Making Time to Hang

It was nearly lunchtime when Mike and Lily reached the centaur village. Humans and centaurs alike were bustling about with their day-to-day activities. For a few minutes, Mike stood to the side where nobody would see him just to watch.

It wasn’t that he was trying to be sneaky. He enjoyed seeing how well the people of Avalon got along with the moon tribe. There was a bit of hero worship behavior from the former villagers, along with a semi-regular petition regarding a breeding program with Mike that he suspected was a long-term prank that Lily was somehow involved in.

The two of them had actually taken the long way in, through the entrance of the greenhouse rather than a shortcut portal. The walk was almost an hour long, but it was a pleasant one that gave him and Lily a little alone time.

Strangely, she had been quiet for most of it, content to hang onto his arm. He had been a little bit worried, but eventually she admitted that she was trying to figure out how to apologize to Callisto for what had happened with Ashton’s dad.

He had reassured her once again that this wasn’t her fault, at which point she had pointed out a clearing behind some bushes and offered to blow him. Satisfied that she was in better spirits, he declined the offer, blaming it on wanting to get home early enough to plan their mountain expedition. The succubus had become very excited at this, then proceeded to make mountaineering jokes for the remainder of the walk.

The village sprawled across a shallow valley floor. What had started as a loose cluster of yurts had since evolved into something resembling a settlement. Timber-framed longhouses with thatched roofs stood in a rough crescent along the creek, their walls a patchwork of salvaged lumber and woven grass panels that the centaurs had figured out on their own. Smoke curled from a pair of stone chimneys that the humans had helped build, carrying the smell of roasting grain and dried herbs.

The centaurs still lived in the yurts, but the people of Avalon were far more comfortable in walled structures. Tink and Dana had worked together to build them a proper saw mill, which ran on a pair of enchantments that Ratu had custom-made for the occasion. This was actually placed outside of the settlement due to the noise, which had originally spooked the centaurs.

Garden plots flanked the main path, some tended by centaurs and others by the former villagers, their crops growing in alternating rows that suggested a level of cooperation nobody had planned on paper. A few children, human and centaur, were chasing each other around a water trough near the center of the town, which was really just a hollowed-out log fed by a diverted section of the creek. Farther out by the tree line, newer structures were going up.

Timber frames stood like skeletons against the green canopy, evidence that the population had outgrown its original footprint. Someone had even strung up a clothesline between two of the buildings, and a row of blankets and small garments fluttered in the artificial breeze provided by a stone that Ratu had enchanted.

Entering the town, he and Lily were greeted with the occasional friendly shout and wave. However, he noticed more than a few members of the moon tribe giving him odd looks. While the tribe hadn’t held Mike at fault for the kidnapping of their people, there had definitely been some resentment over his marriage to Titania.

However, this felt different somehow. Centaurs were very logical by nature, and he and Zel had expected some of these hard feelings to fade in time. Up until today, he hadn’t experienced anything quite this frosty.

“Is it cold in here?” Lily asked, yanking on his arm to get his attention. Her nipples were standing at full attention through her shirt, which was clearly where she wanted him to look.

“You feel that, too?” he asked.

“I do.” Her smile was playful, but her eyes were calculating. “And it’s all directed at you.”

“But why?”

“Dunno. Probably has something to do with your continued refusal to start the breeding program.” She stuck out her tongue, and he laughed.

Those watching from afar frowned on their way, but Mike made note of their faces. He didn’t really care if they were mad at him, as he hadn’t done anything wrong. His primary concern was that this was somehow related to his son.

They found Zel giving a basic lesson on alchemy to the younger children, human and centaur alike. Her assistant, a centaur named Alula, was pacing amongst the children handing out small bowls of shredded bark.

“In an emergency, willow bark can be chewed to provide some immediate relief. However, it would be far better to boil it down and strain the extract, much like a tea.” Zel spotted Mike and smiled at him.

A young boy raised his hand. “What does it taste like?”

“Chew some and find out,” Zel suggested. “The amounts given to you won’t be harmful, but don’t swallow the pulp, you might get sick.”

Some of the centaurs and human children immediately obeyed. The remainder eyed the bark in their possession, waiting to see the reactions of their peers first.

Zel moved to Mike’s side. “Do you need me?” she asked, wrapping an arm around him in a sidehug.

“Came to see Callisto.”

“Lucky boy,” she murmured, letting her fingers trail along his back as she withdrew. “I believe he’s with Nima.”

“Nima? Wait, really?”

She nodded. “They’ve apparently worked it out.”

“I guess that’s good. Hey, can I ask you something semi-private?”

Zel nodded, and leaned in while Mike whispered to her about the weird vibe he got on the way into the village. When he finished, she let out a loud sigh.

“Ah, yes. I think I know what that’s about. It’s actually related to Nima and Callisto working things out.”

“How so?”

She shook her head. “Nima’s parents haven’t been nearly as forgiving, which is understandable. They were not thrilled with the idea that the two of them have reconnected, but Nima is an elder now, so they have no voice.”

Mike studied the children, many who were making faces as they chewed on the bark. “I didn’t see them in town, though.”

“It’s a conspiracy theory. I’ve heard some rumors about a few centaurs who’ve been meeting in secret. They believe that the incident with the Fae was just the first of many tragedies that will befall the moon tribe due to your association with us.”

“I can understand that.”

“It’s not just them, either. Some sympathetic humans have also gotten on board.”

Mike scoffed. “Why the hell would they do that?”

“They’ve exchanged one master for another,” Zel muttered so that only he could hear.

Lily put a hand on Mike’s elbow to get his attention. “They were in an abusive relationship for generations,” she added. “When that’s all you know, you start to suspect that everything else is too good to be true.”

“Very astute.” Zel nodded her approval. “Anyway, there isn’t much I can do about it. I don’t know who all is involved, and they are entitled to their opinions. This group purportedly wants to separate properly, like centaurs have for centuries, for their own safety.”

“And you’d let them?”

She shrugged. “It’s not about what I would let them do. It’s your greenhouse. Where the hell else are they going to go? I fully expect them to demand a plot of land as recompense for what happened.”

“Which I wouldn’t give them.” Mike thought back to the incident with Bedrock. What was with so many troublemakers all of a sudden? “I have no interest in letting people remain on my property who don’t play well with others.”

“We’ve already got one of those,” Lily added, pointing at herself. “Which means we’ve already hit the limit. It’s the one diva rule.”

Zel nodded. “Indeed. I haven’t told you about it because it seemed like a non-issue. Sharing every rumor I hear wouldn’t be the most efficient use of our time. You don’t even want to know what I’ve heard goes down in a certain grove just south of here.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing every rumor.” Lily pressed herself into Mike, allowing her to reach past him and pat Zel on the arm. “We should have a girl’s night and talk about boys and potential light sedition. Horse around a little.”

Mike saw a few kids give the succubus a dirty look at the word horse. Lily stuck her tongue out at all of them.

The succubus’ antics were already well known among the moon tribe. However, her ability to assist with emergency surgeries was also well known, so she was generally tolerated.

“I suppose you could ask Charlotte,” Zel suggested. “If anybody knows, she would.”

Mike nodded. If Charlotte was concerned at all, she would have told him right away. He was going to have to chalk this up to just his own paranoia for now. If these random detractors ever felt like it was time to act, well...

He shook his head to release the surprisingly dark thought that had surfaced. That was likely the result of being pissed about Callisto’s soccer situation.

“I’m off to find Callisto,” he said. “Lily, did you still want to come?”

The succubus was looking at him funny. She ended up shaking her head.

“I just remembered something I need to do,” she told him. “Back at the house.”

“Are you just trying to get out of talking with Callisto?” Mike asked.

She shrugged. “You told me it wasn’t my fault. Wish you had said something before I let the Nirumbi swarm me while you met with Beth.”

“You could have just come inside like a grown-up instead of making up a reason not to come.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll ever make mature decisions.” She blew him a kiss, then headed toward the edge of town where a portal would take her directly to the front yard.

“That was...odd.” Zel watched Lily go, then turned her attention back to the class. “Who can tell me what local remedy can be used for a stomachache?”

Several hands went up. Mike gave Zel a quick kiss and headed in the opposite direction of Lily. His magic led him in the general direction of his son, a feature that was either related to Tink’s ability to always find her loved ones, or some sort of chaotic evolution based on his ability to interact with souls.

The trail out of the village thinned, eventually becoming a strip of packed earth surrounded by tall grass that wound through the undergrowth. The greenhouse’s interior forest was dense here, the trees old enough that their canopy blotted out much of the light overhead which cast the ground in a permanent dusk. Ferns as tall as his waist lined either side of the path, their fronds brushing his arms as he passed. Something small and furry bolted across the trail ahead of him and vanished into a rotting log.

Mike slowed when he noticed a familiar tangle of green creeping across the path about twenty yards ahead. Mandragora vines. The thick, ropy tendrils had wound themselves around the base of an oak and were spreading outward in a slow, deliberate crawl, their waxy leaves already beginning to unfurl. A few of the younger shoots had crept across the trail itself, which meant the centaur patrols had either missed them or hadn't come this far out recently.

He skirted around them carefully, giving the cluster a wide berth. The vines weren’t aggressive unless disturbed, but a careless hoof through one of those tendrils would result in a very unpleasant afternoon for whoever was attached to it. He made a mental note to tell Zel where they were so the centaurs could prune them back before they got any ideas about expanding.

The main plant, now relocated in Hawaii, still had offshoots throughout the woods here. Sweetpea was more than happy to eat whatever the merfolk gave her, along with the occasional magical trespasser. In fact, about eight months ago, some sort of bossy shaman had gotten it into his head that the volcano somehow hid his birthright, and had ignored miles of warnings only to be devoured by the plant. They had only learned about him after the fact by the pile of bones he had left behind, alongside a handmade journal.

