When everyone was ready to rejoin the party, they left the room with some degree of reluctance. By the time they were outside, they were struggling to remember...something important. Seconds later they had forgotten that there even was something to remember, shrugged their collective shoulders, and rejoined the festivities.

Outside things were winding down. While having a party was exciting and, for most of the children, it was the first one they'd ever been to, they'd been riding for nearly six weeks and were beyond tired. Mimi decided that it was times to wrap things up.

"All right everyone. Pay attention! It's time to get settled in to your new rooms. But first, baths are needed. I doubt seriously that you want to live in rooms smelling like horses, so I want you to divide yourselves into groups. The boys go over to Stavros. He's going to lead you to the bath in the his aunt's home. The girls gather around 'Suela. She'll take you to the bath in her home."

She bent her head in thought for a moment then lifted it and said, "It'll be tiring for everyone if you call her Mrs. Donetti all the time, especially as there are three Mrs. Donetti's here. If she is agreeable, you should call your host 'Aunt Anna'."

She turned and faced Anna. "If that is agreeable with you Mrs. Donetti?"

Anna beamed. It wasn't just agreeable. She was thrilled.

Mimi smiled and nodded back. "All right. Everyone get into your groups. After your baths you'll be able to settle into your new rooms. Once you've explored them, the house, and gotten lost a few times, it should be about time for dinner."

The children gathered without a fuss. They were overstuffed, tired, and also very excited about seeing their new rooms. As they were about to head off to their respective houses, Yoko charged in shouting, "Hey! You two boys. You belong with the other group. Don't go in with the girls."

Hibiki, who was speaking to Consuela turned to her sister. "What are you talking about. Everyone here is a girl."

Yoko stomped her foot and waved her arms. "Are you crazy? How could you possibly mistake these two guys for girls?" As she was speaking, she pointed to Gertie and then Feliz.

Biki glared at Yoko. "I have not made a mistake. They're obviously girls."

Gertie and Feliz looked at each other without speaking. Those nearby could see that both were confused and embarrassed by the unwarranted accusation.

Yoko was loud enough that Sara's attention was drawn to the group. As she looked at them, she nodded. Yoko was right. The two taller children were definitely boys. She had no idea what was going on, but she intended to find out and marched herself in that direction.

Once she reached about five meters away, she stopped short as she ran into a powerful wall of magic. She found herself rocking back and forth as she tried to catch her balance. As she did so she was astonished to see that when she was leaning forward, the two children were definitely girls, but as she fell backwards and landed on her bottom, she could see that they were boys.

What in the world?!

"What's wrong Sara? Are you OK?"

Paolo was hurrying toward her with a worried expression.

She held up a hand to stop him. "I'm fine, but I need your mother, and I need her right now! Something is horribly wrong."

He spun on his heel and ran over to his mother who was facing the other direction and standing next to Anna. They had their arms about each other's waists and their heads were touching as they spoke to their husbands. Paolo had never noticed before, but Anna was just as tall as Miranda. No wonder so many people mistook them for twins when they were younger.

Hearing his footsteps approaching, Miranda turned her head toward Paolo and mouthed, "What?"

Paolo slid to a stop, pointed to Sara, who was still sitting on the grass, but now had her head in her hands, he said, "Help!"

For once Miranda didn't bother to pretend she was walking. She hitched up her skirt and ran to Sara. "What's wrong?"

As she stepped in front of Sara so as to see her face, she encountered the magic field herself. Oh my God! What in the world? Whatever it was, it was powerful, and it felt...strange.

She spun around and invoked her mage sight. The field was emanating from the vicinity of the necks of two of the new children, probably pendants given the location, and it had an odd flavor. It tasted like nothing she'd encountered before, but its action was clear. It was a kind of negation spell. She pushed some of her power against it.

Astonishing. It did only one thing, but it was doing it exceedingly well. The stipulation for the spell was that anyone seeing those wearing the pendants would sense that those wearing them were not male. Oddly it wasn't designed to make one think that they were female, but, if they weren't male, most people would instantly assume "female," and the result was the same.

It was the strangest way to build a spell that she'd ever seen, but it was working, all too well.

