“Five,” he said miserably.
“Wrong, it’s seven.”
“It’s five,” he insisted.“Five years.Can’t you do math at all, Auntie Bandit?”
“Oh, you’re right.Five years and three weeks from now.Which means you know perfectly well there is no fucking way you can come with us.”
“Language!”Phinny yelled, using that uncanny sorcerous ability mothers develop to sense when anyone, anywhere is stepping outside the lines.
“How did she even hear me?”Cha muttered.
“Ears like a bat,” Phin Jr.answered solemnly.
“Warg, no!”Zazu exclaimed.
They both looked over to see Warg, basically a cross between a crocodile and a salamander—though in an unnatural shade of pink with violet, palm-sized spots—galumphing toward the duck pond with rather shocking speed for a creature that dragged its copious, rippling belly over the lavender-tipped grass and leaving only mud behind.
“Arantzazu Mezzanotte!”Phinny yelled.“You had one job.”
“I’ve got him,” Zazu called back.
Phin Jr.sadly shook his head.“She does not have him.”
Sure enough, Warg plunged over the muddy banks of the duck pond and into the algae-slimed water, Zazu shrieking and holding onto his hind legs, being dragged in right behind him.
Cha leapt over the fence in one easy bound, waving to Phin and Dy and running on long legs as she quickly caught up to the hapless Zazu.Wading in, she caught the sputtering little girl around the waist.Promptly bursting into tears, Zazu buried her filthy face against Cha’s neck and wailed disconsolately.
“There, there, honey,” Cha murmured to her, patting her back.“No use crying over an escaping Warg.If I shed a tear every time that creature ran away from your mother, I could fill a wine barrel.”
“Really?”Zazu sniffed.
Phinny and Dy had arrived to extract the happily swimming Warg from the pond, complicated by panicked ducks flapping everywhere and an excited audience of Phin Jr, the twins, and toddler jumping up and down and shouting advice.Cha carried Zazu a short distance away from the cacophony.“Really,” she confirmed.“Did I ever tell you about the time we were on a smuggling run in Sandstone and—”
“No stories about criminal activity!”Phinny shouted.
Cha shook her head in amazement.“She does have ears like a bat.”
Zazu giggled.Then hugged Cha’s neck tightly.“I love you, Auntie Bandit.”
“I love you, too, Zazzy, and I’m very sorry you got saddled with my name.I begged them not to do it.”
“When I grow up, I want to be just like you,” Zazu said with solemn intensity.
Cha could see it in a flash, little Zazu growing up to defy the fae authorities, take risks, sleep alone at night.“Oh, honey, no,” she said.“You want to grow up to be like your moms.You have no idea how lucky you are to have a loving family.”
“I know I’m lucky,” Zazu countered.“I have two great moms and a bad ass Auntie.”
“Language!”Phinny shouted.
Cha and Zazu both giggled.“I can have a family and be a ley rider like you,” Zazu continued, giving Cha a smacking kiss on the cheek that no doubt left algae behind.“It doesn’t have to be one or the other, Auntie Bandit,” she chided.
“I’ve been schooled by a six-year-old,” Cha informed Dy, who tromped past carrying a cumbersome, wriggling armload of Warg.
“Zazu is wise beyond her years,” Dy agreed wearily.“Meet you by the pump so we can get this shit off of us.”
“Language,” Phinny, Zazu, and Cha yelled in unison.
~6~