As Mike walked, his magic churned low in his stomach, a slow simmer that he’d grown accustomed to over the years but which had been running hotter than usual today. He pressed a hand against his abdomen and took a slow breath, letting the sensation settle. It wasn’t pain exactly, more like something was trying to get his attention from the inside. He thought about the cold looks he’d received walking into the village. The faces he’d cataloged. The quiet resentment behind polite nods.

He’d handled Bedrock. He would handle the Maxwells. He’d battled harpies and trespassers and a dozen other problems that had crawled out of the woodwork in the last year alone. But the idea that people living under his protection, eating food grown in his soil, on land he let them use for free, were meeting in secret to discuss how he was the problem?

That one sat differently. It wasn’t anger, not exactly. It was the precursor to anger, the part that tasted like iron in the back of his throat and made his fingers want to curl into fists.

He forced himself to relax. He was a father walking to see his son, not a king marching to put down a rebellion. The distinction mattered, even if nobody else could see it. Somehow, voicing these thoughts internally helped, as if his magic actually heard him.

The forest thinned as the terrain rose, and the trail opened onto a grassy hillside that sloped gently upward toward a stand of birch trees. The grass here was long and soft, the kind that swayed in the faintest breeze, and it was on that hillside that Mike found them.

Callisto and Nima lay on their sides in the grass, their equine bodies stretched out lazily while their human halves were propped up on their elbows. Their other hand was pointing at the sky, and even from a distance, Mike could hear the low murmur of conversation punctuated by the occasional laugh. The old centaur’s walking stick lay abandoned in the grass behind him, and Callisto’s tail flicked slowly back and forth, keeping rhythm with something only he could hear.

Mike stopped at the edge of the tree line and leaned against a trunk, watching. His son’s face was relaxed in a way he hadn’t seen in months. There were no furrowed brows, no clenched jaw, no thousand-yard stare directed at nothing. Callisto was a kid lying in the grass with a friend. They pointed out the clouds’ shapes and talked about nothing important. The knot in Mike’s chest loosened and he let out a sigh.

He waited as the two hung out. It broke his heart a little to shatter the sense of peace that had fallen over his son, but at least he could allow the feeling to hold for a few more minutes.

Eventually, Nima noticed him. The old centaur was more bone than skin these days, but his soul was strong, and he casually got to his feet as if the effort didn’t trouble him at all. The centaur’s spine drooped dramatically across his equine back, which cast the relief of his hip bones in sharp angles along his rear.

Mike had no idea how the old timer was even still going, even though he knew that fae magic ran through his veins. Titania had explained that people could come back from her realm changed, but even she couldn’t predict how or why.

Nima approached, then stopped and took a knee.

“Your Majesty.”

“I am not your king,” Mike replied.

“Aren’t you?” Nima looked up at Mike with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye. “I am not of the moon tribe, though it is mine by birth. And you have become the Queen’s consort. I am beholden by fae law to address you by your greatest title. Or, perhaps, I was. The old habits die hard, even if they needed killing in the first place.”

“Uh huh.” Mike wasn’t about to debate the guy. Nima had spent his entire life talking with the fae, and could likely speak circles around him if he wanted. “I don’t mean to interrupt, I need Callisto for a few minutes.”

“Then by all means.” Nima gestured at Callisto, who was walking over.

The conversation wasn’t very long, and it was clear that Callisto was disappointed. He tried to apologize again for his actions, but Mike reassured him that this was not his fault. They exchanged a hug, and Mike left Callisto and Nima behind, looking back just once.

It was clear that Nima was listening patiently as Callisto ranted, the boy now red in the face. Mike had no idea what words were being said, but this was clearly a conversation for a friend, not a family member. He left them to their talk and walked back to the village.

This time, he didn’t notice the open animosity from others, but assumed that was because they had made themselves scarce. He needed to think about the best way to approach that particular problem, but was out of ideas for now.

He returned to Naia’s fountain. Cerberus was napping in a sunbeam by the water’s edge, one head resting on the fountain wall and occasionally lapping at the water. Amymone for some reason had a book in each hand and was scanning back and forth between them. He was curious, but decided not to ask.

Naia surfaced near the edge closest to him, her chin resting on her folded arms as she watched him approach. The blue of her hair rippled with the current, and her smile was the kind of warm that made him feel like he'd just stepped into a bath after a long day.

“Hello, lover.”

Mike sat on the edge of the fountain and let his feet dangle into the water. Almost immediately, the warmth crept up through his legs and into his lower back, pulling at the tension he’d been carrying around all day. He let out a long breath.

“Rough morning?” Naia slid closer, resting her head against his knee. He placed a hand on top of her head without thinking about it, his fingers threading into the wet strands of her hair.

“Not rough, exactly. Just a lot of moving parts.”

“I saw you come back from the greenhouse.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “You had that look.”

“What look?”

“The one where you’re trying very hard not to be upset about something while also being extremely upset about something.” Naia poked his shin with a finger made of water that was just solid enough to tickle. “You’re not as mysterious as you think, lover.”

He laughed, more out of reflex than humor. “Callisto’s doing okay, all things considered. He and Nima have really hit it off, apparently. So that’s some good closure for him.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“It is. I just…” He trailed off, staring at the marble tiers in the center of the fountain where birds were currently splashing around. “Have you ever had to be everything to everyone at the same time?”

Naia gave him a sarcastic look. “I am a body of water that simultaneously exists as a bath, a fountain, a lover, a therapist, and babysitter.”

“Fair point.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess what I’m really asking is whether it ever gets easier.”

Naia studied him for a moment, her expression softening into something that was less playful and more knowing. The runes along her arms and shoulders caught the light, their faint blue glow pulsing in time with the fountain’s current.

“You don’t really want to ask me that question, do you?” she said quietly. “You want her.”

He looked down at her. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Don’t take it the wrong way. I don’t have anybody to go to for stuff like this, and she’s the closest thing to a parent I have.” That wasn’t quite right either, but was the best metaphor he had.

Naia nodded. There was no offense in her expression, just understanding. She slipped beneath the surface for a moment, and the fountain went still. The birds on the island stopped chirping. Even Amymone looked up from her two-book combo long enough to decide to set one down and half listen in.

When Naia resurfaced, it was different. The same body, the same face, the same blue hair fanning out around her in the water. But her eyes were gold. Not a trick of the light. Not a reflection. Gold like molten metal poured into porcelain, ancient and impossibly bright. The runes that decorated her skin, normally a faint shimmer, now glowed the same color, tracing luminous lines along her torso through her white gown. The air around the fountain grew warmer, and tiny clouds formed along the surface of the water, making the basin look like it was holding the sky.

“Caretaker.” The voice that came out of Naia’s mouth was hers, but layered. Deeper. The kind of voice that sounded like it had been used to call families to dinner tables for several thousand years.

“Hestia.” Mike inclined his head. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“Of course, my champion,” she replied. The golden eyes studied him with a calm that bordered on unsettling. “You are troubled.”

“I am." He shifted on the stone edge, suddenly aware of how ridiculous his problems were going to sound when spoken out loud to an actual goddess. “I could use some advice. Family stuff.”

Hestia’s lips—Naia’s lips—curved into something that might generously be called a smile. “You wish to ask the goddess of the hearth for advice on family matters.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds like a setup for a really bad joke.”

“It is, perhaps, more ironic than you realize.” She folded her hands on the fountain’s edge, her posture straighter than Naia ever held herself. “But please. Speak.”

Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got a son who just got kicked off his soccer team because he beat the shit out of a bully. I’ve got a household full of people who all need different things from me at the same time. I’ve got centaurs in my greenhouse meeting in secret because they think I’m bad news. I’ve got a gargoyle teenager who challenged me to a duel over a woman who doesn’t want him.” He paused. “Oh, right. And a stupid lawsuit.”

“I see,” Hestia said, and the amusement in her golden eyes was unmistakable now.

“What?”

“Forgive me. I do not mean to diminish your struggles. It is simply that your list of grievances is… charmingly mortal.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was intended as one.” She shifted in the water, the glow of her runes casting patterns across the surface. “You are asking how one maintains a family when the obligations of that family threaten to pull it apart.”

“Yeah. Basically.”

“And you believe that I, as a goddess who has presided over hearth and home since before your species learned to stack stones, might possess some secret wisdom on the matter.”

“I didn’t think about that in so many words, but yes.” Honestly, he figured if anyone could give him advice, it would be either Titania or Hestia. Titania’s advice would probably be a bit extreme.

Hestia was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of something old and tired.

“My father ate his children.”

Mike blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Kronos. The Titan lord. He was told that one of his offspring would overthrow him, and so he devoured each of us as we were born.” The golden eyes held Mike’s without flinching. “I was the first. The eldest. I sat in my father’s stomach for quite some time before my brother Zeus freed us.”

“That’s…” Mike struggled to find the appropriate response. He sort of knew this, but had learned long ago that half of what was written down about the gods, religion, and other non-worldly entities were based on only kernels of truth. “That’s objectively horrifying.”

“It was unpleasant,” she agreed, with the understatement of someone who had been processing the trauma for roughly four thousand years. “My mother, Rhea, devised the plan that saved us. She loved her husband and she loved her children, and the two were fundamentally incompatible. Does that sound familiar?”

“Not the eating part, hopefully.”

“Not the specifics, no. The shape of it.” Hestia watched a bird land on the island and preen itself. “After we were freed and the Titans were overthrown, one might expect that my siblings and I would have formed a harmonious family. We had, after all, suffered together.”

“I’m guessing that’s not what happened.”

“Zeus became king and immediately began bedding every creature with a pulse and several without. Hera, his wife—also his sister, I should mention—spent the next several centuries punishing the women he seduced rather than confronting him directly. Poseidon and Zeus nearly destroyed the world arguing over territory. Ares started wars for entertainment. Demeter lost her daughter to Hades and cursed the earth itself out of grief. Aphrodite manipulated mortals like pieces on a game board. Athena and Ares could not share a room without it devolving into threats.” She paused. “Apollo and Artemis were actually quite close, but their father’s favoritism created fractures even there.”

