Topaz, sorting through the sun-dried clean laundry on the living room couch for items to hang up immediately, looked up in surprise when the door from the upstairs opened. Zephyr would be working on supper. Was there something he needed and wanted to check whether their kitchen had it?

When he recognized Lady Phyllida, his eyes dropped hastily.

"Go get Andreas," she said. "We have a situation."

He nodded quickly, aware that she wouldn't want him punished for speaking but preferring not to antagonize even in small ways, and abandoned the laundry.

In the door of the study, he hesitated.

His master and owner was, as usual, hunched over his desk, the surface of which was barely visible under the books and papers. A little more than twice Topaz's own twenty-one years, with a noticeable amount of grey showing at his temples, against the mid-brown, sensibly short hair. There was nothing really striking about his features, an image Topaz called up in memory since he couldn't see from here, although perhaps his nose was a trifle too large to fit with the rest of his face, his eyes maybe a fraction too deep-set, but he was as ready with a smile as a reprimand. He was nearly as tall as Topaz had considered himself to be, back when he was Jax, and very nearly as skinny, despite never having gone hungry. While he was sitting, there was no way to tell that one leg had been born wrong. Regardless, he enjoyed going for walks, insisted on doing so almost every day after supper, and it kept him reasonably healthy, despite the lack of obvious muscle.

He wasn't sure what his Lord was working on, but he did know that Lord Andreas was considered the foremost expert on mage laws in this domain and several nearby ones, and that other mages came to him when there was a tangled problem that needed to be resolved.

"My Lord?" he said softly.

"Not now, please," Lord Andreas said distractedly, pulling a different book into reach.

"I'm sorry, my Lord, but..." He winced, wanted to drop back and hide behind the door-frame as Lord Andreas spun his chair around—as though there was any hope of being less visible with skin that was brilliant yellow and orange swirls on a scarlet background. He dared not look high enough to read his Lord's expression, but the rest of his body language suggested irritation. Not fair, flashed through his mind, coloured with resentment. If I don't obey you'll be even more mad. Can't win. "Lady Phyllida sent me to get you, she says there's a situation," he said, all in one breath and as rapidly as he could.

The irritation faded, at least mostly, and was probably no longer directed at him which was the main thing. "Oh. All right." He reached for his cane, used that and the desk to lever himself to his feet. He was stiff, Topaz noted—staying in the same position for too long without getting up to move around. He was probably going to want a massage before bed to loosen up achingly-tight muscles; Topaz made a mental note to check on the massage oil and make sure it would be quickly available. Probably it wouldn't stop at a massage, but that was okay: he'd had much less considerate bed partners, and no sex at all would have been worse.

He trailed behind Lord Andreas back to the living room, wondering what the crisis might be.

"Mother's just been taken to the hospital," Lady Phyllida said without preamble, when she saw Lord Andreas. "They believe she had a small heart attack. Latest report is that she's not believed to be in immediate danger, in part because Luna called nine-one-one so quickly, but they do want to keep an eye on her and do a few further tests. Aunt Pelagia changed Luna to natural human and sent her to the hospital to stay with her. This means, of course, that there is no one to watch Xenia and Elias. Pelagia is bringing them here. Tonight."

Oh, great. Topaz had met them at a family gathering over Christmas. There'd been half a dozen children, universally self-important and immersed in a more-mage-than-thou attitude that apparently made rudeness to sensitives a competitive sport—other than a girl in her early teens who was smugly vegan and self-righteously above anything but pity and treated all sensitives with a cloying shallow solicitude that was no better. Lady Phyllida's, as he recalled, weren't the eldest, but near to it.

That Lady Phyllida even had children had come as a major surprise, but Zephyr had filled in the details. Female mages were strongly pressured to have at least two children each, to keep the population stable. Lady Phyllida, who was older than Lord Andreas, had stubbornly lived entirely alone for most of her life, intent only on her incomprehensible mathematics. She had, at last, bowed to the pressure and had gotten Zephyr only then, intending to have him do much of the work.

