Ch. 271 Room for One More

Chapter 271: Room for One More

The question returned while I was repairing a cradle.

Not one of ours.

The infirmary had received a woman from the northern farms two days earlier. She had delivered a daughter before sunset, and the child had objected loudly to nearly every arrangement made for her comfort.

Ilyen considered this evidence of excellent health.

The old cradle in the family room had a loose rail.

I had offered to repair it.

Evelyn watched me fit a new wooden peg into place.

“You’re smiling,” she said.

“I’m concentrating.”

“You smile when you concentrate?”

“When the work is going well.”

“You frowned through most of the boat you made Garrick.”

“The boat was difficult.”

“It was a piece of wood.”

“It became a boat.”

She sat beside me.

“So did this become a cradle.”

I looked at it.

The question had already entered the room.

Neither of us pretended otherwise.

The infant slept in her mother’s arms near the window.

One tiny hand had escaped her blanket.

Evelyn watched the fingers open and close.

“We said maybe one more.”

“We did.”

“That was before your ascension.”

“Yes.”

“Before the twins began collecting divine powers like Garrick collects objects from Mary’s desk.”

“He returned her seal.”

“He put it in the fountain.”

“She found it.”

My wife looked at me.

“That is not the same as returning it.”

I set down the small hammer.

“No.”

Evelyn rested both hands in her lap.

“Do you still want another child?”

The answer arrived before fear could improve it.

“Yes.”

Her eyes softened.

“So do I.”

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The baby near the window sighed in her sleep.

Beyond the infirmary, workers cleared stone from one of the preserved district’s old courtyards.

Hammers sounded.

A cart passed beneath the arch.

Havenreach continued growing around us.

“I don’t want to decide because I miss when Carol and Garrick were small,” Evelyn said.

“They are still small.”

“Yesterday Garrick opened a cupboard from the other side of the room.”

“That does not make him tall.”

“He also corrected Aurelia.”

“He told her no.”

“He was correct.”

“That may be hereditary.”

She nudged my knee.

I took her hand.

“There are risks.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t know what a child between us would be now.”

“We knew very little the first time.”

“We knew we were mortal.”

Evelyn glanced at my hair.

It had become entirely pale blue-white.

Lightning moved faintly at the edges of my sight whenever emotion disturbed my control.

I had grown used to seeing those changes in a mirror.

I had not grown used to what they meant for everyone I loved.

“You were never entirely ordinary,” she said.

“That is generous.”

“It was not meant entirely as praise.”

I laughed.

The infant stirred.

Her mother gave us a tired look.

We lowered our voices.

“We should ask,” Evelyn said.

“Aurelia?”

“And Rysa.”

I nodded.

Rysa’s domain concerned children.

Not birth alone.

Childhood.

Growth.

The protections young lives required before they could protect themselves.

She had been the one to identify the twins’ shared domain—the ability to echo other gods, mimic their powers, and retain what they learned through long exposure.

She had also been the first person to say plainly that Carol and Garrick might someday become more powerful than every god who currently lived.

I had not slept particularly well after that conversation.

“Io too,” Evelyn continued.

“That seems sensible.”

“And my mother.”

I looked at her.

“Your mother is not a goddess.”

“No.”

“Or a healer.”

“No.”

“Then why do I find her the most frightening person on that list?”

“Experience.”

We did not make the decision in the infirmary.

We carried it home.

It remained between us through supper while Carol refused carrots, Garrick ate Carol’s carrots, and both children attempted to persuade Aurelia that this counted as cooperation.

It followed us upstairs.

Evelyn wrote in their birthday books.

I checked the nursery window twice, although it had not changed since the first time.

When the twins finally slept, we sat on the rug between their beds.

Carol held the red cloth Seraphina had given her.

Garrick had one hand closed around the little wooden dog.

They looked peaceful.

That was deceptive.

“They would be older siblings,” Evelyn whispered.

I considered them.

“Carol would be protective.”

“Garrick would teach the baby how to enter locked rooms.”

“We would discourage that.”

“We have discouraged him.”

“That is true.”

Evelyn leaned against me.

“I’m afraid wanting another child is selfish.”

“Wanting the first two was selfish.”

She lifted her head.

“That is a terrible thing to say.”

“I wanted a family with you. You wanted one with me. We did not ask Carol and Garrick whether they wished to exist.”

“They would have been difficult to consult.”

“Exactly.”

“That does not help your argument.”

“It was not a very good argument.”

My wife rested her head against my shoulder again.

I put an arm around her.

“We can want something for ourselves without believing we are entitled to it,” I said. “We can ask whether it is possible. We can understand the danger. Then we can choose.”

“That was better.”

“I needed time.”

A faint golden light moved beneath Evelyn’s skin.

It no longer appeared only when she healed.

Sometimes it answered strong feeling.

Sometimes it gathered when the twins touched her.

Her path toward sainthood had changed her body slowly, though Ilyen still refused to call the process completed.

My wife’s aging had slowed.

Her power recognized her by name.

Now we were considering what that power might mean for a life growing within her.

“We ask everyone,” I said.

“Everyone on the list.”

“Then we decide again.”

Evelyn nodded.

“Again?”

“We decided that we want another child. We have not decided that wanting is enough.”

She kissed my cheek.

“That was almost wise.”

“I have been practicing.”

Aurelia met with Evelyn the next morning.

I was not invited.

