Epilogue
“Family supper in an hour,” Elloven said and kissed her husband on the back of his neck. The startled glance up from his paperwork, sending his reading spectacles sliding down his nose, was a charming reminder that though life was a never-ending stream of changes, some things were constant.
“Clarissa is home for a few days with her husband and children... We finally get to meet Endeara’s betrothed, Barrie...” Elloven continued slowly, trying to jog his memory. She enjoyed watching his mind work overtime. “Everyone is welcoming them home...”
“I know,” Jesstin said with a scoff. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a sly grin. “Was only seeing how far you’d go. Thought for sure you’d start rattling off the names of everyone in the village.”
“That so?” Elloven replied.
“He forgot, Mama. Again,” Alysia blurted in her frank, guileless way.
At two, she was already soaking up everything others said, and loved to repeat particularly emphatic phrases.
She had her head against her mother’s shoulder, and while Elloven couldn’t see her face, the haughty expression she wore when “catching someone out” was a piece of Elloven’s heart.
Both of her children’s mannerisms and quirks were.
Elloven aimed an eye-fluttering bemusement at Jesstin. “Guardians know someone must remind him, or he’d have to stop pretending he’s good at rows and numbers and actually employ an accountant.”
“I had an accountant. She retired.” Jesstin wrinkled his nose at Elloven.
He set his quill aside and regarded their daughter.
“And you, chicken, you like to take your mother’s side, but who sneaks you candies when you come begging with those big blue eyes?
” Jesstin folded his arms with a woefully unconvincing earnestness. “Hm?”
“No,” Alysia protested, and they all laughed.
Jesstin kissed their daughter on the forehead.
“You’ve never touched a sweet thing in your life, and I’m a wizard at numbers who never forgets what Mama’s scheduled into our diaries.
We’re both innocent of the crimes we’ve been so wrongly accused of.
” He winked at Elloven as he returned to his work.
“Meet at the Hermitage, or should I ask one of the carriages to wait for you?”
“Wait for me,” Jesstin said. “We’ll go together. Wait, carriages? Why do we need more than one? Are Daire and the others coming with us?”
“It might just be Daire after all. Wyat and Endeara may have already gone on ahead. You know her. She’s anxious about meeting her future husband for the first time.
Worried he might not be pleasing.” She didn’t want Alysia to know the rest, that Endeara had wanted her favorite uncle, Emrys, so badly to be a part of her wedding that she’d agreed to accelerate her arranged marriage.
The celebration was less than a fortnight away, but everyone was nervous Emrys wouldn’t survive even that long, so there’d been talk of moving it even sooner.
“Her mother hitched herself to that old dog Oakenwell and not a peep of complaint from her. Young Barrie is heir to one of the wealthiest stewardships in the entire kingdom, and at least he still has his energy for...” Jesstin caught himself. “Endy’ll find that pleasing enough.”
“For what, Papa?” Alysia asked.
“For games, chicken.” Jesstin laughed. “I won’t be late for the carriage. Promise.”
“You’ll tell me later how the guild meeting went?” Elloven asked.
He nodded. “I believe everyone walked away with what they wanted, other than a few whose names wouldn’t shock you.”
Elloven was proud of Jesstin for many things, but his choice to be chief patron for a guild of pleasure workers of Mythgarde was a perfect example of how someone could turn the worst of their demons into the purest of acts.
The midnight men and women made up one of the few trades in the kingdom without representation to protect their rights, and Mythgarde was the first village to support it.
They had fair wages and hours and were eligible for the program Wyat had set up to tutor prospective applicants to the universities in Oldcastle.
Not all of Jesstin’s peers had been so amicable to the loss of exploitation, but few things were as timeless as enemies of progress.
“Oh!” Elloven snapped her fingers right as she was readying to leave for next door. “Did I already tell you Oliver went ahead with Sesto earlier this morning?”
“You did.”
“I need to give the coachman a count. I’m not forgetting anyone?”
“Just you and me, that’s two. Wyat and Endeara, if they’re still here. Daire makes five. Can’t think of anyone else, can you?”
“And me!” Alysia called.
“Do you hear a chicken squawking, Mama?” Jesstin asked.
