Ch. 245 The Distance Between Breakfast

Chapter 245: The Distance Between Breakfasts

Io came through the transit gate the following morning.

She carried Seraphina.

Ignatius held her free hand.

A palace guard followed with a basket.

No formal delegation.

No council representatives.

No musicians.

Mary looked past them.

“Is that everyone?”

“Yes,” Io said.

“You did not send notice.”

“I sent notice to Evelyn.”

Mary turned toward my wife.

Evelyn held up a folded page.

“I received it.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“And you did not provide it to the gate record?”

“It says she wanted to visit for breakfast.”

“That is still a visit between sovereign families.”

Io looked toward the basket.

“I brought jam.”

Mary’s expression did not change.

“What kind?”

“Plum.”

Mary added three lines to her book.

The visit was approved.

Carol and Garrick had been waiting beside the inner boundary.

They had learned the sound Concordia made when it answered the gate.

Carol began bouncing before the passage fully opened.

Garrick attempted to cross the marked line.

The Castellan stopped him with one metal hand.

“Not until recognition is complete.”

“Friends.”

“Yes.”

“Now.”

“No.”

The twins had encountered a being their impatience could not move.

This remained useful.

The pale lines on Concordia’s side brightened.

Greykeep answered.

The road stabilized.

Ignatius saw Garrick.

Garrick saw Ignatius.

Both boys shouted.

Neither used a recognizable word.

The intent was clear.

Seraphina twisted in Io’s arms until she could see Carol.

Carol held up Blue.

Seraphina held up a white cloth bird.

Apparently gifts had been selected in advance.

The gate admitted them.

The four children met in the center of the chamber.

For several seconds, they only looked at one another.

Then Garrick gave Ignatius one of his spoons.

Friendship became official.

Breakfast moved to the smaller hall.

Io sat beside Evelyn.

The four children occupied one end of the lowered table.

Helena sat across from them.

Rysa remained nearby.

Aurethar stood beside the wall in human form, pretending not to supervise the First Flame.

Shadow sat beneath Seraphina’s chair.

Everyone else attempted to eat normally.

This failed when Ignatius warmed the plum jam.

Carol copied him.

Seraphina heated the bread.

Garrick folded the distance between both plates.

The jam arrived on the bread without assistance from a knife.

Helena looked at the result.

“That is clever.”

The four children smiled.

“It is also not how we pass food,” she continued.

Their smiles faded.

“Names first,” Rysa reminded them.

“Ignatius,” the boy said.

“Carol.”

“Seraphina.”

Garrick pointed toward himself.

“Garrick.”

“What did you want?” Rysa asked.

“Jam,” all four answered.

I looked at Evelyn.

“That may be their first shared declaration.”

Io laughed.

“They have excellent priorities.”

The visit lasted until midday.

Io and Evelyn went to the chapel.

The children remained in the nursery with Rysa, Helena, and Aurethar.

I joined Lexander through the gate for a discussion about assembly security.

At least, that was the arrangement.

What actually happened was that Lexander came to Greykeep because Io had remained longer than expected.

He entered the council chamber carrying Ignatius’s second shoe.

“I found this in the gate chamber.”

The Castellan looked at the shoe.

“It does not possess travel authority.”

“I assumed not.”

“Why are you carrying it?”

Lexander considered.

“I was hoping someone here knew where the child was.”

“He is in the nursery.”

“Good.”

Lexander put the shoe on the table.

Mary moved it away from the assembly documents.

By the end of the week, Io had visited Greykeep four times.

Evelyn had gone to Concordia three.

The gate schedule acquired a line labeled family passage.

Mary disliked the phrase because it failed to identify which family.

Thor suggested children exchanging dangerous abilities.

Mary disliked that more.

The final wording became:

Authorized domestic transit between the royal households of Greykeep and Concordia.

It required an entire line.

Melody wrote friends beside it.

Mary erased the word.

It reappeared the following morning.

Evelyn began keeping a travel basket near the nursery door.

Blankets.

Extra clothes.

Food.

Bandages.

Two cups.

Four cloth figures.

A folded copy of the children’s boundaries.

I asked why she needed bandages when three healers, two divine children with healing instincts, Aurelia, Io, and a dragon were usually nearby.

“Because children fall down.”

“That seems ordinary.”

“It is.”

She placed another roll of cloth inside.

“Ordinary things still happen around power.”

Rysa had said something similar.

Perhaps all good teaching eventually sounded the same.

Io’s basket was larger.

Lisbeth packed it.

This explained why it contained enough clothing for a week.

The first time Evelyn opened it, she found three hats for each Concordian child.

“The weather might change,” Lisbeth had written.

They were traveling through a gate between two enclosed chambers.

Evelyn sent two hats back.

Lisbeth returned four.

Helena saw them.

Correspondence began.

Within days, the two women had established an exchange concerning wool, sleeve length, reinforced pockets, winter boots, and the moral failure of decorative buttons on children’s clothing.

Thor had predicted they would become friends or enemies.

They accomplished both.

Io and Evelyn’s friendship developed more quietly.

At first, they spoke about the children.

Eating.

Sleeping.

Power appearing at inconvenient times.

Which cries required immediate attention.

Which silences were worse.

How to teach children to release a working before they understood why anyone would want to.

Then they spoke about healing.

Io showed Evelyn how the First Flame recognized injury before touch.

Evelyn demonstrated the boundaries Aurelia used to keep compassion from becoming intrusion.

They compared the two methods.

Argued.

Tested them.

Changed both.

Liora began attending when they met in Greykeep’s chapel.

Two Concordian healers joined when they met there.

