Page 32 of Postpartum Spells & Infant Hells

She kept her voice low enough to die before it carried to the island. "She worked that exact trick on a boy up in Tromsø four winters back. His mother kissed her hands for it before anyone understood what she'd done," Astrid reported. "The lie is not the part that ought to frighten you. The part that should keep you up at night is that she believes the lie while she does it. It’s as if she cannot see the truth anymore."

"Then somebody had better tell me how I get her warding information and keep my babies safe—" I started, but trailed off when Nana turned from the stove and addressed me.

"You do it the way I kept house with two husbands I half trusted and one I never did at all," Nana cut in. "You keep the woman where you can see her, and you sleep with one eye open."

Nodding in agreement, I cleared my throat and addressed the entire kitchen. “If anybody casts a spell near the babies, Nana will shoot first and ask questions later. Or Aidon will turn you inside out.”

Stella made a face. “I’ve seen him do it. It isn’t pleasant and looks very painful.”

“Stella’s right. But that will pale in comparison to what I will do if I catch one whiff of stray magic,” I informed them coldly.

"You're handling me the way a careful doctor handles a fever he doesn't understand," Morrigan observed as she turned her untouched cup in a slow half-circle from the far end of the island. "I haven't the strength left in me to be insulted by it, and I have no plans to try and help again."

Whatever sharp remark I'd been preparing evaporated when Melaina's cry crackled through the baby monitor. Nyssa joined in a heartbeat later, their voices climbing together in perfect, practiced harmony. Four months old, and they'd already mastered the art of escalating each other's outrage. Thaniel would undoubtedly contribute his opinion at any second.

Aidon moved before I could even reach for my mug. One moment he was beside me, the next he was taking the stairs two at a time. By the time I set my coffee down, he was already coming back with a daughter tucked into each arm. Mom followed behind him, carrying Thaniel, who looked deeply offended by whatever injustice had interrupted his nap.

The sight of my mate completely ruined the image I'd been cultivating. Less than five minutes ago, I'd threatened Morrigan with my terrifying god. Now he was carefully balancing two sleepy babies against his chest while one tiny fist had a death grip on his shirt. Nothing about him looked like the god who could rip out throats in that moment.

"Tell me again how frightening you are," I teased, crossing the room to take Melaina. I settled her against my collarbone, and she immediately began rooting around with the relentless determination of a tax collector hunting overdue payments. The tension that had gripped the room earlier seemed to dissolve without anyone consciously deciding to let it go.

"I contain multitudes, Queenie," Aidon informed me, pressing a kiss to Nyssa's dark fuzz of hair.

The shadows coiled around our daughter like lazy house cats seeking a warm patch of sunlight. Late last night, those same shadows had been a wall of teeth and violence capable of making immortals reconsider their life choices. Now, they were fuzzy bunnies.

"Most of those multitudes," Aidon continued dryly, adjusting Nyssa when she squirmed, "are currently being held hostage by three extremely demanding people who still can't lift their own heads off my arm."

"Tragic," I replied, fighting a smile as Melaina finally settled. "The great and terrible god was brought to his knees."

Aidon met my gaze over the tops of our daughters' heads, amusement warming the blue of his eyes. "Brought to my knees?" he echoed. "Queenie, I surrendered willingly." His admission melted my heart, turning me into a puddle of sappy goo.

The male who could level cities, terrify gods, and reduce monsters to ash looked at our children like they hung every star in the sky. It made it remarkably difficult to remember he'd been terrifying enough to send a room full of immortals into nervous silence just a few minutes earlier. Honestly, it was hard to maintain a proper threat level when one of your daughters was drooling on your shoulder.

For one precious, stretched-out minute, the house felt like ours again. It wasn’t a battlefield. It wasn't a gathering place for witches to fight monsters and family members with questionable boundaries.

It was just ours. I let myself sink into the feeling, memorizing it while it lasted, because experience had taught me those moments were rarer than they should have been. Every time life seemed willing to hand me something ordinary, fate usually appeared five minutes later with a flamethrower and a grudge.

It wasn't even a minute later that Melaina's tiny fist bumped against my shirt, and a spray of golden sparks danced between her fingers. The magic was harmless, little more than a burst of warm light. It was bright and fleeting as a struck match. Still, it was enough to remind me that ordinary wasn't really part of our lives anymore. My daughters were the children of a Pleiades and a god.

There would be no scraped knees without healing magic. No temper tantrums without melting the toaster. And probably no parent-teacher conferences that didn't end with someone questioning the nature of reality. The brief illusion of normalcy slipped quietly away, leaving behind the beautiful, chaotic truth of our lives.

Breakfast settled around us in stages. Coffee disappeared. Brownies mysteriously vanished despite Stella's repeated claims of innocence. Nana launched into three increasingly inappropriate stories from her youth, each somehow worse than the last. Laughter drifted through the room, mixing with the clinking of silverware and the occasional baby coo. The sharp edge left behind by Morrigan's treachery gradually dulled beneath the comfortable weight of family and routine.

I ate and fed the babies yet again. At this point, I was beginning to suspect that my primary purpose in existence was to serve as a magical dairy cow, with occasional witchy responsibilities mixed in. Not that I truly minded. There were certainly worse jobs.

Melaina's tiny hand curled around one of my fingers while she ate, and Nyssa kept pausing every few seconds to stare up at me with wide, solemn eyes as though she was conducting a very serious inspection. Across the room, Thaniel snored softly against Mom's shoulder. All of them were completely unaware of the effort required to keep three tiny demigods alive and fed.

A warmth settled in my chest as I looked at them. Exhaustion lived there too, along with the permanent ache of interrupted sleep. The love outweighed all of it. Every feeding, every sleepless night, every spit-up-covered shirt felt strangely insignificant when I held them this close. The rest of the world could keep its monsters, prophecies, and impending disasters for a few more minutes. Right then, with my babies tucked safely in my arms and the morning stretching lazily around us, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

When the babies were asleep in the living room cribs with Nana and Tarja watching over them, I cornered Morrigan. "You're wearing the face I've been dreaming of for weeks,” I informed her. “I want to know why before you go anywhere near my warding." I dropped into the chair across from her and flattened my hot palm to the table. "Skip the lies. I know better."

"Grief teaches a frightened mother to read her worst fear into every stranger she passes, Phoebe." Morrigan smiled. "I never once set foot on your land before the afternoon I knocked at your door."

"There it is." I leaned in toward her instead of away. "Your answer came a full breath behind a living woman's. Exactly the way my familiar swore it would. You’re like a dead thing studying the room so it can copy what living looks like. You can quit selling me grief and tell me what's actually sitting in my chair."

The smile slid clean off, and the silver flooded to the rims of her eyes before she dragged it down by main force. "Less of me than you're hoping for, child," she returned, both gloved hands tightening on the cane until the leather creaked. "Half of me never came home from the dark, and that is the whole truth of what you've earned sitting there glowing at me."

"I've earned every word and then some, because you stood at my tree line in the rain for five nights running before I ever called." I refused to let her off the hook. "Tell me where the rest of you is, or I'll decide spying was the kinder reading and start treating you like it."