“I’m the best in my year.”
“How good is that?”
Wisdom smiled at him. “I can turn you into a toad.”
“He can’t!” Verity yelled. “He just says that to scare people.”
“I’ll turnyouinto a toad.” Wisdom chased Verity across the kitchen while she screeched in delight.
Lorzok laughed. “Be kind to Saer Wisdom, Kell. I can catch those trout, if you’ll point out where the best spot is.”
He grinned and gave Lorzok a hand-knotted net. “Deal.”
Lorzok followed Wisdom out to the trout pond.
Jubilee beckoned Kell to follow with the baskets and started putting away everything she’d foraged. The tiefling who stood at a gleaming marble counter stretched a blob of bread dough by one corner and folded it in. She smiled at Kell and gave a single sharp upward nod of greeting. Kell echoed it before he could think, and when she winked, Kell felt the base of his throat quiver like he’d told a lie.
“Kell Redsong,” he said. “But I—I’m not in the game anymore. I just have the habits.”
“Serenity Righthoof,” the middle-aged tiefling replied. “I was a Harper-trained infiltration specialist before Bastion and I retired from the Golden Guardians.”
Kell swiveled to stare at Jubilee. “Your mother is Serenity Surefingers? Your father is the Bastion of Light? And you—”
“Stop,” Jubilee said. “Please, it’s not a big deal.”
Serenity Surefingers!“I know a song about you, ma’am.”
“Lord of light, don’tma’amme. Which song?”
“ ‘Pickled Garlic and True Love.’ ”
“I like that one,” Serenity said. “The chorus is a mug-thumper.”
“The one about you saving Pa from a vampire?” Jubilee asked incredulously. “What about ‘Undermountain Light’?”
“It’s weepy,” Serenity and Kell said, and smiled at each other. He’d paid the night’s rent singing about Serenity Surefingers, and here she was, making bread.
Jubilee groaned and put an egg in a wire rack. “The melody is beautiful.”
“You didn’t tell me you were adventurer royalty, Jubilee.”
“Jubilee is a proud girl.” Serenity gave Jubilee a fond smile. “She thinks letting people know that she’s a child of the GoldenGuardians will raise expectations of her own skills too high. As if her mother would send her into the world without teaching her everything she knows. She can pick a seven-pin quickened barrel tumbler faster than I ever could, did she tell you that?”
“Mum!”
Serenity slapped the now-shaped loaf into a cloth-lined basket and took up another. “And now I’m embarrassing her, as if she were a lass of fifteen. You can’t be proud of your children at that age.” She leaned closer and stage-whispered, “It’s mortifying.”
Kell couldn’t help chuckling. “Everything is mortifying when you’re young.”
Jubilee made a face. “I’m not fifteen anymore. You’re just embarrassing me on purpose.”
“I remember too well.” She turned her attention back to Kell, and if she hadn’t spotted every hidden blade and dart in his attire, he’d eat his boots. “Kell, hm? You’re obviously a specialist of some experience. Have you joined my daughter and her partner, Saeldian, for a new venture?”
Her eyes gleamed with vicarious anticipation. Behind her, Jubilee drew her thumb across her throat and tapped her fingers against her thumb.Don’t tell her. Quack about something else.
“I knew Saeldian from a long time ago,” Kell said. “I was shocked to my bones to see them.”
“How long ago?”