Within two weeks, the exchange had produced six pages of new practice.

Mary approved of that kind of friendship.

They also spoke about things no official record received.

I knew because Mary asked.

Evelyn declined to tell her.

Mary accepted that.

With visible effort.

One afternoon, I found Io and Evelyn sitting on the chapel steps.

Neither had brought papers.

The children played in the courtyard below them.

Io held two cups.

Evelyn held none.

I approached.

My wife looked at me.

“This is private.”

“I live here.”

“That does not change the sentence.”

Io offered me one cup.

I reached for it.

She moved it away.

“This is also mine.”

I continued toward the military yard.

Their laughter followed me.

Later, Evelyn told me part of what they had discussed.

Not all.

Enough.

Io understood what it meant to be a mortal woman married to a man who carried an old god’s memories.

Evelyn understood what it meant to love someone who had become divine while their shared life remained full of laundry, interrupted sleep, and questions about whether there should be another child.

“She worries Lexander will keep trying to solve every danger before it reaches the family,” Evelyn said.

“That sounds sensible.”

“It sounds familiar.”

“I do not try to solve every danger.”

She looked at me.

“I delegate some.”

“That is not the defense you believe it is.”

Io had asked whether Evelyn feared growing old while I did not.

The question remained between us after she told me.

We had discussed it before.

Not enough.

Perhaps no answer could become enough while the future remained distant.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“That I fear many things.”

“Helpful.”

“That loving you has never required the absence of fear.”

I took her hand.

“And Io?”

“She fears it too.”

“Lexander was mortal when they found each other again.”

“He has been more than mortal before. The distinction is complicated.”

That described most of our lives.

“Did you discuss another child?” I asked.

Evelyn smiled slightly.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She told me to stop asking gods whether I am allowed to want one.”

I blinked.

“That sounds direct.”

“It was.”

“Did she say whether it would be safe?”

“She said safety and desire are separate questions.”

“That sounds less direct.”

“It was the useful part.”

Evelyn leaned against me.

“Maybe one more remains my answer.”

“Mine too.”

“After the assembly.”

“After we recover.”

She smiled.

The plan remained.

The children needed less discussion to become friends.

They expected the gate to open.

If Concordia’s note sounded after breakfast, Carol and Garrick ran toward the western stair.

If Greykeep’s family passage began first, Ignatius and Seraphina waited on the other side.

The four of them developed greetings.

Carol and Seraphina touched hands.

A small light passed between them.

Garrick and Ignatius exchanged objects.

Usually spoons.

Once a shoe.

Once a stone.

Once something Lexander believed had come from Loki’s desk.

Nobody returned that immediately.

They played differently together than apart.

Carol and Garrick normally built.

Ignatius wanted to test everything they built.

Seraphina wanted to change it.

The first shared fort lasted six minutes.

Carol raised walls of packed snow in the nursery despite the complete absence of weather.

Garrick folded the space inside so it became larger than the outside.

Ignatius warmed the floor.

Seraphina burned a doorway through the wrong wall.

The fort collapsed inward.

Aurethar caught it before it reached them.

He stood holding several hundred pounds of snow above four laughing children.

Rysa looked at him.

“Do not laugh.”

“I am not.”

Gold fire moved between his teeth.

“You are.”

“A little.”

The second fort included a planned door.

The third included two.

The fourth had a small room for Shadow.

The cat refused to use it.

She sat on the roof.

By the seventh attempt, the children could build the entire structure without damaging the nursery floor.

Carol shaped snow.

Garrick shaped distance.

Ignatius kept the walls from becoming too cold.

Seraphina ended every crack as it formed.

Their powers moved together.

Not merged.

Cooperating.

Aurethar watched closely.

“So this is what the stone meant,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Four interpretations coexisting without surrender.”

“They’re building a fort.”

“Yes.”

“They are two.”

“So were the first people to discover sharing.”

I looked at him.

“That cannot be true.”

“It is not.”

Dragons could make jokes.

They simply refused to warn anyone.

The four children began using the same boundaries.

Name.

Want.

Permission.

Stop.

Rysa added another word.

“Friend.”

She placed one toy between them.

“If you want to use another person’s power, you ask.”

Ignatius pointed to Carol’s snow.

“Friend?”

Carol thought.

“Yes.”

She passed him a small ball of frost.

Seraphina looked toward Garrick.

“Friend?”

He handed her a wooden ring.

“That is not your power,” I said.

Garrick ignored me.

Seraphina accepted it.

The lesson continued imperfectly.

The first accident happened in Concordia.

Seraphina became angry when Carol took the cloth bird.

The First Flame rose around her.

Carol answered with ice.

Garrick folded himself between them.

Ignatius reached for both powers.

For one instant, the nursery contained fire, winter, compressed space, and a healing working seeking somewhere to go.

Io called Seraphina’s name.

Evelyn called Carol’s.

Both girls stopped.

Not immediately.

Enough.

Aurethar extinguished the remaining flame.

I pulled the cold into myself.

Lexander closed the spatial fold.

Ignatius sat down and began crying.

The others joined him.

Nobody was punished for the power.

The bird had been taken without asking.

That was handled separately.

Carol returned it.

Seraphina accepted it.

Then handed it back.

Both girls cried harder.

Io sat on the floor with them.

Evelyn joined her.

Garrick climbed into my lap.

Ignatius climbed into Lexander’s.

For ten minutes, nobody was a ruler, goddess, king, reincarnated god, saintess-in-training, dragon guardian, or possible future power feared across the world.

We were parents with four upset children.

That felt more difficult.

It was also more important.