Morning came earlier than he would have liked, and he felt as though he had only gotten a couple of hours of sleep. Honestly the number probably wasn’t too far off.

  He ran a hand through his messy hair and forced himself to move, the routine of the morning a familiar anchor in the rising tide of uncertainty. He with some quick stretches and then washed his face. After checking on his daughter to make sure she was still sleeping, he grabbed an almond snack ball, along with his sword and headed to the backyard.

  He needed to focus; this was his time to get rid of any anger and fear he felt. Pushing them all out through pure exertion, as he swung his sword and went through all the exercises that were gradually becoming familiar once more. The almond snack ball kept a constant stream of energy going through his body and muscles as he pushed himself. It was only once it ran out and his muscles began to tremble that he decided he had done enough and headed inside to shower.

  A short while later he was standing in the middle of the kitchen trying to decide what he wanted to make everyone for breakfast.

  “Daddy?” A small voice cut through his thoughts, followed by the soft pitter-patter of little feet.

  Draden turned, a smile automatically forming on his face as Leah padded into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She was a tiny little girl, and yet her long strawberry-blonde hair never failed to make him chuckle in the morning. He had never seen anyone with a worse case of bedhead than her. Every morning when she woke up her hair would be sticking up in every direction, almost as though she had stuck her finger in a light socket.

  Her hair was actually a great determiner of how awake she was and how she was feeling at the moment. If she had already taken care of it then she was awake, and had slept well the night before. On the other hand, if the she hadn’t yet, then the opposite was true. He hadn’t noticed her tossing and turning when he had looked in on her, but apparently he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept well the night before.

  “Morning, sweetie,” He said, scooping her up into a full hug. “You didn’t sleep well?”

  She nodded, burying her face in his shoulder, the long pieces of upright hair tickling his nose as she did so. “Leah dreamt of mommy,” Her hands bunched up in his shirt as she gripped him tight. “It was a weird dream daddy. She had no face but was trying to teach Leah how to use her magic, and she wanted to know how we are both doing.”

  Draden didn’t say anything as he listened to his daughter talk about her dreams. However, the more he heard, the more sure he became that the little girl had actually been visited by her mother. He wasn’t sure how, as Lorna and he hadn’t talked about magic much, for all he knew this might not even be magic but an elven ability of some kind.

  All he knew was that it had happened, and that it was up to him to comfort his daughter. And to hopefully prepare her for the next time a visit like this occurred whenever that might be. He had to assume that intruding into someone else’s dream took a lot of energy and that this wasn’t something Lorna could repeat nightly. If he was wrong then great, but it was better to operate under cautious assumptions than ones that gave you too much hope.

  The real question -at least to him- was whether or not he should mention this to Marcus and Coradine. Was this something that needed to be kept secret, or could they share it with those two?

  He groaned inside his mind, unable to decide. He was trusting his daughter’s safety and future with them, but at what point did things become too much? The real problem was his own lack of knowledge. This might be common, or it could be a super-secret, never to be shared item.

  Looking his daughter in the eye, he decided to ask her. “Did your mother say anything about whether or not you should keep the dreams to yourself?”

  Leah tilted her head and slowly nodded. “But that doesn’t apply to daddy.”

  He sighed and touched his forehead to hers, “No, you’re right, it doesn’t. But tell me what she said.”

  The little girl pulled back and put a finger to her chin as she thought. “Mommy said that the… shared… dream… space?” She spoke slowly, struggling to remember the words her mother had used. “Was a splecial,” She wiggled her nose and tried again. “Special- ability because of her new status and that we shouldn’t talk about it.”

  He nodded slowly and then kissed her nose. “Alright, then that is exactly what we’ll do. Don’t talk about it with anyone but me, and if you see her again, tell your mother that I love her and miss her, and that I’m sorry.” Draden finished softly his chest aching.

  She nodded, and he slowly put her back down on the floor. “Now, how about you go take your morning shower and I’ll finish getting breakfast ready.”

  “K,” She hurried off.

  Coradine stepped into view.

  “How much did you hear?” He asked evenly, not turning to look at her.

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  “Enough, and far more than I think you would have liked me to,” She replied solemnly.

  He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed. “In the future, keep your curiosity in check Coradine. However, since you already know, let me ask, is there any chance that the person in her dream wasn’t actually Lorna?”

  “Chance? Absolutely. There is always a chance. In this case though, I believe the risks are somewhat minimal. The only ones who are currently interested in your daughter are your wife, Marcus, me, and the nobles around here. To my knowledge at least there are no mages with enough power to mimic a shared dream space. They would need something of your daughter’s to initialize the connection, and every second burns part of whatever they used. In other words they would need a lot of it as well, especially for the length of conversation your daughter had with her mother.