Miranda walked slowly forward. She didn't want to frighten the children more than they already were. When she reached Gertie and Feliz, she patted them on the head. "I'm sorry. You must be confused by all this."

As she was speaking she let her hands drop, slowly, and gently put her palms over the pendants. She realized that the spell had probably been cast by someone without proper training. It was balanced on a knife edge. Even a tiny amount of extra power would make it collapse and dissipate.

Combining action with her realization, she gave the spell a bit of a nudge, after which everyone within five meters, other than Yoko, collapsed.

While everyone was still muzzy, Miranda cast a minor binding, blunting any desire those in the area might have to ask what was going on. Once everyone had settled in for a few days, she'd ask Archbishop Comfort to come help her unravel...whatever it was. After her mistake of trying to sort out Sara's abilities by herself, she wasn't about to meddle with this on her own. Just thinking of what Lucina might do to her if she did made her break out in a cold sweat.

As the children began to gather themselves together Miranda cooed, "Oh you poor things! You must be more tired than we'd thought. 'Suela, you'd best get them into the bath right away."

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She turned her head slightly, "Hibiki. You're looked a bit pale yourself. Why don't you join them? Yoko and I will help tidy up here."

Having already bathed, Mattie and Brigid were by the buffet, finally having something to eat. Brigid began to move forward, intending to ask what had just happened. She was restrained by Mattie reaching up and taking ahold of her sleeve. When Brigid turned to look at her, Mattie gently shook her head "no."

Yoko and Miranda helped Sara to her feet, then Miranda asked, "Are you feeling OK dear?"

Sara nodded. Looking casually around the area she noted a few anxious faces and about twice the number who looked curious. Smiling slightly to reassure the watchers, she whispered, "When?"

Miranda replied, "Probably in a few days. I'll ask Lucina to supervise."

"Ah. That sounds good. I'll clear my schedule for whatever day you decide on."

Unexpectedly Yoko interjected, "It must be after we get home from school. I shall need to be there as well."

Miranda turned, intending to give Yoko a bit of instruction as to why children don't make demands of adults more than twice their age. What she saw was her second shock of the past few minutes. Yoko said nothing more, but rather stood entirely still, totally relaxed, and without expression. Her gaze was neither challenging nor defensive. It was like Miranda was staring at a stone wall.

Miranda's intended reprimand turned into, "Ah... Yes. Of course. I'll let you know when we set a time."

Yoko nodded. "I shall arrange for Biki and Jason to be busy."

She sketched a bow, said, "Until then," and walked away.

Miranda turned to Sara, "Did you see...."

"Indeed I did. It will be interesting to see where this thread leads." Sara was thrilled. The people in her life were stranger, and much more interesting, than she had ever imagined when she was a child.

-----------------

The orphans had no such thoughts. They were far more interested in getting their baths and then exploring what was, to them, a massive house. The boys of Mattie's wing took one of the converted storerooms, and the five other girls took the second. It had been planned for one of the older girls to have a room to herself, but none of them wanted to be alone.

Anna was worried that they might feel cramped if they were all together, but, after 'Suela took her aside and explained where they had lived in Metz, Anna instantly agreed, and they managed to shoehorn a small bed between the two sets of bunk beds in the larger of the converted storerooms.

Brigid and Mattie asked to use the room next to Alphonse's, which Anna had originally planned on having two of the boys use, as she was unsure about girls wanting to use a room next to a boy's. Fortunately their request suited her long-term goals better anyway. While Anna was almost fully engaged in the family jewelry store, Journey's End, she still practiced the family trade of spying.

She'd quickly noticed that both Brigid and Mattie were girls who saw no reason to defer to boys just because they were male, which was a good part of the reason why she agreed to the room change. It would do Alphonse good to see how girls both younger and older than he was acted when they weren't trying to impress anyone. Like most boys, he had rather unrealistic ideas about how girls "ought" to behave. Seeing these two regularly should correct his erroneous impressions rather quickly.

The two boys from La Grande took the remaining two person room. Stavros conspired to be with them when they arrived and asked, "Ah. Look. I wasn't with you all when you joined the group, so I, ah, didn't catch your names."

The eldest pointed to himself, "I'm Kurt Farina." Pointing to his sib he said, "My brother here is Sandro."