Mike stared at her. “So the most powerful family in the history of mythology was a complete disaster.”

“We were the definition of disaster, Caretaker. We were disasters on a scale that altered the course of civilizations. When my family had disagreements, rivers changed course. Mountains were born. Cities were buried under the sea.” The gold in her eyes flickered. “Your son punched a boy at a sporting event. Zeus once turned a woman into a cow to hide an affair.”

“Into a cow?”

“A cow. Hera was not fooled.” Hestia’s expression was dry enough to age wine. “She sent a gadfly to torment the poor girl for years. The woman wandered the earth as livestock, stung endlessly, because two gods could not communicate honestly with one another.”

Mike let out a laugh of disbelief. “And you just… watched all of this?”

“I tended the hearth.” Something shifted in her voice, a thread of something that might have been sorrow if it hadn’t been so well-worn. “That was my role. I gave up my seat on Olympus so that Dionysus could take it, because I had no interest in the politics. I kept the sacred flame burning. I maintained the home while every member of my family set fire to everything outside of it.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It was my purpose. I do not regret it.” She tilted her head, studying him with those impossible eyes. “But I think you understand the feeling. You are the hearth of your household, Mike Radley. You are the fire that everyone gathers around. The warmth they return to. And you are wondering if the flame is enough.”

The use of his actual name caught him off guard. Hestia rarely used it.

“I just want to do right by all of them,” he said, and was surprised by how small his voice sounded. “Callisto needs a father who can protect him from a world that doesn’t understand him. I have wives and lovers who want to go on dates. Lily needs…” He waved a hand vaguely. “I don’t even know what Lily needs. We all pretend that it’s attention, because that’s the game she plays, but I know it’s so much deeper than that. The kids need stability. And everyone else needs me to be the guy who has it figured out.”

“And you are asking me how to be all of those things simultaneously.”

“Yes.”

Hestia was quiet again. The fountain water lapped gently at the stone, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear children laughing. The sound carried on the warm air like something precious.

“I have no advice for you,” she said at last.

Mike’s shoulders dropped. “Seriously?”

“I am the goddess of the hearth, not the goddess of solutions.” The gold flickered with what he suspected was amusement. “I had a nephew who was literally chained to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle every day for, well… centuries at least. Maybe he’s still there. Either way, this wasn’t something I could fix.”

“Prometheus, right?”

“Indeed. My family invented the concept of dysfunction, Caretaker. We defined it. We perfected it. If there existed a secret to managing such chaos, I assure you, I would have discovered it several thousand years ago.”

Mike laughed. It somehow shook loose the heavy feeling that had been sitting in his chest. “So even the gods couldn’t figure it out.”

“Especially the gods.” Hestia’s expression warmed, and for just a moment, the ancient weight behind those golden eyes seemed to lighten. “What I can tell you is that family has always been complicated. It was that way before gods walked the earth, and it will remain so long after we are forgotten. The hearth does not burn because the family is perfect. It burns because someone chooses to tend it.”

“Even when it’s hard.”

“Particularly when it is hard.” She reached out and placed a hand on his knee. The touch was warm. Not Naia’s flirtatious warmth, but something deeper and older. The kind of warmth that radiated from a fireplace on a cold night. “You will not solve every problem, always say the correct thing or make the right decision. Your children will struggle, your partners will feel neglected, and there will be days when the flame gutters and you fear it will go out entirely.”

“Wow. Pep talk of the century.”

“I am not finished.” The faintest edge of a smile. “The flame has not gone out, Caretaker. Not in my family, and not in yours. That is not because things were easy. It is because someone chose to keep feeding it. That is the only secret I have ever known.”

Mike sat with that realization for a while, his feet still dangling in the warm water. The birds had resumed their chirping on the island. Amymone, who had been watching, realized that she had set both books down and picked one back up to resume reading.

“Your family really sucked,” he finally said.

“They were extraordinary and terrible in equal measure.” Hestia’s golden eyes closed, and when they opened again, the light was already beginning to fade. “As all families have the potential to be, whether we want it or not.”

The runes along Naia’s body dimmed, the gold retreating like embers cooling. Her posture softened, her shoulders dropping back into their familiar, easy slope. When she blinked next, her eyes were blue again.

Naia looked up at him and yawned, stretching in the water like a cat. “Did you two have a nice chat?”

“She told me her dad ate her, among other things.”

“That’s not an answer, lover.”

“Which nails the theme of the conversation.” Mike chuckled. “It sucks to think that, at some point, you might be the only adult in the room. There’s nobody else who can help you but yourself.”

The dryad cleared her throat to get his attention. “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands. One is for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” Amymone spoke over top of her book. “Maya Angelou said something to that effect.”

“Why are you reading two books at once?” Mike asked.

“Oh.” Amymone scowled. “I learned that Leonardo Da Vinci could draw and write with both hands simultaneously. I figured maybe I could learn to read two books at once, one with each eye, but I don’t think it works that way.”

Mike smiled. “You could always try listening to an audiobook while reading.”

“Ooooooh!” Amymone dropped her book and looked up. “Abella! Bring me your tablet!”

“No!” shouted the gargoyle from the roof. “We’re rewatching Bridgerton, get your own!”

“Do you really think she can listen to one book while reading another?” Naia asked.

“No. But that’s up to her to figure out, right?” Mike chuckled as Amymone continued shouting up at the gargoyle in an attempt to claim her tablet. He pulled out his phone and found a device with a waterproof case and some earbuds for the dryad. After paying for it, he stuck his phone back in his pocket just as two glittering balls of light shot out of the back door of the house.

“Miiiiiiike!” shouted Cerulea as her beetle wings clicked loudly. She was currently burdened by a thick paper scroll tied shut with a ribbon, the other end held by her sister Daisy. The two of them eventually dropped the scroll into his hands. “Special delivery!”

Mike looked at the scroll in his hands, then laughed. Cerberus opened their eyes at the fairies’ arrival, then snorted and went back to their nap.

“Dare I ask?”

Daisy and Cerulea nodded so hard that their tiny boobs jiggled. Deciding that their interpretation was likely inaccurate, he opened the scroll to read it.

“Well?” Amymone asked. “What does it say?”

Mike fought the grin on his face. “Dear Romeo. Please come to the Library. I’ve baked you a cake. Sincerely, Princess…” He held it up to show the others what was either a picture of a peach or a vagina with a crown drawn on the top as the signature. “Whatever that is.”

“Do you think they actually baked you a cake?” Amymone asked. Naia splashed her with a laugh.

“Well, unless I’m needed here, it sounds like I’m going to go eat some cake.” He thanked the fairies, who immediately landed on him and squirmed into his pockets. Not seeing the harm in it, he went into his home and took one of the shortcuts to the Library.

Upon arriving, the other two fairies were waiting at the Information desk. They hopped up and down at his arrival, then handed over a map.

“Okay, let’s see…” He traced his finger along the route he was supposed to take, then summoned a floating platform to take him there. Carmina and Olivia crawled into his pockets with their sisters, and he paused before stepping onto the platform.

“What are you four doing?” he asked.

“Cake!” three of them shouted. Daisy just buzzed enthusiastically.

“What if there isn’t enough for everyone?” he teased.

“Oh, there’s more than enough,” Cerulea said.

“I’ve seen it,” Carmina added. “It’s so thick!”

“And creamy!” Olivia grinned up at him from his pocket.

Daisy signed something that caused her sisters to gasp in shock.

“Okay, well. Let’s go see this amazing cake.” He stepped onto the platform and it whisked them away. The platform ride was nearly ten minutes long, and it took him to a distant part of the Library far away from any other activity. The column where he landed only had a single door for him to go through, and he didn’t even see any rats lurking around.

Upon opening the very thick wooden door, he realized the room was completely dark.

“Close it, Romeo.” Lily spoke from somewhere in the darkness.

“I better not find out that the cake was a lie,” he replied.

Lily giggled. The sound was followed by the soft crack of leather.

“Close it.”

He obeyed, plunging the room into total darkness, save for the faint glow of the fairies through the fabric of his pockets.

“You should know I have hitchhikers.”

“It’s fine.” He could hear Lily’s boots tapping. Mike kept his eyes toward the floor to try and avoid accidentally seeing any souls in the room. Clearly, Lily wanted to surprise him. “We’ll find a use for them.”

Anticipation built, and he couldn’t help but grin. “I don’t suppose there’s a princess waiting for me in this room?”

“Oh, Romeo.” Several torches around the room ignited, and he looked up. “You should know by now that your princess is in another castle.”

Standing in the center of the room was Lily in a black corset with a tiny yellow crown on her head. She was holding a crop. Dangling from what looked like silken rope in the middle of the room was Sofia. The cyclops had been tied up and blindfolded with her back arched backward and her breasts exposed. She had a ballgag in her mouth.

He whistled in appreciation at the intricacy of the ropes. The cord that bound her seemed to be made from a single piece, and had been criss-crossed all along her body to provide maximum support while also allowing full access to the most sensitive parts of her body. Her forearms were strapped together behind her back in a way that prevented her from using them at all, and the straps along her torso had a web-like pattern so intricate that it almost felt like a flex on the rigger’s part.

Most importantly, though. Sofia’s body was bound in such a way that most of her weight seemed to rest on a knotted strand of rope that ran between her legs. “I see you brought the rope we’ll need for mountain climbing. But I feel the need to ask where my cake is.”

Lily smirked and gave Sofia a push. The rope twisted around, revealing her spread legs. The inside of Sofia’s thighs were already wet, and Lily smacked the cyclops on the ass with her crop.

“I’ve got your cake right here,” she replied, then noticed that a very small puddle had formed on the floor. “Hey, bugs. Clean this up.”

The fairies burst out of Mike’s pockets and settled on the floor. They made little lube angels while laughing.

