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“Are they ready yet, it’s been million minutes. And a half. I’m bored.”
Eurydice looked up from where she was putting a puzzle together with Cersi, her youngest granddaughter. Her eldest one, eight-year-old Zoreia, was currently curling backwards over the arm of the couch like she was training to be a contortionist. Maybe her parents should’ve convinced her to go into gymnastics like her sister instead of martial arts.
“No, they’re not ready, don’t ask no more,” Cersi said. She poked at a little jigsaw piece. Eurydice had tried to convince her to play with the child-sized puzzles instead, but Cersi had begged and pleaded to do a “Granna puzzle,” meaning one of Eurydice’s 500-piece jigsaws.
“You don’t know, Cece,” Zoreia said.
“Do know,” Cersi said, “So shush your face.”
“Cersi, say it nicely,” Eurydice said.
Cersi smiled, innocent and mischievous at the same time, her strawberry blonde pigtails bouncing against her cheeks. “Yes, ma’am, Granna, ma’am.” Her expression looked so much like her father when she did that it instantly brought back memories of Lucien when he was four. She pushed a piece of the puzzle toward Eurydice. “Extra please be quiet, Zo, you’re a loud person.”
Zoreia rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t nice.”
“Was so.”
The living room of her and Helion’s home by the lakeside was currently filled with children, which was a perfect kind of autumn afternoon. Eurydice and Helion were babysitting while their grandchildren’s parents went out for the evening to some kind of concert that Elain, Aurae, and Gwyn had all wanted to go to. Something about Eras and that nice Swift woman. Gwyn was technically Eurydice’s niece, but she might as well have been another one of her children. Elain’s sister Feyre and her husband Rhysand had gone along with them, so Eurydice and Helion had also agreed to watch Nyx. They would all be back in the early hours of the morning, so it was going to be something of a sleepover.
Outside, the late afternoon sun shone against bright leaves that had started turning colors a few days ago. Sunlight pooled on the carpet in spots, one of which was occupied by one of her two cats, Daedalus. Seryn, Gwyn and Azriel’s seven-year-old daughter, was using a cat toy fishing pole to play with Icarus, the five-month-old kitten. Nearby, Phoebe, Zoreia’s twin sister, was using colored pencils with her new Halloween-themed coloring book.
“We could start the caramel apples, couldn’t we?” suggested Nyx. The dark-haired ten-year-old was sprawled across an armchair, legs thrown over one end and nestled on soft pillows against the other. He had a golden copy of book titled Artemis Fowl open in one hand. Apparently Gwyn had given it to him, suggesting that he might relate to the main character, and judging by how fast he was reading it, he at least liked the plot.
Seryn tossed a small smile in Nyx’s direction. Regardless of their age gap, they were co-conspirators. Seryn did tend to act older than her age. “We do have to make the caramel.”
“That!” Zoreia kicked her legs and flipped over the couch’s arm, landing only a little awkwardly. With a spin, she wandered over to where Helion was laying on his stomach playing with one-year-old Gareth. Lucien and Elain’s son, with his chestnut hair and dark green eyes, was a quiet baby with a gaze that seemed to miss nothing. He was already walking a little at almost one, most likely because of the need to keep up with his sister and cousins. Zo sat down on Helion’s back, getting an ‘oof’ out of him. “Let’s go!”
“I won’t be going anywhere if you break my back,” Helion said, casting a smirk at her over his shoulder.
She grinned back. “I was gentle.”
“My old bones say otherwise.”
“Let’s go!” Zoreia exclaimed. She made faces at Garth over Helion’s shoulder. Garth watched her, not laughing but intrigued, like he couldn’t quite figure out why she was being so goofy. “Gareth wants to make apples.”
“We don’t make the apples, we just dip them in caramel,” Nyx said with a taunting lilt to his tone. “Remember? Unless you want to plant a tree, wait a few months, see if anything actually grows—”
“Can you uninvite him?” Zoreia asked Helion, who smiled and shook his head.
“It’s a little late for that,” he told her.
“You’d miss me something awful if I wasn’t here,” Nyx said, flipping a page in his book.
“No, I would not.”
“You would.”
“Wouldn’t! Would never!”
“All right,” Eurydice said, clapping her hands once as Zoreia’s face started to turn red, clearly becoming more irritated at Nyx and his teasing nonchalance. “Let’s go make caramel apples.”
“The puzzle,” Cersi said, patting the few pieces Eurydice had put together. “Not done yet.”
“You’ll like making apples more than the puzzle,” Nyx said. He closed his book with a snap and slipped it between the cushions as he got up. Walking over, he tickled Cersi’s side and then picked her up. “Come on, maybe we can sneak baked apples early.”
“They’ll be too hot,” Zoreia said as she jumped up. “Come on, Bee!”
As Phoebe and Seryn followed the others into the kitchen, Eurydice slid back from the table, careful not to disturb the puzzle. She picked up Gareth as Helion got to his feet, stretching. He grinned at her. “How much do you think we would get if we could bottle all their energy and sell it?”
“Are you looking to diversify your company?” she teased. Spellcleaver Industries sold solar panels and green energy alternatives. Eurydice and Helion’s own home by the lake was completely solar powered.
Helion winked at her before leaning over to kiss her temple. “I’m keeping my options open.”
Eurydice smiled. Gareth nuzzled against her shoulder as she carried him into the kitchen, where she set him into a sling against her back and quickly took charge before Nyx and Zoreia could get into a battle over who the boss. With swift instructions, she had everyone moving, gathering the supplies and kitchenware they needed. Helion put on instrumental movie soundtrack music, which made Eurydice feel even more like a conductor. The kids worked quickly, less arguments erupting now that they all had something to do.
Nyx and Seryn, who worked well as a team, were assigned to Helion. He boiled a pot of water while they washed off apples and set them to the side, getting ready to dunk them into the water to get the wax off.
Phoebe was in charge of measuring out ingredients for the caramel, which she did with the utmost care. Zoreia and Cersi took turns pouring what Bee measured out into a saucepan that Eurydice kept near herself. She also kept checking the baked apples in the oven, which everyone was waiting for with great anticipation. The sweet scent of cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla was joined soon by caramel. While Eurydice stirred the boiling candy, the kids switched over to stabbing sticks into the apples when they cooled off enough.
Once the apples were dipped in caramel, the real fun began. Helion set out the bowls of toppings he and Nyx and Seryn had poured out. Sprinkles, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, marshmallows, crumbled cookies, anything that even seemed vaguely like a topping was put to use. Gathered around the kitchen table, the kids started decorating, their personalities coming out in the way they went about it. Some were precise, others threw everything on willy-nilly. There was a chorus of excited cheers as Eurydice brought in the baked apples for them to enjoy while they “worked.”
Eurydice loved the organized activity of the kitchen. She loved the sweet laughter and the little spurts of bickering and the smiles. She wished this was the kind of life she had been able to give her sons, all seven of them. There had been moments where she had been able to create this kind of domestic magic for them, but her ex-husband had always found a way to sour those times if he figured out what was happening. A snapped comment, a pot that slipped and burned her, a snide remark that made the boys fight with each other. He had threatened her so often with losing custody and worse that all of her boys had been grown by the time she got away. She couldn't leave them alone with Beron, and he would've followed through on his threats.
But she had gotten free. Her boys were free, too. Now they all had this.
A large, warm, loving hand squeezed her shoulder. Eurydice rubbed her cheek against Helion’s knuckles and watched their gang of grandchildren, carefree and happy.
This was everything.