Chapter 227: Four Children, Four Opinions, and Zero Agreement (Naturally)
Chapter 227: Four Children, Four Opinions, and Zero Agreement (Naturally)
Elyn’s POV
Remember when I said Azerion and Velira were still arguing... well, let’s go up a level. They were close to trading blows.
I could see it happening in real time.
Azerion’s eyes had shifted — the round blue he kept for my benefit was gone, replaced with those sharp serpentine slits that meant he was just a few seconds from transforming into his serpentine self.
And Velira’s wings had snapped open behind her, small as they were, spreading wide, the purple deepening into something darker as her eyes took on that same deeper shade.
Two tiny demons squaring up in the middle of my office.
Over something they had found on the floor.
"Give it back," Azerion said.
"I found it on the floor," Velira said, her voice sharp and completely unbothered by the slitted eyes currently directed at her. "I don’t see your name on it."
"My name doesn’t have to be on it. It’s mine."
"Your name has to be on it," she told him flatly. "If your name isn’t on it then it isn’t yours and I’m not giving it to you."
"It is mine—"
I stood up and stepped between them before they could do something I would not be able to stop.
They stopped immediately and turned to look at me.
The wings didn’t fold right away. The slitted eyes didn’t shift back immediately either. But they stopped, which was what mattered.
"What," I said, looking between them, "is going on?"
Velira held up a small dark box.
I stilled.
"I found it on the floor," she said, with the calm confidence of someone presenting evidence. "It was just sitting there, so I picked it up. And then he—" she pointed at Azerion, "—started fighting me for it."
"It’s mine," Azerion said again.
I held out my hand.
Velira placed the box in it without hesitation.
I turned it over once.
Dark wood. Lacquered smooth. Pearl shards around the edges in that rippling pattern. The tiny runes under the rim, fine as flecks of stars.
This was the box Kethra had made for me with those calming sweets in them. Azerion had his own but this one in particular was mine.
I looked at Azerion.
"This is mine," I told him.
Azerion’s eyes shifted back to the round orbs.
He cleared his throat. "I made a mistake," he said, with great dignity. "The boxes look alike. I thought it was my own."
Yeah... I did not believe that for one bit. Azerion had the habit of stealing this box after all, and seeing that I was gone for a while due to the ball, I’m not surprised that he now claimed it as his.
Velira turned to him with the expression of someone who had just won something.
"You were fighting me," she said, "for something that wasn’t even yours?"
"What’s the queen’s is mine too. We are marked after all," Azerion said proudly.
"Yeah... don’t let the king hear you," Rin muttered, but Azerion didn’t hear that.
He was focused on Velira. "And besides, I admitted I was mistaken."
"Only after the queen said it was hers," Velira said.
A mistake? Yeah... no. It was not a mistake. I was very certain of that.
I turned the box over in my hands and shook it gently against my palm.
Nothing came out.
I shook it again.
Still nothing.
I held it up slightly and shook it once more, just to be certain.
Empty.
I would have really liked one of those small comforts right now. Just one. Given everything that had happened in the last few minutes, one small merrowberry bonbon would have gone a long way.
But there was nothing.
I turned to Azerion.
"It wasn’t me," he said immediately. "There were still sweets in it when I last saw it."
I turned to Velira then and she immediately looked down at the floor.
"I just wanted to try it," she said quietly. "I only took ten. I swear."
The fact that she was telling me the exact number. The fact that she had counted.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or even shout. I genuinely didn’t know what to do with that information. And besides, if she just wanted to try it, would she take ten?
I shook my head.
"Stop arguing, both of you," I said to Velira and Azerion.
Neither of them looked thrilled about this instruction but neither of them argued with it either, which I was going to count as a win.
I set the box down on the desk.
Then I looked across the room at Aziren and Zayrion, who had been watching all of this from a comfortable distance.
I beckoned them over.
They came without hesitation — Aziren immediately, his amber eyes curious, the flames in his hair calm and soft. Zayrion a step behind him, red beads swaying, glasses straight for once.
I looked at all four of them.
And then I crouched down.
Because I had made this bed and I was going to lie in it.
I had four children in my office and sending them away wasn’t something I was going to do. That wasn’t who I was. I had said I would watch them and I would watch them.
Even if it killed me.
Which, at this rate, it might.
"Since you’re all here with me," I said, looking between them, "what do you want to do? What games do you want to pla..."
I had barely finished the sentence.
"Picnic," Aziren said immediately, eyes lighting up.
That wasn’t a game.
"Dress up," Velira said at the exact same time, her wings perking behind her.
"We should play guess who," Zayrion said, adjusting his glasses with one finger, which given what he had just pulled with the Rin situation I was going to need to think very carefully about.
"Hide and seek," Azerion said, already looking around the office like he was scoping out potential hiding spots.