“Before we begin, how does this rig work?” Mike noticed a couple of ropes that had been tied off along the wall. “I want to make sure I understand the basics.”

Lily grinned. “Allow me to demonstrate.” She sashayed over to the wall and pointed at the first rope. “This one raises her torso. That’s mostly important so we can enjoy the view. It also comes with surround sound.”

The succubus pulled on the rope and Sofia’s was raised by her arms, which were strapped down behind her. She moaned through the ballgag as her weight shifted more onto her pelvis.

“I see.” Mike smiled at the cyclops. Her soul was glowing so bright right now. For her, the enjoyment was the result of a sense of helplessness coupled with a little light degradation. Maybe it was her way of coping with the stress of leadership and isolation for so many centuries.

If she ever wanted to talk about it, he would listen. For now, this was enough.

“Naturally, this is for the back half,” Lily flicked the second rope. “We just need to make sure both lines stay tight or the ropes will start to come loose. Eulalie helped me with this, nobody except her does rope work like this on the planet.”

“You don’t think you could do it?”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t. Eulalie had this done in fifteen minutes. Not only is this her obsession, but the whole spider girl thing gives her insights I couldn’t fathom.”

“Is my favorite demon actually admitting she’s not good at everything?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m proud of you.” He gave her a swat on the ass and was a little surprised when Lily’s cheeks turned bright red. She shook her head and forced the colors to shift, but he had actually seen it.

“Today has been a little exhausting. I figured it would be fun if we took out our frustrations on Mount Titty over there.”

Sofia grunted her disapproval at the title, then wiggled her hips to try and push herself against the knot sliding past her swollen clit.

“Hey.” Lily moved to the center of the room and gave Sofia a couple of swats on the ass. “Stop that.”

Sofia moaned. Mike took the crop from Lily.

“Now let me teach you a thing or two.” He bent the crop and gave it a few practice swings. “Since this is your first time playing with us, I would like to show you a cheat code.”

“Teach me, daddy.” Lily purred and sat down on her tail.

“Observe.” Mike swung Sofia around so that she was facing him and gave her a few light pats with the crop on her breast. “Obviously, we want to keep her guessing.”

“Boring.” Lily conjured a paper airplane and threw it at him.

“Hey now. Bad girls will get detention.” He continued the light taps on Sofia’s breasts, playing particular attention to her nipples. “With a normal toy, you obviously want to surprise them.” On the word surprise, he whipped the crop through the air, catching just the tip of Sofia’s nipple with it. The cyclops thrashed and cried out as more liquid dripped from between her legs onto the fairies.

Once the cyclops stabilized, he began the treatment again. “But what you may have forgotten is that she experiences these sensations in advance, through magical precognition. So if you can think really hard about what you intend to do and then suddenly change your mind…” He tapped the crop along the inside of Sofia’s breasts, then raised it to bring it down hard on her nipple again.

He saw the flash of light through her blindfold and abruptly stopped the crop just before impact. Sofia cried out in pain, though he hadn’t struck her. She writhed again and moaned at the vision of what had happened.

“Now that’s some advanced level stuff.” Lily grinned and took the crop from Mike. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Lily moved to the other side of Sofia and started with some light slaps along her inner thighs, and a couple right on the crack of her ass. Sofia groaned, and then Lily transformed the head of her tail into a lash and whipped it across Sofia’s butt.

The cyclops screamed. To a casual observer, she was in serious pain. For Mike, his magic was soaking up the arousal that seeped off her body like a thick fog.

“Good work.”

“Oh, I try.” Lily was rubbing the welt that had formed on Sofia’s butt. Grinning, she kissed the worst of it, then ran her tongue along the inner curves of her ass. She bit down lightly, then gave Sofia a push so that she swung like a sexy piñata.

This time, Lily whipped her tail around to catch her on the backswing, then unsummoned it the moment the vision triggered. Sofia screamed and bit into the ballgag so hard that her teeth sank into it.

“That was a good one.” Mike moved to where he thought Lily was aiming and caressed the phantom wound. “I think we have some serious potential here.”

Down below, the fairies were rolling in Sofia’s fluid, eagerly slurping it up.

“We should probably get started before the kids starve.” Lily playfully swatted at Cerulea with her tail. The little beetle fairy flopped onto her back and cried out for help from the others.

Lily gave the crop back to Mike. For a little bit, they took turns with the cyclops, chatting nonchalantly as they laid down real and phantom strikes. Soon, it became a game between them to see just how many visions they could trigger at the same time.

Sofia became a whimpering, sexual mess. Lily’s tail, capable of splitting skin, would disappear so close to impact that smoke would occasionally drift over Sofia’s skin as she shrieked. Mike would take these moments to stroke Sofia’s neck and jaw while fondling her breasts. Down below, the fairies not only feasted, but prevented what should surely be a wet floor hazard.

Seeing that Sofia was nearing her limits, Mike silently signaled to Lily that it was time to change their approach. Grinning, the succubus used her tail to undo the clasp holding the ball gag in place. Sofia gasped when it came out. The cyclops had bitten a third of the way through it.

“Ugh, you know the rules, one-eyed willy. Once the toy shows damage, you need to throw it away.”

“She can’t see you,” Mike replied, then undid the cyclop’s blindfold. There were tears in the corners of Sofia’s eye. He took the gag from Lily and held it up for Sofia to see. “It looks like we can’t play this game anymore.”

Sofia stared at the broken gag as she caught her breath, then pouted.

“I’m bored.” Lily gave Sofia a push. The cyclops swung toward Mike, and he curled his fingers under her jaw to hold her in position.

“I wonder if we can find some other use for her.” He stroked her chin, then let his thumb slide upward to her lower lip.

“You two are monsters,” she shouted, her eye full of need. “Disgusting, nasty, sub-human… things!”

Mike mulled it over for a moment as if taking the insult seriously. Sofia’s soul was blazing with pleasure right now, but it didn’t hurt to double check. He looked past her at Lily. “I assume none of those was the safe word.”

“Of course not, silly.” Lily winked. “We standardized the safe word for a reason.”

“Good. Just wanted to be sure.” Mike ran his hand down Sofia’s neck, his fingers clamping around her throat. “So we’re the monsters?”

Sofia’s cheeks turned pink, and she tried to spit on him. Lily clapped her approval.

“That was a mistake, you horny slut.” He let go of Sofia. She swung toward Lily, who promptly grabbed onto the cyclop’s legs and pressed her tail against Sofia’s swollen clit. The ropes there actually parted, revealing what Mike had thought was a single strand was actually two.

Sofia gasped, and her face turned bright red.

“I think she likes it.” Lily coiled her tail up as the head of it teased Sofia’s slick labia. “But I can’t be sure.”

“If you beg for it, she’ll give it to you.” Mike moved forward and ran his fingers through Sofia’s hair. She shivered and tried to squirm against Lily. “But since you were rude, you’ll have to beg extra hard.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Suit yourself.” Mike took a step back and undid his pants. His erect cock sprang up, briefly covered in golden light. He frowned inwardly at the weirdly dramatic reveal, then swatted away Carmina, who tried to land on him. “Lily. Be a good girl and suck my cock for me.”

Lily let go of Sofia and skipped past her. She rotated Mike to allow Sofia to get a full view of both of them as she knelt down and put on a show. Mike groaned and ran his hands through Lily’s hair, the succubus bobbing her head and occasionally inhaling him all the way.

Sofia’s expression was priceless. Her cheeks puffed out from how hard she was breathing, and she could only look on in dismay.

“Since you don’t want to play anymore, I guess you can just watch.” Mike was close enough that he could poke her in the head and make her swing, so he did. He made sure to twist her a little so that she would lose sight of them. During this period, Sofia struggled in her bonds to swing back around, then cried out in frustration when she got stuck.

Lily gave Sofia an assist with her tail. One of the fairies noticed that their food source was unattended, and all four of them flew up between her legs. The cyclops moaned as the fairies used their mouths to clean her up, paying very particular attention to her very swollen folds.

“Please?” she whispered.

“Nah ga ena,” Lily replied, her mouth full of dick. She pulled her mouth off of him and stared at the cyclops. “And this isn’t good enough for me.”

“Huh?”

Lily stood up and placed her hands on Sofia’s shoulders. “Mike, could you fuck me from behind?” She spread her legs and altered the length of her heels to put her hips at the correct level.

“With pleasure.” Mike ran his cock along Lily’s labia, taking his time. Lily put on a show of it by pressing her forehead against Sofia’s.

“Oh, I can feel all of him sliding inside of me.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “He’s gonna fill me up.”

“I want to be filled.” Sofia sounded like she was going to cry.

“Then I guess you’d better beg,” Lily said, then wrapped her arms around Sofia’s head. “Harder.”

Mike fucked her harder, which caused Sofia to rock. Lily groaned and wrapped her legs around his waist, putting her weight on the cyclops. Sofia begged for relief, but Lily made sure to be just a hair louder with every cry.

The cyclops was forced to endure this torment until she was practically screaming. “PLEASE! FUCK ME, SOMEBODY FUCK ME!”

“Gross,” Mike replied. “She wants to fuck us sub-humans!”

Lily squeezed his cock with her vagina, then laughed. “Why would we want to denigrate ourselves with somebody so hateful?”

“FUCK ME!”

“Nah, we’re having fun on our own now.” Lily giggled as Mike gave her a couple of strong pumps, which made Sofia groan in frustration. “Although…”

“Although?” Mike paused.

“Since you want to be fucked so bad, maybe it’s time to make a deal with the devil.” Lily let go of Sofia and used her tail to tilt the cyclops’s head up. “What will you give us?”

“Give?” Even Sofia seemed confused.

“Yeah. You want to be fucked, what will you give us?” Lily grinned. “What will you do?”

Sofia was on the verge of losing control. “What do you want?” she whispered.