  “As her mother by blood, the cost of such a spell while still high, would be significantly cheaper. If it was indeed some sort of special ability as your daughter mentioned then it might be even cheaper than it would have otherwise been. As a normal spell, knowing as little as I do about your wife’s abilities I would expect her to be able to perform that feat once every two weeks or so. If it’s a special ability all bets are off on the frequency which she’ll be able to use it.”

  He was silent for a moment and then slid the note from the door across the counter to her. “We had a visitor last. I couldn’t sleep and spotted the fellow as he stabbed this into the door.” He indicated the dagger on the counter nearby. “When the house was built Lorna put down dozens of protections around place. Would it be possible for you to repower them?”

  She tilted her head and slowly nodded. “Possibly. It really depends on how she set them up. If she used a key of any sort then I won’t be able to. However, there is no reason to put a key on the power section. It is only when they want to pull energy from it that most mages will put a key on their protections.”

  “That sounds like a definite possibility to me.” He said with a small grin.

  “I’ll need to know where she placed the power point, or where the center of the formation is.”

  Draden blinked, his eyes blank in incomprehension. “Uh, I know she spent a lot of time doing something in our room during that time… Maybe, it’s there?”

  “The two of you really never talked about your specific areas of expertise, did you?” She seemed shocked at the idea.

  He shrugged. “We talked about it a couple of times in the early days, but it never seemed important. I couldn’t use magic, and she wasn’t a cultivator. There wasn’t really a point in me knowing the specifics at the time.” His voice dropped lower. “She was going to be here to raise our daughter, so it wasn’t ever going to be a problem. Until it was.”

  Coradine’s mouth opened and then closed, without saying anything. She had unwittingly touched on something she hadn’t meant to.

  “He’s testing your boundaries, Draden,” Coradine said instead, her fingers tracing the air just above the dagger, likely sensing for any residual magic. “He wants to see how far he can push you before you break. I believe you were right to ignore the summons, but now you’ve made yourself a target.” She looked from the dagger to the front door. “Let me see if I can do something about those wards before this goes any further.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Draden said, a wave of gratitude washing over him. It was a small comfort, but a comfort, nonetheless.

  While Coradine went to inspect the house’s defenses, Draden turned his attention to finally starting on breakfast.

  What did he feel like making that morning? What sounded good? Rather, maybe he should be asking what would his daughter like? It needed to be quick as well, today was a school day and they needed to get moving or the little girl would be late for school.

  He thought about it for a moment longer and then smiled as an idea came to him. It was something that he was sure she would like.

  Crepes.

  The best part was he even had the items needed to make whipped cream.

  The first thing that he needed to do was take some eggs and whisk them with some powdered sugar. Then he was supposed to add the flour and continue whisking until smooth again. After that came the milk and vanilla, again whisk until smooth.

  Once the batter was ready, he needed to heat a pan and put some butter on it. After the butter was melted, you poured in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, but that was it. Crepes were meant to be thin, not thick like regular pancakes. Then you let it cook until the bottom was lightly browned. Carefully, flip it over and repeat. That was it.

  Once the crepe was finished, Draden put some whipped cream in the middle along with some strawberries and then rolled it together like a cone.

  What he wouldn’t give for some Nutella right then. Sure he had watched short videos of people making their own versions of Nutella, but that was another recipe along the lines of his flaky buttermilk biscuits. He had a vague idea of how to do it, but nothing more, and a lot of what they did used equipment he didn’t have. He could get away with using his hands or a whisk instead of a mixer. Using a mortar and pestle for all of these things instead of a blender though just sounded like a pain.

  Draden carefully plated the crepes, arranging them with precision as if the act itself could push back the unease gnawing at his chest. He dusted the tops with a fine layer of powdered sugar, letting it fall like snow across the thin folds, careful not to use too much. Powdered sugar didn’t exist in this world, and quite frankly was something that he should have tested before using as much as he did. For all he knew, the white powder could be more effective than crack on the average person.

  He wasn’t worried about himself, or his daughter, but Corradine would be eating these as well.

  With a shake of his head, he rearranged the strawberries, letting them glisten red against the pale cream. Their delicious scent mingling with the butter still sizzling faintly in the pan.

  When Leah returned from her shower, her hair still damp and somewhat tamed, she skidded to a halt at the sight of breakfast. Her green eyes lit up instantly.

  “Daddy made Leah fancy pancakes!” She squealed happily, climbing onto her chair with a bounce.

  “They’re called crepes, not fancy pancakes,” Draden corrected, setting a plate in front of her. His lips twitched in amusement. “Delicate, thin pancakes. Thought you’d like something different today.” Next to her plate he placed a cup of orange juice and a bowl of fruit.

  Leah picked one up clumsily, cream smearing her fingers as she bit into it. Her muffled gasp of delight nearly undid him. For a brief moment, Tavian’s threat, the dagger on the counter, the unrelenting pressure of survival—all of it faded beneath his daughter’s smile.

  “Best-est pancakes ever,” She declared with absolute certainty.

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

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