Elloven cast her eyes to the side. “In the distance, perhaps?”
“I’m here!” Alysia cried. She wriggled away from Elloven’s neck, twisting.
“Oh, there is a chicken. Better make it six.” He tousled Alysia’s golden-red curls, and she giggled. “An hour?”
“An hour,” Elloven answered and blew him a kiss before shifting Alysia tighter against her shoulder and returning through the crowded tavern floor.
She had become used to the jarring shift between Jesstin’s sequestered office and the raucous pub, and it no longer set her anxiety on alert.
Many of their patrons were regulars she knew by face, name, or both, and as she smiled and greeted everyone, she always recommitted them to memory.
Oliver was even better at the game and loved being in the thick of the action, enough that Elloven had been worried his comfort and ease with drunken, ribald men and women, and the way he disappeared so easily would get him abducted one day.
Jesstin had assured her there were far more there who would kill anyone who dared than those with the foolishness to try.
That loyalty extended beyond the Golden Spiral, all the way down the Row.
No one had ever attempted to harm either of her children, but a man had put his hands on Elloven once, when she had been visiting her husband one evening.
He’d grabbed her arm and made a lewd comment as she’d passed, low enough for his mates to hear but not her.
She hadn’t had the chance to even register it had happened before the man was on the floor with ten others standing over him.
“Evening, Miss Ellie,” they all said as they passed. “Miss Aly.”
“Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi,” Alysia sang, her arm waving.
She was a miracle child. Adopting Oliver had been an easy choice, if they could even call it one.
Their sweet boy had adopted them was more accurate, and he’d become theirs so effortlessly, Elloven couldn’t imagine their life any other way.
From time to time, she and Jesstin had discussed bringing other orphans into their family.
Her work with Daire put many such children in her path.
But there were always better placements for them, couples who had been hoping and praying for their own little Oliver to come along and complete their family.
Elloven had never dared to dream for more.
She had all she needed, and she’d long given up the fantasy of carrying a child herself after what Fabrien had done to her.
But then, just before Oliver turned four, she’d become inexplicably and aggressively ill, enough for Jesstin to nearly lose his mind and send all the way to Whitechurch for a physician.
No, it can’t be a child, she’d insisted, but the doctor had exhausted all other manner of examination before asserting there was no other explanation.
A few months later, when the little flutters in her belly escalated to jabs, she conceded he may be right, but it was not until she held Alysia’s cooing, wriggling little body in her arms that she’d accepted the impossible had become reality.
She slipped outside into the busy night, nodding at their two guards on her way to the building two doors down, which Jesstin had purchased for her a year after their marriage.
He’d carved and hung the sign himself—The Bellessa-Gennady Trust—and though it was Elloven’s foundation, he poured plenty of time and funding into the efforts as well.
There’d been far more disenfranchised young women in need of aid than even they’d guessed, and within months, she’d brought Daire on as a partner to help.
Wyat had offered his time to tutor in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and Endeara taught them valuable trade skills such as sewing and baking.
Rhiain offered instruction on self-defense monthly, and Caterina’s blacksmith husband, Percy, forged protective weapons for anyone who wanted one.
Others from the family filtered in and out as they could.
“Auntie,” Wyat said at the door, kissing her cheeks. “And Aly!”
“Wyat!” Alysia shrieked, her arms outstretched. Elloven passed her daughter over, shaking her head.
“She’s all Mama, Mama, Mama until cousin Wyat shows up.” She laughed. “Everything well here? I thought you and Endeara would’ve left by now.”
“I’d say.” Wyat shifted Alysia to one arm and gestured into the large, central room. “I have some happy news to share. Lola got the apprenticeship at Farrah’s Mending. They offered boarding through the training, and if the assignment goes well, she’ll be able to rent the room for a reduced fee.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! I had a feeling it would work out.”
He nodded modestly, but pride colored his cheeks.
“I never doubted it. Also, Ellen sent off her application to the universities this morning. I’ve never seen someone so nervous paying a courier.
Market Day is at the end of the week, so the others are busy working on their submissions.
Did I tell you Viola may go train with my father?
I hope she does. The world needs more women blacksmiths. ”