“Hmm.” Lily remained silent for a good twenty seconds while she bucked her hips against Mike. “I know what I want. You have to be my sex slave for the rest of today.”

Sofia actually rolled her eye at this. “I agree.”

“And we get to come in all of your holes.” Lily stood up, which caused Mike to slide out of her.

“What?” This actually caught Sofia off-guard.

“I want your holes, cyclops.” Lily knelt down so they were eye level with each other. “That fat ass of yours. I want it.”

Sofia’s lip trembled and she looked at Mike. He just shrugged.

“Technically, that’s my ass,” he said. “Won it in a bet. She can’t agree to those terms.”

Lily snapped her fingers. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You willing to share it with me?”

Mike couldn’t help but smile. Sofia was clearly at her wit’s end. “Like you said before, she has to beg for it. So let’s hear her beg.”

They both waited. Sofia took a deep breath and swallowed.

“Please fuck me,” she said. “You can have all of my holes.”

Lily yawned. Mike shrugged.

“Fuck me! Come in me, make me scream.”

Mike waved his hand to indicate that she was getting there. Lily reached back and gave his dick a yank.

Sofia took a deep breath. “Please let me swallow your cum! I need it! I want to feel it leaking out of of all of my holes, make me scream until my voice gives out, I have to–”

Lily’s tail shot forward and formed into a cock before plunging deep into Sofia’s mouth. The cyclops grunted in surprise, then turned bright pink as her eyelid fluttered.

“Suck it,” Lily demanded, then looked at Mike. “Heads or tails?”

“Oh, I want tails for now.” He rubbed his hands together and moved behind Sofia to stand between her legs. Her thighs were slick with the glittering fluid of the fairies, who briefly paused to look at him.

“Daisy.” He flexed his cock. “I’m going to need some lube.”

The other fairies booed at their sister as she flew onto his cock and latched onto it. She squirmed around in an attempt to coat him with her fluids, but he knew Sofia couldn’t wait.

With gentle hands, he shifted Daisy onto the head of his cock and pushed himself into her. The fairy let out a loud buzzing sound as her body stretched to accommodate him. The others immediately stopped what they were doing and begged for a turn.

“Relax,” he told them. “We apparently have the rest of the day.” After a few more strokes, he pulled Daisy off with an audible pop, then ran his hands along the back of Sofia’s legs. Seeing there was an angle issue, he took a moment to adjust her ropes, then returned.

Lily grinned at him as he placed the head of his cock against Sofia’s asshole. The fairies clambered up for a better view as he pressed himself into her. Once inside, he ran his hands across the globes of her massive buttcheeks, then grabbed her by the hips and pushed forward.

The cyclops came before he was even fully inside her. She gasped for air around Lily’s tail as a flood of sexual fluid leaked from her vagina onto the floor. The fairies saw this and tried to jump down, which resulted in Mike accidently pinning Olivia between him and Sofia. He rescued her and let her join her siblings on the floor.

Summoning magic into his hand, he slapped Sofia on the ass, sending a wave of sparks that crawled around to the front of her body. The air crackled and hissed as his magic teased Sofia’s clitoris.

Lily laughed maniacally and pushed Sofia back and forth. The movement itself was minimal, but Sofia’s reaction was to the contrary. A second orgasm hit, followed by a third. The cyclops tried to straighten her spine, but couldn’t do much other than clench all her muscles while her ass clamped down on Mike’s cock like a vice.

“Wow, she was really pent up.” Lily looked impressed. “I’ve got an idea. Stay inside of her.”

“Don’t think I could pull out if I wanted,” Mike muttered. Two of the fairies had climbed back on Sofia and were dangling from her pubes in an attempt to clean up. Lily yanked her tail out of Sofia’s mouth.

“You still good?” Lily asked, kneeling to take Sofia’s chin in her hand.

“Uh…huh…”

Lily kissed Sofia hard, catching the cyclops off guard. Smirking, she walked behind Mike and pressed her hips against his butt as her tail slid up between their legs.

“Hold on to her legs so she doesn’t move,” Lily whispered in his ear, and then he felt the thickness of her tail through Sofia’s vaginal wall.

The cyclops cried out as the two of them double-penetrated her from behind. Mike grinned as Lily wrapped her arms around his waist and held him.

“How big are you going?” he asked.

“Don’t know yet.” Lily playfully nipped at his ear. “But I’m putting a knot in it.”

He could actually feel the knot now, expanding until Lily was firmly locked in place. The succubus yanked her hips, which pulled Sofia toward Mike. She groaned in response.

“Now we’ve got some proper leverage,” Lily said. She snatched one of the fairies and set it on Sofia’s back. It was Cerulea. “In case you need more lube.”

Mike shivered as Lily kissed her way along his neck, her hands tracing circles on his chest while playing with his nipples. Sofia was spouting nonsense in some ancient tongue that could have been Latin, drooling openly as they had their way with her. Mike’s magic had established a full circuit now, flowing into Sofia, then Lily, and back to him.

The air around them sparkled and hissed. Lily’s hands dropped to his hips as she thrust herself against him, driving him even farther into Sofia. She grabbed Cerulea from Sofia’s back, then fingered the fairy until her hands were nice and wet.

“I can feel you getting close,” she whispered in Mike’s ear.

He nodded, his concentration wavering as magical pressure built up inside of his body. Lily playfully bit his ear, then ran her lubricated hand along the top of his ass.

“Let’s see if this puts you over the edge,” she whispered as a slick finger pressed on his ass from behind.

Mike lost control as her finger slipped inside and rubbed against his prostate. With a grunt, he flooded Sofia’s ass with hot, magical cum. The fairies cheered beneath them, hopping up and down as bits of it dribbled free and landed in the mess they were making.

Unsatisfied, Mike’s magic shifted into Sofia, who immediately came with a scream. She clenched down on both Mike and Lily, trapping the succubus in place as the magic flowed into her through her tail.

Lily cried out in delight, then immediately slipped and fell to the floor, pulling Mike with her. He popped free of Sofia, twisting around in time to avoid crushing Olivia. The little green fairy looked drunk as she tried to stumble away from the two of them, then gave up and fell face first in the puddle.

“Fine, fine. I’ll sleep in the wet spot tonight.” Lily laughed as she crawled on top of Mike and grabbed his cock. “Oh. Somebody is still happy to see me.”

Whatever part of Mike’s brain still capable of rational thought attempted to rub two brain cells together for enough warmth to make words. “Uh-huh,” was all he managed as Lily immediately sucked him into her mouth.

Up above, Sofia dangled like a magical cum-pinata, leaking white fluid from both holes as she panted, her face and torso sweaty and flushed. She was giving the floor a thousand-yard stare.

Lily pulled her mouth off of him and grinned. “You’re not too tired to keep going, are you?”

“Not on your life, temptress.” He laughed and brushed the hair out of her eyes, then wrapped his finger around one of her horns. “Didn’t we promise we would come in all of her holes?”

“We did.” Lily grinned up at Sofia. “What do you think of that?”

Sofia was turning now, making a dribble-arc on the floor. She just nodded her head and made a grunt of approval.

“You know…” Mike studied the rig for a moment, then grinned. Not being in charge for a while sounded really nice. Sofia was clearly onto something. “Maybe when we’re done with her, I should get a turn in the ropes.”

“Really?” Lily looked like the cat that ate the canary. “You do know that I have a no-holes barred rule when it comes to ropeplay?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

The succubus laughed. “Maybe you should—”

Mike grabbed her horn and forced her head back onto his cock. She gave him a gurgle of approval and did her best to get him hard again.

Up above, Sofia whimpered from the lack of attention. He was able to reach up and cup her cheek with one hand.

“Soon,” he promised, then moved his hand to her nipple and gave it a squeeze. She moaned, and her eyes flashed as he thought really hard about pinching it.

Around them, the fairies giggled in delight, eager to help in whatever way they could. Mike sent them out for snacks and plenty of water, promising them a treat when they returned. His magic hummed with delight as he turned his attention back to Sofia.

---

It was almost two in the morning when Lily made her move.

Sliding free from beneath Mike and Sofia, she tiptoed across Sofia’s bedroom toward the door and let herself out. Though it was tempting to let her heels click on the cold marble tile of the Library (she actually rather enjoyed the sound), tonight’s mission relied heavily on stealth. She had spent all evening making sure that both Mike and Sofia would be exhausted, which was quite the feat considering the fact that Mike’s magic kept replenishing his reserves.

It wasn’t that her comings and goings were forbidden by any means. She just didn’t want somebody to ask what she was up to. Namely, Mike or Eulalie. With Mike out cold, Lily worried that the Arachne might be lurking nearby and knew what she intended to do.

Luckily, she had overheard Bigfoot say something about a DnD game tonight, which had been a difficult feat whilst buried beneath so many nirumbi children.

A few minutes later, she was back in the Radley house, the office specifically. She set the magical book to the side and took a peek out into the living room to see if anybody was there.

Abella and Cecilia would be the most likely to catch her departure, but she wasn’t too worried about them. Still, an ounce of prevention was worth some other bullshit measurement of cure, or however the saying went.

“Really?” The piece of Mike’s soul residing inside of her manifested near the window of the office. “Have we sunk so low that we are no longer recognizing standard units of measurement?”

“Define a pound for me,” she whispered.

Mike thrust his hips back and forth. “It's that thing I do when I’m trying to bottom out–”

“Shh!” Lily got a fit of the giggles as she pushed the window open. “Okay, you win that one.”

“Are we keeping count?” He watched her slide out the window, but was waiting for her on the ground where she landed in a crouch.”Also, this feels like overkill.”

“Does it, though?” Lily’s outfit melted and reformed, cloaking her in black leather. “We’re on a tight timetable, and I can’t risk getting caught up in a long-winded conversation with Death about the herbal benefits of whatever the hell he’s drinking this week.”

