Page 70 of My Haven
“I have a feeling Arlo will be wrapped up with Troy for the foreseeable future, but I’ll discuss this with him when he comes up for air,” she said, taking in his jubilant expression.
Caiden turned to Nan. “What she’s not saying is that she has a degree in nutrition. The meals will be healthy and taste amazing.”
She looked at him. “You know about my degrees?”
Caiden flushed. “When I found you, I went back and watched all your videos, maybe repeatedly.”
She paused. “This is probably one of those instances where you don’t mean to sound creepy huh?
Meryn cackled behind them.
Caiden’s eyes grew wide. “That was creepy?”
She held up her fingers an inch apart. “Just a little.”
“I wanted you to know that I enjoyed your videos and support your work,” Caiden said, looking alarmed. “Does that mean liking all your videos was bad too?”
“It was a bit funny to see my older videos getting so much attention,” she admitted.
“You always said, ‘Hit like and subscribe’ so I did,” he explained.
“Thank you, for the support.”
Nan touched her arm. “Are you sure this is something you want to do? It’s a big undertaking.”
She nodded. “It feels right.”
“As the Goddess wills.” Nan dashed at her eyes. “It will help more than you will ever know.”
“It will be infinitely more satisfying to ensure the children are getting healthy meals, than impressing hipsters online,” she said, taking Caiden’s hand.
Nigel, then Neil gave her a big hug.
“Can we help, while we’re here?” Neil asked.
“Sure, you know the area better than I do. I can send you out for groceries,” she suggested.
Caiden looked at his watch. “Let’s head up to the Inner City, then we can start to head home.”
Meryn waved to the kids, making faces at them. They laughed and made faces back.
They walked up Market Street again, passing through the gates to the Inner City. Immediately she could see the difference. The buildings were bigger, more elaborate, with more wood and carpentry involved. Fabrics used brighter colors and it had a more open feel to it. Where in the Lower City the buildings seemed almost on top of one another, here, there were alleys and wide awnings.
“Wow,” she murmured.
“The Inner City was meant to be more of merchant plaza. There used to be more houses along the gate so there wasn’t a big difference between the Inner City and the Lower City, just the distance you had to walk to go shopping. Over time, those buildings were torn down so that the distinctions between the two districts were stark. Merchants and the higher ranked witches who moved here began to pour money into their homes, creating an upper middle-class zone,” Caiden said, pointing to stones that aged differently than the others. “Those used to be foundation stones.”
Meryn looked around. “Where do your Founding and Noble families live?”
“In our history, there were four Founding Families. The Ashleighs and Ironwoods were the sword and shield for our royalty. Then we had the Silverwoods and the Goldenleafs. The Silverwoods lead the Air Temple.” He smiled. “My mother is a Silverwood.” He sighed. “The Goldenleafs, unfortunately died out over time. Father said that the Bayberrys will be elevated due to Kincaid’s new powers.”
“Holy cow, does he know that?” Meryn asked.
Caiden shook his head. “I haven’t received any frantic texts or emails from Kincaid, so I can only assume he thinks he has that rank superficially.”
“How so?” Genevieve asked.
“Thane said he overheard Kincaid telling Kendrick that having three powers would be equivalent to being a Founding Family member, not that he actually was one,” Caiden explained.
