Page 68 of My Eternal Light

A tall fae man ruffled Kincaid’s hair. “Power looks good on you kid.”

Kincaid grinned up. “Thanks, Aeson. I’d like to introduce my mate, but I have a feeling if she has to learn any more names, she’ll leave me.”

Zadie laughed. “I’m a teacher, remember? Learning names is part of the job description.”

“We had name tags, but most of them fell off,” another fae man said, looking actually sad at the fact. “I want to order more of the same, but they didn’t have any baby animal versions left.”

Kincaid pointed. “That’s Balder, he tries to keep us organized.”

Zadie knew that if they all haphazardly started yelling names, she really wouldn’t learn them, so she treated them like her students. She looked around and picked up a wooden spoon. “When the spoon gets to you, tell me your name and an odd fact about you. You have to pass it off to someone who hasn’t gone yet. If you pass it to someone who has already gone, you lose.” She handed the spoon to Ramsey.

“I’m Ramsey Lionhart and I think it’s cool that three Lionharts serve as warriors.”

One by one the men introduced themselves, sometimes throwing the spoon at their fellow warriors, whether they were anticipating it or not. If children had done that, she would have stopped it immediately, but it was entertaining to watch a wooden spoon ricochet off an unsuspecting warriors head.

When everyone had gone, the men looked truly heartbroken.

Oh, dear. They’re all adorable.

“I don’t suppose you gentlemen have any extra food for a hungry teacher, would you?” she asked.

The men literally began to trip over themselves to get her and Kincaid sat at one of the makeshift tables. Looking closer she realized they were eating off a door propped up on a set of sawhorses.

“How goes the projects?” she asked, as Leon piled her plate high.

He grinned. “We gave up on the paint. I heard you had said something about the walls being dry. When one wall took nearly three gallons, we switched to magic. Easier, faster and with less fumes.”

He picked up another bowl and spooned out a huge serving of potato salad. “The walls to separate the classroom and the playroom was easy, though the plumbing for the public style bathrooms hurt my poor brain. We let Aeson figure it out.” He waved the spoon about. “And that bed! Gods above. It took all our fae warriors and charms to move the damn thing. We put a standard king in there until you can commission what you want.” He leaned in. “I bet if you ask nice, Ramsey can put in a good word with his cousin Declan. That lion carved his own bed in Noctem Falls.”

“Fireplace?” Kincaid asked, hopefully, then crammed a huge sandwich in his mouth.

Aeson nodded. “That was surprisingly easier to manage than the plumbing.

“How did the kid’s rooms turn out?” she asked.

Ian, Phi’s witch, sat forward looking excited. “So, hear us out.”

She put her fork of potato salad down. “Oh boy.”

Balder waved his hands. “No, we think it’s a good thing.”

“Go, on.”

Ian continued. “The squires did a great job cleaning so we jumped right into room setups. We can see why you would want the kids on the second floor for privacy, but it’s just a law of averages. One of them will fall down those stairs. So, we completely gutted the space on the first floor where the kid’s rooms would be. We made sure it was only accessible from the shared common area, which should have limited access.”

“All of them?”

“We took a page from Nigel and Neil’s architecture book and made four sections, each with their own common area feeding into a main living space for the kids. It resulted in smaller rooms, but I don’t think they’ll mind,” he explained.

“Okay, I’m kinda with you so far.”

Ian held up his hands. “Think of a lower case ’t’. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call each branch ‘A-D’ after the kids. The main door to the area is at the intersection of ‘A’ and ‘D’. You walk in and you’re in the classroom and play area. Each wall going clockwise has a door leading to a different kid’s section. We did public style restrooms on the wall shared with the oldest kids and the youngest kids since, as we discovered with Yuki and Ame, all toilet sizes are not the same.”

She covered her mouth. “I never even thought of the size differences.”

Ian nodded. “We figured the ones for the five-year-olds and eventually when the babies are getting potty trained, it would be easier if they were the low to the ground style.”

“How are the kid’s actual rooms arranged?”

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