“Hmm.” Mike crossed his arms and sat in mid-air, his body floating beside her as she navigated the bushes and moved toward the outer wall. “That might be a bit on the nose, actually. Okay, fair enough.” His outfit transformed as well, and he slid a pair of night vision goggles down over his face.

“Now you’re talking.” Lily swatted the manifestation on the ass and the two of them made their way toward the wall. The jabberwock was curled up against it, the creature in a bizarre version of torpor. The construct didn’t need sleep, but it also couldn’t see that well in the dark, so it sort of just sat there and held very still.

She got onto its tail and gave it a pinch. The creature lifted her into the air, allowing her to hop over the wall and land in the neighbor’s yard.

“Ha!” Lily’s voice was barely a whisper as she flared her arms wide. “Stuck the landing!”

Mike face-planted next to her with a loud thud. “You know,” he mumbled with a mouth full of grass. “You could treat your mental manifestations better than this.”

“I keep you around exclusively for the sex and dad jokes,” she told him as she helped him up.

Mike spat out some grass clippings, then readjusted his goggles. “You should write a book on relationships. More couples would be far happier if they defined the parameters of their relationship in such a simple way.”

Lily moved across the neighbor’s much smaller yard toward the street. “What would we call it? Self-help books are made or broken by their titles.”

“The devil in the details,” Mike replied.

“Fuck, you’re a genius.”

He tapped his forehead. “Technically, you’re the genius.”

“I am more than a hot piece of ass,” she replied. Out on the street, she dodged the light of the streetlamp and unfurled her wings. Lily flexed her wings and attempted to launch herself in the air when a very strong hand grabbed her by the back of her collar.

“Guh!” was all she managed as her body briefly went horizontal. Melting and shifting in place, she turned around to see a very unexpected figure standing before her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Charlotte asked. The vampyr was dressed in a white peasant blouse that clung to her chest and a blue skirt that reached her ankles.

“You’re not my mother,” Lily replied, then took a step back and crossed her arms. “I don’t answer to you.”

“You’re right, you don’t.” Charlotte cocked her head to one side, then looked around. “That’s weird.”

“What?” Expecting danger, Lily immediately surveilled the street.

Charlotte looked back and forth, then shook her head. “Felt like Mike was out here. But he’s still in the Library.”

Lily did her best not to make a face. “Okay, well, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some important errands to run.”

“I know.” Charlotte crossed her arms, mirroring Lily. “You’re off to kill Bentley, yes?”

The succubus actually choked on her response. She swatted herself on the shoulder blades with her tail a couple of times for comedic effect. “Why, what on Earth would give you that idea?”

“We don’t talk much. But Mike knows you. That means I know you.”

Lily narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“When you do that thing to his prostate, I feel it in my own ass.” Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “If I don’t willingly tune him out during sex, I get to have surprise orgasms in front of mixed company.”

“Okay, so maybe you know him better than I expected.” Lily shrugged. “So, what do you think of my head game? Oh, does this mean you know what it feels like to pee standing up?”

Charlotte smirked. “Over time, our bond has strengthened to the point where I can sense where Kisa is and have developed an unhealthy obsession with burritos, which yield no nutritional value.”

“Wow.” Lily laughed. “Okay, so, hypothetically speaking, what if I was on my way to Bentley’s home to give him the old rub and tug?”

Charlotte sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know. Mike would absolutely disapprove of your methods, and likely be a little pissed at you in the morning.”

Lily wilted. “Ah.”

“But…” Charlotte bit her lip and looked toward the house. “I can also feel how much this bothers him, and see how much it hurts Callisto. I may be in his head most days, but it doesn’t mean that we agree.”

“So… you’re going to let me go do my thing?” Lily placed a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. The fact that the vampyr had sensed Mike’s anger confirmed her fears from earlier. Back in the centaur village, she had felt his rage bubbling up. It was part of the reason she had arranged the sexual encounter with Sofia. She wanted to remind both him and his magic what was really important. “This could be our first secret, not counting that whole butthole thing. The events of this night will be taken to the grave.”

“Oh, I’m coming with you.”

Lily’s jaw dropped. “That’s not a good idea,” she replied. “I do my best work alone.”

“I know. I’ve heard you through your door.”

“Fuck me, when did you become so sassy? I like this side of you.”

Charlotte smirked. “I’ve spent the last couple centuries beneath the thumb of a tyrant. If you don’t think I’ve taken every chance to experience life through Mike’s eyes in order to learn about how the world has changed, then you have another thing coming.”

Lily laughed. “Ah, now I get it. You’ve been rotting your brain on Mike TV and have picked up some of his habits.”

“Er…” Charlotte stood like a statue, then finally cocked her head to one side. “I’m not sure I follow that one entirely.”

“It’s okay.” Lily patted Charlottes head condescendingly. “Now let’s make like Willy Wonka and kill some people.”

“That name is very vulgar,” Charlotte muttered. “Do you know our prey’s address?”

Lily nodded. “If I can give you directions, I’ll let you carry me like a princess. How fast can you run?”

“Very.” Charlotte scooped Lily into her arms before the succubus could react. “Where to?”

“Oh, the fans are going to love this.” Lily wrapped her arm around Charlotte’s neck. “What will our spin-off be called?”

“What?”

“Just go west.” Lily pointed and her whole body lurched violently as Charlotte burst into a mad sprint. To anybody watching, they were just a dark blur on the street. Lily tapped Charlotte on the shoulder, and the vampyr came to such a violent stop that the succubus nearly disapparated.

“Whoa! Don’t you teach your children about Newton’s Laws?” Lily clutched at her neck, where a thick brace had appeared. “If I was a human, you would have killed me!”

“My apologies. I was of the belief you were made of sterner stuff.”

“Why on Earth haven’t we made out yet?”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “I need you to focus. Where do we go from here?”

Lily pulled out her phone and opened up the map. “We are the green dot. We need to be at the red DOOOOOOT!” Her phone slipped from her fingers as the vampyr sprinted again, but Charlotte casually caught it and gave it back to her in one swift movement.

The wind roared in Lily’s ears for nearly two minutes before they came to another abrupt halt. Shaking dramatically, she slid out of Charlotte’s arms and clutched her phone to her chest.

“If you think I’m giving you five stars on UberVamp, you’re nuts.”

Charlotte ignored the succubus, her eyes on the estate that sprawled before them. The driveway was behind a large gate, and there was an ornate fountain placed just before the walkway that led to a double set of doors. The home was three stories tall and had what looked like two separate wings. Decorative lighting shone on the house, making it look alive somehow, as if it were watching them.

For anybody else, this was the epitome of a mansion, the kind seen in movies about Hollywood starlets or drug dealers with a pet tiger in their office. A man dressed as a security guard could be seen through one of the windows as he walked by.

“Is this the servant’s quarters?” Charlotte asked, standing on tiptoe as if to see better. “Is Bentley’s home behind this one?”

“You’ve gotta be fucking with me.”

The vampyr turned toward Lily with a serious look on her face. “I am,” she said, then casually hopped over the top of the gate. The succubus did a quick scan for security cameras and saw that its cables had already been ripped free. When had Charlotte even done that?

“Fangs and horny,” Lily muttered as she squeezed through the bars. “Bat and horny? Damn. None of these roll off the tongue at all. It’s all about branding.” Halfway through, she inflated her breasts so that a bar was caught between them and waved her hand at Charlotte. “Help me, step-vampyr, I’m stuck!”

Charlotte grabbed Lily’s wrist and yanked her free so hard that Lily felt like she had been punched in the tit. Groaning, the succubus lay on the concrete while clutching her chest.

“There. You are free.”

“Clearly your search terms aren’t the same as mine.” Lily got to her feet and studied the estate. She could sense the sleepers within. “For our first outing, a little light breaking and entering is in order.”

“We may have to break many things.” The vampyr cocked her head and sniffed. “It has just occurred to me that I will need to be invited in.”

“Oh?” At this, Lily paused. “Since when is this a thing?”

“With Vincentius, he was the master of Avalon. We had blanket permission to enter all domiciles. The same is true of the Caretaker, and his holdings, though I wait for permission to be granted for the sake of my children.” Charlotte frowned. “I have never had to adhere to this rule, but can feel it deep in my soul. To enter, I must have the owner’s permission.”

Lily laughed. “So, what, you’re gonna climb the outside of the building and watch me do all the work?”

“That seems to be the outcome.”

“I’m getting you a cuck chair for Christmas.” The succubus smirked as they approached the front door. “Since you’re so interested in just watching me work.”

Charlotte ignored Lily entirely, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. Lily found this particularly irritating, but decided it was probably time to shut up. They were almost at the door.

Lily’s tail whipped out in front of Charlotte, stopping the vampyr. “Cameras on the door,” she said. “Do you even show up on cameras?”

“No idea.” Charlotte looked up and pointed at a window. “That was left open. Think you could fit in through that gap?”

“Please. I’ve fit through narrower—” Lily gasped as Charlotte promptly snatched her up and hurled her toward the window. She spread her wings and arms, slamming into the frame of the window and narrowly avoiding breaking through the glass. “What the actual hell?!?”

“I don’t watch from my chair,” Charlotte replied from down below. “I command.”

“Holy shit, she makes my ass tingle.” Lily used the toe of her boot to push the window open even farther, then slid inside. She was in some sort of study, but it also contained some exercise equipment that had a thin layer of dust on it. Frowning, she moved around the room to get her bearings. What little light came in from outside was obscured, and Lily actually jumped when she saw Charlotte plastered against the glass outside.

“Ah!” Lily stumbled back and nearly tripped over a treadmill. Charlotte pointed to the right.

“Our prey is this way,” she whispered, then tiptoed along a ledge that was less than an inch wide.

Lily stepped out into the hall. Silently, she moved through the house, occasionally pushing open a door to see if her vampyr GPS was in the window. Every single time, Charlotte was there.

The succubus had dealt with vampyr before, but those occasions had been rare. Typically, it was the watered down vampires she had seen, and none of them moved like Charlotte did.

