Epilogue
Zafir and I glowed with pride as we watched our five-year-old daughter mix her very first potion. Zafir covered her hand with his own. “A little slower when you stir.” He shot me a grin. “Your mother still has the same habit.”
“Maybe Mama does it right and you do it wrong,” Jasmine chirruped in her sweet little voice. “She makes more potions than you do.”
“That’s because Papa takes the easy way out when he heals people. He just uses magic. I actually do the work.”
Jasmine giggled and Zafir gave a long-suffering sigh. “It seems that my sister’s love of antagonizing me lives on. I’m very well respected everywhere except here, apparently.”
“Isn’t that why we named her for your sister?” I stroked her hair fondly, then told her, “Aunt Nadia made your hair pretty today.”
“We got ready together,” Jasmine said, carefully stirring the potion while sprinkling in some feverfew. “She is going to see her friend today and she wanted to look beautiful.”
“Which friend? Karis or Callahan?”
“Callahan. She said he’s taking her to the beach.” Jasmine’s face knotted in concentration as she dipped her ladle into the potion. “How long do I wait until it’s done?”
“About ten minutes,” Zafir answered. “Do you want to go visit Julian while you wait?”
“Yes!” Jasmine hopped off the stool and scampered out of the room.
“Callahan’s going to propose to Nadia soon,” Zafir told me as we followed our daughter. “I can tell.”
“Looks like we’ll have to tell Father Eldridge that he’ll be in charge of another wedding. He did such a beautiful job with ours. Oh, and that reminds me, did you send over another payment to the worship center?”
“Just like every month.” Zafir smiled at me then rubbed his hand on my swollen belly. “I’ll handle it. You have enough to worry about right now. I think this one will be a boy.”
We entered the menagerie and found Jasmine laughing as a lemur pawed through her hair.
“I still can’t believe you named him Julian,” I whispered to Zafir.
“What? It was perfect. He’s handsy and self-absorbed. It seemed like the perfect name to me.”
I laughed. “You’re ridiculous. You know that, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Watch this!” Jasmine ordered, rolling a grape across the floor. Julian went scampering after it. “I taught him to play fetch.”
“Good job,” I told her. “It looks like he isn’t interested in bringing it back, though.”
Julian was sitting and chewing on the grape, large eyes fixed on us as juice dribbled over his tiny paws.
“That’s okay. Is my happiness potion done yet?”
“I’m sure it is.” I beamed at Jasmine and heard Nadia go clattering out of her room and down the stairs to meet her date. “Though to be fair, I don’t think it’s possible to be any happier than we already are.”
“I agree,” Zafir said, hooking his chin over my shoulder and wrapping his arms around my belly. “Life is perfect.”