. Christmas outfits, winter onesies. Everything she could ever need. And she wanted them organised—for now—by colour. At least, the garments they wouldn’t be wearing for the first few months.
This was my third time rearranging them for her. She could barely stand long enough to do it herself, and we were now one week from the expected delivery.
We did not have names, other than ideas tossed around in the middle of the night. We knew nothing about the sexes, butthat didn’t matter to Ivy in the slightest. All we knew was one would be a shifter, the other a witch or mage. And that was the only knowledge we needed regarding the birth plan.
“Most Fae aren’t staying at Oberon,” I replied, finally looking at him. “I doubt he will last long.”
“You’d think. But the council said they could stay as long as they wanted until Titania opened and was ready to accept Fae students.”
During the battle, the academy that had once been for the Fae was destroyed. The earth had split open and swallowed the entire structure whole. Thankfully, there were no students or teachers within, but it meant there was no dedicated place of education for those after the age of eighteen in Faery, except for the schools in Avalon and the mortal realm—and they were hesitant to allow Fae in their halls.
I didn’t blame them. The Fae—both Seelie and Unseelie—were the largest backers of Dante’s claims, though they were the biggest fools falling for his manipulations. The tenuous alliance we’d had with the other realms of Nyx was now holding on by frayed threads, and there was too much the Courts had to do to show they would no longer be an enemy. Especially since Ivy gave them exactly what they wanted.
A Queen.
“And there’s no sign of their Queen yet?” Elias asked from the floor where he assembled some sort of contraption from the human world. Ivy said it was meant for bouncing and walking, and it would either remain in here or downstairs—just nowhere the twins couldn’t use them unsupervised or be put in danger.
The last of the clothes went into a drawer, and I closed it firmly, adding the latch. A habit we were all getting used to. “None, according to my contacts in Faery,” I replied, shutting the closet door and latching it. We were not at the stage of needing them, but Maeve preferred being prepared rather thanlearning as we went. “However, there is something unusual happening.”
Elias pushed the first rolling contraption away with a grunt. “Oh, great. That sounds like a problem.”
I shrugged as I joined him for the next one while Arthur carried in the new changing table. For a male who was still learning to read—that wasn’t a quip at him, but rather admiration, because he’d spent over thirty years trapped in a cage—he sure as hell knew how to build things.
It was fascinating watching him take the instructions to these damned items and simply put them together when Elias and I struggled. One would think my agility and Elias’s strength would mean we could put together a bouncing chair with little effort, but the human instructions were impossible.
But not to him.
As he set the table down, he pressed a hand to Rowan’s shoulder. “Arthur says he’s heard the same thing from the shifters,” the mage said over his shoulder. “And now that you mention it, some students at Oberon are tense.”
“Why haven’t I heard anything?” Elias asked, glancing around the room with annoyance.
Rowan shrugged while I pulled the contents of the chair out of the box. “Something strange is happening on the island of the palace, and some Fae swear they are seeing another land mass appearing,” I murmured. “Now that the magic has shifted in Faery, it appears it’s preparing for something.”
“How can magic prepare for something?” Rowan asked as he joined us with Arthur. The pair took seats around the pile of plastic and fabric. “Is the Fae Queen’s magic like Ivy’s?”