In a lot of ways, it made her think of Eulalie. The Arachne and the vampyr would make quite a team.

“With Hungry Fangs,” she whispered to herself. “That could be their spinoff title.”

A large wooden door at the end of the hallway was her final stop, and she pushed it open to reveal a bedroom that looked far more like a fully furnished studio apartment. A king-sized four poster bed sat along the far wall, where two people slumbered.

Licking her lips, Lily crossed the room, pausing momentarily to look up at Charlotte, who was already in the window. The succubus crawled onto the bed and hovered over Bentley Maxwell. The man had a tiny cut on his chin, likely from shaving.

Her tail whipped out twice, injecting both of the sleepers. While doing so, she couldn’t help but frown over at Ashton’s mother. The woman had dark bags under her eyes, and let out a sigh as if dying.

“Let’s see what sort of man Bentley Maxwell is,” she muttered, then pressed her fingers against his temples and dove into Bentley’s Dreamscape.

Everybody’s Dreamscape was unique, a reflection of their soul. Sometimes, she would fall from the sky. Other times, the world would warp around her and grow as if a scene in a play was being put together.

For Bentley, she was simply standing in an office with people milling about. Bentley was looking over a thick stack of papers while a pair of attractive assistants stood nearby.

Spinning on her heels, she immediately fled this dream and moved to the next scene to start digging through Bentley’s memories. Ordinarily, if someone was evil enough, she could tell right away that they were safe to eat. With others, it was something that required a little more investigation.

She jumped from memory to memory, eager to find the silver bullet she needed to justify consuming the man’s soul and taking care of the problem he had caused her family. Time after time, she watched as the man made selfish decisions, took advantage of others, and even managed to ruin more than a few lives in the process.

Bentley Maxwell was a giant puddle of shit, this was true. Yet being a piece of shit didn’t make somebody evil. The deeper she dug, the more she saw that his cardinal sins were Pride and Greed. The man had grown up poor in an abusive household, fighting and scraping for every advantage he could get his entire life. A lucky break had yielded success that he could cling to, success that eventually made him hundreds of millions of dollars.

He wasn’t a shitty father because he didn’t love his son. Bentley simply didn’t know how to be a good father. The same was true for being a decent husband as well. This was a man who was doing his best, but with skewed values. Everything he did had to be viewed through a cracked lens, and what Lily saw simply wasn’t enough to justify killing him.

Lily stared down at the pair of sleepers, her tail swishing back and forth in irritation. She did a quick dive into his mother’s dreams, but didn’t see much. The woman’s Dreamscape had been scoured clean. Years of chemo and losing hope had reduced this place to nothing.

The woman was tired, and would actually welcome death if it didn’t mean leaving her son alone with a father who didn’t understand him. Through her eyes, it was taking everything in her power to prevent her son from becoming his father.

If Lily wasn’t beholden to Mike and Naia’s rules about killing innocents, it would be simple enough to eliminate the problem before her. But even if she wasn’t… she didn’t think she could. Killing Bentley would likely trigger a chain reaction, putting his wife in an early grave and Ashton in an orphanage, or wherever rich kids went when they needed to be adopted.

Lily yanked Bentley’s pillow out from under his head and shoved her face into it, then screamed.

“Well?” asked a voice from behind her. Lily shrieked and leapt off the bed to see Eulalie standing on the ceiling up above her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Lily demanded.

“Same thing as you… hi, Charlotte!” Eulalie waved at the window. “So are you going to kill them?”

“What? No!” Lily jammed the pillow back into place. “And you shouldn’t either!”

“If you say so.” Eulalie dropped down and opened the closest nightstand. “Actually, I figured this might be the case. Based on my research, he doesn’t match the profile of your victims.”

“My food are hardly victims,” Lily hissed between clenched teeth.

“Let’s not get caught up on nomenclature.” Arachne pulled a cellphone out of the nightstand. “Hold him up.”

Lily grabbed Bentley’s hair and lifted him. Arachne held the phone toward the man, using facial ID to unlock the device.

“The oldest hacking trick in the book,” she chuckled. “Opening something with your target’s face.” When Lily didn't say anything, the Arachne glowered. “You could at least give me a pity chuckle.”

“You still haven’t said what you’re doing. Didn’t you have a game?”

“We accidentally killed the final boss early by drowning the whole castle in lava. Long story. And now that I’ve officially deleted my silkposting account, I’ve got way more free time on my hands.”

“Silk what-ing?” Lily hated when she didn’t get a reference.

“Anyway, I’m here answering questions. I couldn’t break into his attorney’s email, and I want to see what’s being said.” Eulalie scrolled through the man’s phone, her fingers tapping rapidly at the screen. “Oh. Well, that doesn’t help.”

“What doesn’t help?” asked Charlotte through the window.

“Looks like most of their communication was over the phone. Just a few texts for clarification. Damn.” Eulalie tapped at the phone some more, then frowned. “Hold up. I’ve got something.”

“What?” Lily moved next to the Arachne to see.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Eulalie opened a video on Bentley’s phone. It was taken inside of a nightclub. Out on the dance floor, Mike could be seen dancing with Leilani and Quetzalli, both of whom were practically dry fucking him on the dance floor. “Why does he have this?”

“Let me look.” Lily crawled on top of Bentley again and sifted through the man’s memories. She had been so interested in his deeds that she hadn’t bothered to look at the events of the last few days.

Memories danced before her, then solidified. It was nothing more than a bad stroke of luck. One of Bentley’s newer clients had been at the club and sent him the video because she wanted to have similar choreography for her next music video.

He had shown the video to his wife, who immediately demanded a copy for herself.

“Do her phone,” Lily said. “Open the group chat.”

Eulalie held the woman’s head up so her face would unlock the phone, then started digging. “Ah, shit.”

“Shit?”

“Yeah.” Eulalie winced. “She shared the video with the other moms. Based on the conversation, Mike is officially a cult leader.”

“What?” Lily withdrew from Bentley’s memories.

“Well, they talk about how he’s never around, the mysterious women who often accompany Callisto to games and practice, the usual. They’re convinced the whole thing is a fuck cult, and now… damn.”

“I don’t like it when my magical webmaster says that.”

Eulalie shook her head. “Nothing actionable, but now they’re talking. Some of the moms have friends with stories about the Radley home, it’s all anecdotal, but…” She frowned and stared off into space. “Bentley hired a private investigator. They’re looking into Mike.”

“They won’t find anything.”

“Exactly. This is the age of conspiracy. Finding nothing will likely mean something, right?” Eulalie tossed the phone back into the desk. “Are you sure we can’t kill them?”

Lily ground her teeth together. “Yes,” she muttered.

“Well, then our time here is complete.” The Arachne shook her head in frustration. “I can keep my eyes on a lot of things, but didn’t expect anything like this, so didn’t know to look.”

“At least you didn’t threaten this guy’s manhood,” Lily said, gesturing at Bentley. “Not that he’s even using it. Maybe the solution here is to have Mike fuck his wife. Would do both of them some good.”

“Are we done?” Charlotte asked through the glass. “Because if we are, we should go.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lily moved toward the window, then looked back at Eulalie. “Bentley has a meeting with some international investors in the morning. They just flew in from Japan, so if you can think of a way to fix this, he’ll be busy tomorrow.”

“I have some ideas.” Eulalie grinned. “See you later, masturbator.” She scuttled off toward the master closet. After pulling the door shut behind her, Lily could faintly hear the Arachne moving around in the attic up above.

“In a whirl, spidergirl.” Lily opened the window and stepped onto the ledge with Charlotte. “You can get down now.”

The vampyr scowled and hopped down, then extended her arms to catch Lily.

“No thanks. I’ll fly home.” Lily unfurled her wings and threw one last look back at the sleepers she had left alive.

“Stupid fucking morals,” she muttered to herself as she leapt into the night.

---

Mike was taking a nap in his office with Kisa curled up on his lap when his phone rang. He picked it up and saw that it was Beth. Yawning, he answered the phone.

“Do you have good news for me?”

On the other end of the line, Beth snorted. “I’m afraid not. I’ve spent the last two days being deliberately bounced around opposing counsel’s office. He replies to my emails, but they’re very condescending.”

He snorted. “That figures.”

They had made no progress in the lawsuit with the Maxwells. He’d even tried contacting Bentley himself to see if he could smooth things over in person, but apparently the guy was busy coordinating some sort of music video and live appearance by one of his bigger bands, that We’re Almost Golden group.

“Yeah. I get the feeling he has this first appearance stacked against us. Obnoxious, but I’ll deal with it. How are things over there?”

“Good enough.” Mike had been a little upset to learn that Lily had gone over to their home in order to kill them. The succubus’ heart had been in the right place, and even he had to admit that if she had been able to off the guy, it would mean the world was better off.

Callisto seemed happy enough hanging out with Nima, so he had left well enough alone for now. Today, he was hanging out with Kisa, who had crashed in his arms after they had spent many hours at an arcade in Japan playing the latest Dance Dance Revolution game.

“I’ll let you know if anything changes. Need anything else from me?” Beth asked.

He rubbed at Kisa’s ears. She sighed and flexed her claws, accidentally scratching his chest through his shirt.

“We’re good, thanks.”

No sooner had he set his phone down, than the doorbell rang. Kisa’s ears perked up as he slid free of her with a frown. Someone had made it to his front door and he hadn’t noticed. Was it because he had been napping?

Mike ran into Yuki in the living room. The kitsune was looking out the front window, her tails swishing.

“Who is out there?” he asked. “I didn’t sense anybody.”

Yuki looked over her shoulder and grinned. “Well, it’s certainly not a coven of witches. Do you sense every animal that crosses on your property?”

“Not really.”

