“Just… be careful. Some of James’s inventions have exploded,” Jade warned.
“Some?” Amber snorted, looking amused.
“Ours usually do at some point, too. That’s why Mom said we can’t test our experiments on James and Leo anymore,” Jade said with a sigh.
Ashure laughed, looking at the scorch marks on his clothing and lifting his hand to finger his eyebrows. He wiggled his fingers and whispered a hair regrowth spell when he felt half the hair missing.
“This Giant is pretty resilient,” Ashure said, his eyes twinkling as he held the blaster with mock reverence.
The three of them huddled closer around the workbench, laughter mixing with the clinking of metal and the occasional zap of contained chaos.
Ashure sighed when he thought of him and Tonya having children. If they were anything like these two, he couldn’t wait. He laughed again, listening as the two girls excitedly finished each other’s sentences.
“Hey Ashure, do you have any enemies you’d like mildly-to-moderately inconvenienced?” Jade asked.
Ashure blinked, then laughed—a deep, rolling sound that echoed.
“I always have a few of those. Why?” he asked, resting one hand on the hilt of his sword.
Amber and Jade looked at each other again, then shrugged.
“We need victims to test a few of our experiments on?” they said in unison.
Ashure grinned like a man who knew he was in trouble—and might just enjoy it.
The dining room was a riot of warm light and whimsy. Ochre crystal chandeliers shaped like jellyfish dangled from the vaulted ceiling, their glowing tendrils swaying gently in the breeze from the open windows.
Delicate, shell-inlaid panels lined the curved walls, catching the flicker of the magical candelabras and turning it into soft dancing reflections. The long table, carved from a single driftwood tree from the Isle of the Giants, bore dishes of steaming lemon-seaweed pasta, fire-pepper prawns, and exotic fruit tarts drizzled with a light syrup.
Ashure reached lazily for another tart and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully while watching the two girls across the table argue over who had the better blueprint for a pocket cannon.
“Yours would explode on loading,” Amber argued, waving her fork.
Jade snorted. “Only if you use the wrong firing sequence. I made it that way in case someone steals it, or it gets into the wrong hands. Think! The last thing you want is your weapon turned on you. Remember the guys on Dad’s ship?”
Amber nodded with a thoughtful expression. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Tonya sat beside him and smiled in bemusement as she stirred her tea. Her long, dark brown hair was pulled into a braid that hung over one shoulder. Her hazel eyes sparkled with barely hidden amusement.
“What do you think? Maybe it’s time to add to the family? Wouldn’t it be lovely to have two girls like this, arguing over which has invented the better weapon?” he suggested, cupping her hand.
Tonya raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t one overgrown child enough for me to raise?”
He chuckled and lifted her hand to his lips. “It would be fun. I wouldn’t want to be an only child.”
“Making them, yes. Raising them and you? Have you forgotten the trouble you, Orion, Drago, and Koorgan got into when you stole that Wishing Whatever-it’s-called that belonged to Nali?” she teased before shaking her head at his innocent expression.
He was about to plead his case more when a soft throat-clearing drew everyone’s attention. Dapier, his first mate, stood awkwardly in the arched doorway, his tricorn hat in his hands as he shifted from foot to foot.
The short, round-bellied pirate looked like someone’s cheerful grandfather—if said grandfather had a long braided beard, three gold earrings in one ear, and a sabre strapped to his belt that had seen more action than most navies.
Tonya perked up. “Dapier! Come on in and have dinner with us.”
Dapier flushed a deep, ruddy pink and held up his hands. “Oh, no, no, my lady. I wouldn’t want to intrude?—”
“Sit, or I’ll trap you with a Spider Blaster and feed you myself,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
Dapier’s eyes widened. “Aye, well… if you twist my arm, your Majesty. I could use a wee bit of nourishment. Can’t waste away. I’d be no good to the Cap’n if I did that.”
