Cove kneaded his forehead, driving his fingers into his skin like a baker with an obstinate lump of dough. Stunned and silent, everyone, including the brattiraptors, was staring at him, waiting for his reply.

I'm going to pummel him. Cove had assumed it was a poor joke when his uncle Petrov said, "May the Gods bless you with a thousand daughters!” With Wendy's plea, the words were beginning to come true. Was this a blessing or a curse? Do I want to be responsible for two, no three, more children?

“Girls, I want your oral biology reports before bedtime. Cove, come with me," said Keeva as she tugged on his shirt.

He nodded, weight dropping from his shoulders with each step as he followed his wife out of the cave. Their feet squelched and splashed mud as they weaved through thickets of brambles and dwarf pines for a score of paces, emerged upon a broken asphalt highway, and meandered hand in hand up the road. Rain fell in hot sheets as the Demon Squalls rammed into the Nebelgruft Peaks. Even through the rain, the late afternoon vista was breathtaking. Southern Heim, the Hexenhof River winding through the Wraithwood, the lace of roads and highways connecting cities and towns stretched far below. On a clear day, and with a good telescope, the scene would have included Clover and the Eastern Sea.

Keeva stared into the distance, her grip loosening as her breathing calmed. "What are you going to do?"

"What can we do?"

"We?"

"A marriage is a partnership, not a dictatorship. What do you think?"

Keeva drew a long, slow breath and sighed. "I don't know, Cove. Wendy says she only wants you to be a daddy, but…”

“Are you worried she wants more?”

“Yes. Wendy’s pregnant, so not right away, but what happens the next time she gets a sip of blissfire or an itch her fingers can’t scratch?”

“Wendy was drugged and used as a party toy for ten days. Do you believe she will ever touch blissfire or want more than a friendly handshake from a man?”

“She told us she didn’t remember what happened, but I’ve thought about it, and her story stinks. We did blissfire as teens. It helps you relax, and enough will erase inhibitions. Too much will leave you blissfully paralyzed for a day or two, but you remember everything. Why would she lie?”

“Good question. Maybe someone mixed something into Wendy’s blissfire beer.”

“Why would someone do that to her?”

“It was a work party, maybe revenge, a bad prank, or a dare. Maybe some craven low-life wanted to drop a dumpling in her pot. We may never know the whole truth.”

“Her story smells like rancid eastern fish sauce.”

Cove gagged and coughed. “Whoa! I thought she was your friend.”

“Ms. Terrizzanar is Peyton and Kendra’s mother. I saw her at the Amelia Birthday choral, Mother’s Week plays, Heim Day, and other school events. I've spent more time with her in the last few months than in the previous decade.”

“We could say the same about Dax and Penny.”

“They’ve earned my trust. Dax helped rescue Lyra and Bree. You adopted Penny.”

“Do you want to send Wendy away? What about Peyton and Kendra? They are your students.”

“That’s not fair,” Keeva whispered. My students are my children. They’ve spent more of their lives with me than with their parents. I love them. We’ll take the girls in if Wendy dies or abandons them, but she won’t; she’s a good mom.”

“Okay, but what do we do in the meantime? Can we adopt them as common-law-children without taking Wendy as a common-law-wife?”

“No, you will not take Wendy as a wife, concubine, lover, or whatever.”

“I do not want to have sex with her! Nine hells! After the Amekia Temple…” Cove cupped Kee’s face between his palms and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. He slowed his breathing, tipped her head down until their noses touched, and stared into her eyes, “You are the only one I crave. I want to kiss and touch every millimeter of your skin and explore the depths and heights of intimacy with you. Everyone else is Tidewraith bait. Wendy is a friend, and that is all I want. She says friendship and a daddy for her children are all she needs.”

Keeva gazed into the falling rain. “You believe her?”

“I want to, but now? I will send her away to put a smile back on your face.”

“If Wendy goes, she’ll take Peyton and Kendra with her. They’ll be in one of Heim’s slave farms or a Bordellwald whore house before the Amelia Festival.”

“I will not condemn three women and an unborn infant to slavery.”

“What if we took them as part of our household?”

Cove growled.

“Not as slaves,” Kee said excitedly, “as staff."

“We don’t have a house to clean, gardens to tend, or children to supervise.”

“No, but we have several tents, two hadrosaurs, and a cooking pot, and in a few months, there will be babies.”

Cove held up a silencing finger and stared into the distance. The idea could work, yet something niggled at his mind like a gnat buzzing in his ear. “Your idea sounds good, but… I don’t know; the theory has a problem, yet I can not put my finger on it…” Wendy’s raptor eyes glowed in his memory, and legends more than five eons old swam through his mind.