Stavros grinned, "Got it. I'll make sure that anyone else who might not have caught them finds out. Otherwise you're going to have dozens of people asking you, and you're going to get worn out from answering so often."

"Thanks. We're really not used to being around so many people. I'm told that our village was rather large as such things go, but neither of us had any idea of just how big a town we were coming to. To tell the truth, it's more than a little scary."

Chuckling, Stav responded, "Heh. I have trouble dealing with people in villages. Make one mistake and everyone knows about it. Here, no matter how badly you screw up, you don't have to be embarrassed every time you see someone."

"I never thought of that. You're right about everyone in a village knowing what's going on. I think it's going to be nice to be semi-anonymous now."

Sandro nodded his agreement with his older brother.

Kurt pointed to him. "He doesn't talk as much as I do. That's cause he's usually listening. No matter what was going on in La Grande, he learned about it eventually. Which, I guess, makes your point."

Stav smiled in response. When his mother heard about Sandro, she'd likely recruit him as soon as she could finagle it. She was always complaining about not having enough "reliable younglings" working for her.

After that the three of them chatted about not much of any import. It was more to get better acquainted than anything else. Eventually Stav excused himself, "So you can get settled in." There wasn't really much of anything for them to put away, given how little they had, but it was a good excuse for him to leave and let them relax a bit before dinner.

Interlude

Up until three days earlier, food had been the last thing on Anna's mind. Her neglect of that issue was, unsurprisingly, brought to mind by Mimi. As they were putting linens on the bunk beds Sven had retrieved from somewhere or other, Mimi asked, "I assume arrangements have been made for the extra staff you'll need once the children arrive?"

"Huh? What staff?"

"The staff you're going to need if you don't want piles of trash, dirty laundry, and rotten food lying around within two days of their arrival. You certainly can't continue doing the cooking and cleaning yourself. I can see why you and Mr. Donetti took care of that with just the three of you, but neither of you has the time, or the skill to manage it for 16."

Anna sat down heavily on one of the beds. "Oh my GOD! I totally forgot. What in the world am I going to do? You can't find reliable help and get them properly trained to function in a new household in only three days. It takes several weeks."

Mimi smiled. She loved looking like she was always prepared for everything. She wasn't going to admit to anyone that it was Ailin who had pointed out a week ago, with an overly superior attitude I might add, that staff needed to be hired.

"Please do not worry yourself Madame Donetti. With you're permission, may I introduce you to some prospects."

"Ah, yes. Of course. When?"

"Would right now suit?"

Anna looked gobsmacked. Mimi hid her "Ah ha! Put one over on you!" smile, turned, and opened the door of the room. Four people filed in.

"May I introduce you to Celia Zangari, Gemma Hopkins, and Terza Constantine. Celia is one of the finest cooks ever to have lived in The City. Nico here is her son and her apprentice. He is also trained to serve in the dining room.

"Gemma and Terza are superior maids, unusually so given that they are only 18 and 22."

Mimi smiled at them. "They are also my cousins. I've found that hiring family, if they are competent, is almost always better than retaining a stranger who might have problems they're hiding during an interview."

She nodded to herself "The four of them should suffice at the beginning. In addition to their schooling, the children need to learn how to properly take care of their rooms, which will significantly reduce the work for your staff in that area. Given that, you'll have ample time to decide how many additional staff you may need, if any. Should you decide that more are needed, I shall be pleased to assist you in seeking them out, if you wish."

All four of them looked at Anna with varying degrees of anticipation and nervousness. Anna was stunned and didn't begin to rouse until she saw Mimi's suspiciously bland face. So, it was like that was it?

"All right. You're all hired, provisionally. However, if you're half as good as Mimi says, you'll be offered permanent positions."

Turning to Mimi. "All right you duplicitous schemer. You brought them here, so you show them around. Though I strongly suspect that their things are already in their rooms in the servant's quarters."

She stood and smoothed the front of her smock. "Which I'm going to avoid going into for the next several hours. I've already had enough shocks for the day. I don't need another from finding out that I'm right and that it's our 'servants' who truly run our households."

Anna waved a hand at the four of them and smiled. "Off with you. We'll have more than aplenty of time to get to know each other. I'm going to stay here for a while and let my mind catch up with what just happened."