She gestured at the door. “I’m guessing you didn’t sense anything due to their intent. It’ll make sense in a second.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” He swatted Yuki on the ass, which was actually an impressive feat due to all five of her tails being in the way. When he pulled the door open, he found himself looking down at a young blonde who nervously jumped back. At the bottom of the porch was a woman who was clearly the girl’s mother. She smiled politely at Mike.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

The girl stuttered a few times, holding what looked like a small trophy in her hands. Realizing the girl was nervous, he stepped outside and smiled, trying to emanate an aura of calm. His magic washed away from him, and the child seemed to settle.

“Uh… hi! I’m… Cassie. Um…” She looked back at her mom, who gave her a thumbs-up. “Is Callisto here?”

“Cassie? From the team?” He sent a mental ping to Charlotte. Callisto was probably down in the village, so Charlotte would find him first.

“Ye…yeah.” The girl blushed.

“Of course. You and your mom can sit on the swing while I go get him.” He gestured toward the porch swing, which had stopped swaying just a moment ago. “Just so you know, it’s haunted.”

Cassie didn’t make a sound, but her mother laughed. She was having a tough time taking her eyes off of Mike.

“Swings can’t be haunted,” Cassie finally declared.

“That is probably true.” Mike went back in the house to see that Yuki, Tink, and Kisa were now pressed against the window. Matilda attempted to do the same, but discovered that climbing the curtains was far more entertaining.

He asked them to arrange for some drinks and snacks, then stepped back outside. Nearly five minutes later, Callisto practically stumbled out the front door in a t-shirt and gym shorts. Clearly, it was the first outfit they could find, and he fidgeted with his fingers at the sight of Cassie.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said.

Mike realized the exchange had reached its peak, so gestured toward the gazebo. “Would you like to sit for a minute?” he asked Cassie's mom. “I’m Mike.”

She smirked. “Cheryl. And sure.” The woman fell in step behind Mike as they left the two kids behind to talk. Over in the gazebo, he pulled out a seat for the girl’s mother, then took one across from her.

“I’m a bit surprised to see anybody from the team,” he said. “I was under the impression that we were a problem.”

The woman scowled. “I disagree,” she said. “I might not understand your lifestyle choices, but I hardly think this is a…” Her eyes wandered over to where a bunch of centaurs had stopped pruning back branches to listen in. “Cult,” she finished.

“Yeah, I have no idea how that rumor started.” In fact, this was a lie. Eulalie had shared the video taken of him from the dance club, along with the numerous reddit threads about the Radley Cult. Even though she was secretly a mod on most of the local websites, squashing any mention of him and his family would only draw more attention.

Sadly, it had gotten worse. There were already so many people who had a Radley estate story, many of them from before his time. There was even a police officer sharing many of the numerous noise complaints, along with suspicious activities that bordered on the occult. This had brought out more than a few bad actors who were now doctoring images of his home with people in robes performing rituals on his front lawn.

Somehow, one of these was an actual picture of Kali of the now defunct Historical Society trying to dismantle the geas. He had Eulalie track that one down and learned it was a former neighbor.

Stories of how he had been slowly buying up nearby property worked against him as well. In short, the whole thing was getting out of hand, but there was very little he could do about it.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the deal?” The woman held up her hands as if in defense. “I’m just curious is all.”

Realizing that the woman’s curiosity would likely end up on a forum somewhere, he thought over his options. “Truthfully? Non-conventional lifestyle. Callisto’s mother spends most of her time at work, and while we are close, we have a very open relationship.”

“Oh. So those aunts she brought to games… is she dating them?” There was no judgement in the woman’s voice.

“No. I… am.” He tried to be nonchalant, but the conversation felt uncomfortable. “But they all support each other.”

“Oh, like sister wives!”

“Sure.” He had no idea what that meant.

“Is everybody here—”

“Employees.” He gestured at the centaurs. “It’s not everybody here. This place takes a lot of maintenance, and I, uh, also pay them in rent. I mean, they stay here. Live here. So that sounds culty, but they’re allowed to do whatever.”

She nodded. “It’s a shame you weren’t at more games. I bet others would have given you a chance to defend yourself.”

“I don’t need to defend anything,” he grumbled, then looked over at Callisto. Both he and Cassie were awkwardly talking, and the girl’s cheeks were bright red. “He’s the one who suffered from it.”

“On that, we agree.” The woman smiled sadly. “The kids were given trophies. Cassie wanted him to have hers, she doesn’t think any of this is fair.”

“That’s very kind of her.” Mike glanced at the trophy, then remembered what day it was. “Wait. I thought the tournament was this weekend. Why does Cassie have a trophy?”

Her mother shook her head. “It got cancelled. Summer flu or something. A bunch of kids in the league are sick at home. Originally, they were just going to postpone, but so many kids and grown-ups have it that they can’t reschedule every event, so they handed out trophies early.”

“Summer flu?” This was the first time Mike had heard anything about it, but that didn’t mean anything. It’s not like he was plugged into local events.

“Uh huh. One of my coworkers has it, she’s been working from home. Says she can barely keep her eyes open, it’s weird. Main symptom seems to be exhaustion.”

“Well, I’m glad Cassie was spared. She seems like a sweet kid.” He looked back over to see Cassie hand Callisto her trophy. The boy stared at it for far too long, clearly suffering some inner struggle. Cassie looked embarrassed, and it was hard to watch the two of them war with their own emotions.

Eventually, Callisto said something and Cassie gave him a hug. He froze up, then laughed embarrassingly loud. When Cassie took a step back, he held up a hand for a high-five.

“I miss being that age,” said her mom. “The whole world felt so big and safe.”

Mike couldn’t identify, so he just nodded. Moments later, she looked over at the tray of snacks and beverages that had appeared on the table and did a double-take.

“When did that—”

“We’re big on hospitality around here.” He gestured at the jug of water next to the teapot that Kisa had run out with. Based on the smell, it was earl grey. “May I pour you a drink?”

“Water will be fine, thank—is that a charcuterie board?” Cheryl blinked at the thin sliced cheese and salami. “I know for a fact that those weren’t here before.”

“That’s easy to explain. It’s magic.”

Cheryl laughed, then helped herself to the cheese tray. “This is the kind of magic I can get behind. You know, I—”

“Mom!” Cassie appeared, clearly out of breath. “Is my soccer ball in the car?”

“Yes.”

Cassie and Callisto ran down the long driveway to where Cassie had parked near the stone lions. She got in the car and emerged with a ball, and the two of them started passing it back and forth over by the Jabberwock. The creature lifted its head, realized that Cassie was snack-sized but not actually for eating, then laid back down and watched them.

Oblivious, Cheryl chatted quietly as Mike watched his son playing with a human friend. The trophy had been set on the ground nearby, watching over the children as they played. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Guh?” Matilda, who had snuck up on him, promptly grabbed a handful of salami and jammed it in her mouth.

Mike jumped to his feet and grabbed his goblin child. She joyfully blew him a fat raspberry, spraying him down with the crackers he hadn’t seen her eat, then wiggled her chubby arms as he tried to find something to do with her.

“Oh, my!” Cheryl’s eyes went wide. “That child is all green!”

“Booger!” Matilda squealed.

“Um, uh…” Mike caught sight of Tink nearby, who had clearly been trying to retrieve the child stealthily. Kisa was nearby as well, a grimace on her face

Cheryl laughed and handed Matilda a piece of cheese. “Looks like somebody spilled fingerpaints all over themselves. Poor thing. You need a bath.”

“Yeah she does.” He saw Yuki come running up. She had hidden her lupine ears beneath her hair, and her tails shimmered and disappeared. The kitsune had clearly heard Cheryl’s comment as she dabbed at herself with illusory magic, placing green handprints all over her face and skirt.

“There you are!” Yuki snatched the giggling child back, who promptly bit her. “This one pulled the whole jar over herself.”

“That’s an awful lot of paint,” Cheryl said, and the first edges of doubt crept into her voice.

“I’m a painter. We were doing handprints in her nursery and she got excited.” Yuki scowled at Matilda. “We’re going to have to redo part of that wall. There’s a whole child print on it.”

Matilda blew a raspberry as Yuki carried her off. Cheryl watched the two of them go, oblivious to the goblin and catgirl who had snuck through the hedges. “Cute kid. Yours, I assume?”

“Yeah. I have three.” He looked up, half expecting Grace to be dangling above him in the ceiling of the gazebo. That would be slightly harder to explain. “Callisto is the oldest.”

“I’ve got four. Cassie is the youngest. Speaking of, I should probably get home. It’s almost dinnertime. Well, by that, I mean I need to start dinner. We don’t eat for another hour.” Cheryl put her fingers in her mouth and blew a loud shrill whistle.

“Fucking hell!” Abella’s voice was faint from up on the roof. He doubted Cheryl heard her.

“Cassie! Five minutes!” Cheryl waved to make sure Cassie saw her, then turned to Mike. “We would love to have Callisto over sometime. Cassie talks a lot about him.” She looked at his home with a touch of jealousy. “Or we can come here, if that’s, um, easier.”

Mike smiled politely. The kids would have to play outside if they came here, there was no way he would invite Cassie or her mother into his home. “I think that would be great. Does Zel have your number?”

“She should.”

“Then I’ll have her reach out. She homeschools him, so knows his schedule better than I do.” That, and he didn’t know how keen Zel would be to go over to someone else’s house with Callisto. Being out in the open at a park was one thing. If trouble came for them, they could always run.

He wondered if Cheryl’s home could support a gargoyle on the roof. Maybe she had a closet they never used, the rats could chew an emergency portal.

“Homeschool? What program is she using? I have a friend who is looking.”

“I think she makes all the curriculum herself. Callisto is quite gifted, so that means tailoring his lessons.” He looked over at his gifted child currently laughing way too loud at something Cassie had said. Even the girl looked embarrassed for him. “Obviously, the hard part is the social part.”

“Isn’t it always?” Cheryl smiled, then helped herself to some more cheese. Mike watched his son playing with Cassie, and wished that he had all the answers. For now, this would have to be enough.