“Theory? My dear, wonderful biophysicist husband. I see one monster flaw in my theory. How will we feed, house, and clothe everyone? Yes, you have figured out how to make Azure—congratulations—but it’s in huge slabs. We can’t walk into Clover Grocier and lay down a rock worth more than the county…. Oh…" Kee gazed at the Azure spheres dripping like rain from Cove’s fingertips. "How did you do that?”

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He pulled a thumb-sized chunk of crystal from his pocket and set it in her hand. “I'm a Stoneshaper. I can’t duplicate the ones refined by the Mint, but these will pass inspection.”

"You can mint your own money," Kee said. She nibbled on her lip as a soft smile spread across her face. A tentative giggle escaped, and she whispered, "We're rich."

Cove ran a hand over Keeva's baby bump as he said, "This is wealth. All the Azure in the world are mere rocks." They embraced and kissed. "There is one thing I don't understand."

"About kissing?"

"No, I know how to kiss."

"I think you need more practice," cooed Keekee, "our daughters think we're too noisy."

Cove snickered, "We could give lessons. No, I want to know why the Sign of Elystria appeared on Wendy, Peyton, and Kendra. Why now, and not several months ago when they started traveling with us?"

Keeva looked out into the storm and sighed. "It's my fault. Not directly, but my idea that triggered the change."

"How?"

"Roy and Hanna killed two rabbits while teaching the teens to use slings and slingshots. They also gathered some onions and root vegetables. I asked them to build a fire and cook. There was no way the girls or I would eat raw wild rabbits, plus I've had all the cold food I can handle. Did you know Roy is a gifted chef? He’s not Peter from the Plucked Raptor, but he's got talent. I used fire to heat one of the larger crystals as a stove and a skinny Azure crystal as a spoon to stir as Roy dropped in the ingredients."

"You used a shard of Azure as a cooking utensil?"

Keeva nodded.

Cove looked to the heavens, heedless of the driving rain, and groaned. "I assume everyone ate the stew?"

"It was delicious.”

"I bet it was magical. Has anyone checked Roy?"

"No."

"Wonderful."

"It didn't cause any problems for me. Cove, I was careful; no pieces broke off into the food. How did it make the non-mages sick?"

"Azure has several odd properties. Under particular conditions, it will transfer its power to whatever it touches. You used your gift to heat the food while stirring it with a rod charged with Elystria. That stew was ten, maybe a hundred times more potent than the charberry pie the Riddere served your class."

Kee's face fell. "Oh... I am so sorry. I didn't know..."

"It's water under the bridge. We have other challenges before us. First, I need to eat. Next, we must perform the Rite of Opening for everyone except Sera, you, and me. Then, we must hold a family council to determine what to do next. Last, and this is just between our original group, we have a sleeper agent in our team."

"What? Who? How do you know?"

"Heim has someone planted in our team. I do not know who nor how, but they have been leaking information to the Riddere."

"I bet it's Wendy or Roy."

"You might be right, but how do we prove it, and what if you are wrong? Both are here to save people they love; betraying us puts their loved ones in jeopardy. Worse, thanks to your magic stew, everyone on our team is a mage, and all our unborn children will be mages. We are all under the same headsman's axe."

"It can't be one of the girls!"

Cove shrugged. “Whoever it is may not know they are betraying us.”

“Who can we trust?”

“You and me; everyone else is a suspect until we rule them out.”

“Our daughters?”

“I do not believe Lyra and Bree are traitors. Yet… Our girls spent months under the Riddere’s thumbs. Cove ran his hands through his hair. “In that time, they broke a lifetime of moral training and programmed Lyra and Bree to shun clothes and prefer sky-clad. What other instructions did they hide in their minds?”

Kee pinched her lips as her eyes focused on the distant clouds. “No. The Riddere have been on our tails since Tansy.”

“Are you sure?”

“How did they know we would be at MistiCraft Haven? Why were they waiting at the park? There aren’t enough Riddere to stand on every street corner.”

"We can ask Roy and Hanna," said Cove.

"Will they know?"

Cove shrugged. "I hate not knowing who to trust."

"We have each other."

Warmth filled his chest, lifting his soul like a balloon. "Yes. Thank you. For now, we will offer Wendy and her family jobs as our household staff, treat her as my sister and her daughters as nieces, and begin filtering through our companions to find the agent."

Keeva nodded as she pulled him into an embrace. She tugged at her sodden blouse and sighed. "We're drenched. I lived in Oberritterstein for so long that I forgot about the Demon Squalls. This is like standing in a hot shower."

"Do you have any soap?"

"No,” giggled Keekee, “Cove, what are you thinking? If anyone steps outside…”

“They must look through a hundred meters of tropical rain to find us.” He slipped his fingers under the hem of her shirt, peeling it up while whispering, “Be quiet..."