To a mage who loathed noise and distraction, even one child was unbearable to live with. Topaz could believe that. That they were her own didn't necessarily mean that her patience would undergo a magical transformation; it could, he'd seen it happen, but he'd seen it not happen, too. How much worse must it be for any mage, raised to avoid contact and to value control, let alone one like Lady Phyllida? So, accepting that she just couldn't do it, she'd asked her own mother to take over, and had the second as rapidly as possible.

Having them here wasn't going to be pleasant.

"Immediately, and with little time to pack, I imagine, knowing Pelagia," Lord Andreas muttered. "She will, I assume, call as soon as there's further news on her condition?"

"I would expect so. Only Pelagia herself is as close kin."

"This is going to be inconvenient, to say the least. They still have school tomorrow, and may still be here Monday as well. Although I'm not certain having them here on holidays would be any less likely to throw this household into chaos. All right. Topaz? The room upstairs that has two single beds in it? Make sure it has clean bedding and is generally clean and ready for use, and that there are plenty of towels and such upstairs. Then see if Zephyr needs a hand with adjusting supper for two more mouths. If nothing else, I'm sure you and I can improvise something for ourselves while the children have our share."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Lady Phyllida said. "Zephyr will think of something. But the help could be very useful."

"Go ahead," Lord Andreas told Topaz, saving him from trying to decide whether that was the full list of orders or if he should wait for more.

"Yes, my Lord." Topaz circled respectfully around Lady Phyllida on the way to the stairs up.

Zephyr, in the kitchen, with skin currently an impossibly pure white and unruly shoulder-length hair of forest-green with pointed ears peeking through, barely glanced at him. The elder sensitive's expression showed an uncharacteristic intensity of exasperation and resignation that didn't do much to help Topaz' nervousness about this sudden change in the otherwise consistent and stable routine of their lives.

He checked the upstairs linen closet, made a mental note to find more clean towels for up here, and went to check on the bedroom.

Two twin beds, on opposite walls, each with a narrow dresser at the foot, and a single desk between the heads, placed under the window. He knew enough about kids to know that only having one of anything was asking for trouble, but there was nothing he could do about it.

By the time a car pulled in the driveway, Topaz was in the kitchen with Zephyr, providing an inexpert second pair of hands for transferring food into serving dishes and setting the kitchen table for four.

The children in question were a boy of maybe twelve and a girl who looked about the same so he figured she was the younger of the two. They arrived with a suitcase and another bag each, Lord Elias with an expression of profound annoyance and Lady Xenia with one of virtuous nobility that verged on smugness, both dressed in the cutting edge of cool if Topaz were any judge. They had the same lack of distinctive physical traits mages generally shared, maybe from too much interbreeding within a limited pool, brown-haired, medium-skinned, medium build edging towards light because using magic burned calories.

"Go put your things in your room," Lady Phyllida said briskly. "I believe supper will be ready very soon. The table won't hold six, so Zephyr, Topaz, you'll need to find somewhere else so we can catch up over supper."

"I believe we can look after ourselves that long so you can eat in peace, however, without waiting on us," Lord Andreas said. Topaz wondered whether he even saw the incredulous look Lord Elias shot in his direction.

All in all, he was perfectly happy to eat downstairs in Lord Andreas' kitchen rather than upstairs.

He'd learned, soon after Lady Phyllida took Zephyr's voice away again, that Zephyr could still whisper, though with little volume, but preferred gestures and expressions as involving less effort. The amount of talking he'd done in Topaz' first few days had been absolutely extraordinary for him, and spoke worlds about how badly he'd wanted to make it even a little easier. Whether Zephyr had always been relatively quiet or if it was just the same philosophic acceptance that seemed to be Zephyr's reaction to pretty much anything, Topaz remained unsure, but it didn't seem to matter at this point.

Comfortable friendly silence was infinitely more pleasant than being with the mages and probably enduring snide remarks from the younger pair.

"You've got them up there overnight," Topaz murmured, while they gathered up their dishes to take upstairs and start cleaning up. "Good luck."

Zephyr rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, shrugged, and shooed him down the hall towards the stairs.

* * *