Evelyn said she wanted the first medical conversation without me listening to every possible danger and turning it into a siege plan.

I considered objecting.

Then I realized doing so would prove her point.

I took the twins to the lower courtyard.

Rysa joined us there.

This meant I had been excluded from two conversations instead of one.

Rysa was a small woman with deep brown skin, dark curls threaded with silver, and the calmest voice I had ever heard used to stop a child from doing something dangerous.

Garrick had once begun folding the space between himself and the top of a wall.

Rysa had said his name.

He had stopped.

I had asked her afterward how she had done it.

She told me she had expected him to listen.

Apparently I had been weakening my own authority by sounding surprised.

Carol sat on the paving stones arranging wooden blocks around Rysa’s feet.

Garrick moved them whenever his sister looked away.

Rysa watched without interfering.

“Are you asking about another child?” I said.

“I am waiting for Evelyn.”

“She is with Aurelia.”

“I know.”

“Did she tell you?”

“No.”

I looked at her.

Rysa smiled.

“You repaired an unused cradle yesterday. Evelyn spent supper watching the twins as though she were measuring space between them. Both of you have asked three times whether pregnancy near apotheosis is safe.”

“Twice.”

“You asked Aurelia twice. Evelyn asked Thesra.”

I picked up a block Garrick had pushed beneath my boot.

“That seems unfair.”

“It is observation.”

Mary would have approved.

Evelyn and Aurelia emerged from the western passage an hour later.

My wife looked thoughtful.

Not frightened.

That allowed me to breathe more easily.

Rysa led us into a small room beside the courtyard.

The twins came with us.

Any discussion concerning another child would eventually concern them.

Also, leaving them outside would have endangered the fountain.

Aurelia sat opposite Evelyn.

Rysa took the chair beside her.

I held Garrick.

Carol climbed into Evelyn’s lap.

“Well?” I asked.

Aurelia gave me the look she reserved for students who tried to begin halfway through a lesson.

“We should start with what we know.”

“That usually takes longer.”

“Yes.”

“Evelyn is healthy,” Aurelia said. “Her body has recovered fully from carrying the twins. Her connection to healing and continuance is strengthening, but it is stable.”

“Would pregnancy make the sainthood progress faster?” I asked.

“Possibly.”

“Would the sainthood change the child?”

“Possibly.”

“You have used that word twice.”

“I expect to use it again.”

I tried not to lean forward.

Aurelia noticed anyway.

“The child would not necessarily be divine,” she continued. “Parentage alone does not determine ascension, domain, or immortality.”

“But it could carry divine power,” Evelyn said.

“Yes.”

“Mine or Uriah’s?”

“Both. Neither. Some expression created between them.”

I looked at Rysa.

She had been watching the twins.

“What do you think?”

Rysa folded her hands.

“A child begins as possibility.”

“That sounds like Evelyn’s domain,” I said.

“It is close to hers. That matters.”

She looked at my wife.

“Your body does not reject Uriah’s power. It has known him since before his ascension. Your own transformation has grown beside his. That makes conception more likely to be possible without injury.”

“More likely,” I repeated.

Rysa nodded.

“I will not promise certainty because you are afraid of uncertainty.”

The words were gentle.

They still struck cleanly.

“What could happen?” Evelyn asked.

“The child might develop quickly, as the twins have. It might begin expressing a domain before birth. It might draw upon Uriah’s storms or winter when distressed.”

I imagined lightning during labor.

Aurelia touched my wrist.

The room had become colder.

I let the power settle.

“Could the child harm Evelyn?” I asked.

“Any pregnancy carries risk,” Aurelia said. “This one would carry risks we have not seen before.”

“Can they be managed?”

“We believe so.”

“Believe.”

“Yes, Uriah.”

I closed my mouth.

Evelyn rubbed Carol’s back.

“What about the twins’ domain?” she asked Rysa. “Would another child share it?”

“Not automatically.”

“Could Carol and Garrick echo through the child?”

Rysa considered that longer.

“They share power easily. They may try to help before they understand what the child needs.”

Garrick looked at her.

“I help.”

“You do,” Rysa said. “Sometimes help begins by waiting.”

He frowned.

It was not one of his preferred domains.

Rysa explained that the twins would need new boundaries before any pregnancy began.

They could not place power into the baby without permission.

They could not fold space around Evelyn.

They could not imitate healing inside her body.

“They’re two,” I said.

“They are growing faster than normal.”

“That does not improve the problem.”

“No. It explains why the lessons must begin before the problem.”

Carol touched Evelyn’s stomach.

“Baby?”

Nobody had told her.

Evelyn looked at me.

I looked at Rysa.

Rysa appeared unsurprised.

“Not yet,” Evelyn told her.

Carol considered.

Then patted her mother once.

“Maybe.”

“Yes,” Evelyn whispered. “Maybe.”

Io came through the transit gate that afternoon.

She arrived without a formal party.

Only one guard, Shadow, and a basket containing food Lisbeth had insisted she bring.

Evelyn met her in our sitting room.

I intended to leave them alone.

Io stopped me at the door.

“You are part of the question.”

“I was told this consultation was for Evelyn.”

“It is. She may wish to consult while looking at the person responsible for half the difficulty.”

“That description seems unfair.”

“Most accurate descriptions do.”

Evelyn smiled.

I stayed.

Shadow immediately took my chair.

I found another.