The characters and kingdom belong to Tamora Pierce. I've just brought Penelope and Dalton over to play.

"I wouldn't." Neal bent over to whisper the words in Kel's ear.

She pulled her eyes away from Penelope and Dalton who were curled in the same armchair—ostensibly because they were reading from the same book of war histories—and pulled her mind away from her internal debate about whether or not she should pretend to object to the cozy arrangement.

She didn't want to; somehow, after her days spent traveling with them and fighting beside them, she felt more like an older sister to them than a training master. Lifting her head from Dom's shoulder, she looked at Neal with raised eyebrows.

"Wouldn't what?" she asked innocently.

"Scold," Neal replied. "My squire has a tendency to respond to hypocritical tyrants with scorching remarks." There was a touch of pride in his voice as he spoke.

"And what kind of remarks does she make to hopeless romantics, like yourself, Meathead?" Dom asked, keeping his arm firmly about Kel's shoulders.

Neal shrugged and reached for Yuki's hand. "Sweetly cynical ones," he muttered, before walking with his wife and daughter to a desk at the far side of George and Alanna's living room.

"I wouldn't have had the heart to say anything to them today," Kel murmured to Dom once Neal was out of earshot.

"Really?" Penelope asked brightly, leaning her head against Dalton's chest.

"Don't push your luck, lady squire," Kel muttered before turning her face back towards Dom.

"I'm not leaving for a few more weeks yet," he reminded her.

"I know," she sighed.

Numair and Daine appeared at the door before he could answer her. "We should have seen it coming this one coming," Numair was telling her sadly.

"This sort of thing never happens to normal parents," Daine muttered.

"Neal and Yuki are the only normal parents in the room," Dom told them. "And calling Neal normal involves a huge stretch of the imagination."

"What's happened?" Kel asked.

"It's Kitten," said Numair and Daine said, at the exact same time, "It's Sarralyn."

"They've allied themselves against us," Numair explained ruefully as he slumped onto a sofa.

"A dragonet and a two-year-old," George said gleefully as he followed them in. "Even the two of you don't have a hope of quelling sibling rivalry and tantrums."

"Oh," said Alanna, "they don't have a hope by themselves, but I think you are underestimating Silverspot."

"She's a wonder," Numair agreed reverently. "I still have no idea why she decided to attach herself to us."

"Well," Daine confessed, "a group of Northern forest predators decided we really needed help, and they held a sort of council—I think Badger and my Da had something to do with it—and appointed her to come look after us."

"And we all thought you'd attracted her through the force of your charming personality," Yuki remarked as she deftly prevented Nessaren from biting the head off a chess queen.

Kel enjoyed the leisurely pace of the cozy, rainy afternoon spent in the library. She savored the rare peaceful moment, knowing that it would end as soon as the king and queen arrived with Raoul to discuss the recent Immortal attack. She was glad she'd chosen to give her pages a few hours off to go exploring through the secret passages of Pirate's Swoop with Tobe.

They were all watching Dom and Neal try to work their way out a of chess stalemate—Alanna had to clamp her hand over George's mouth to keep him from sharing hints—when Jon, Thayet, and Raoul appeared without a formal announcement.

Dom walked over to greet Raoul and report to him directly. Neal and Yuki gathered up Nessaren and went to greet Jon and Thayet before leaving. Penelope and Dalton jumped out of their chair and followed. And Kel lifted Kefira hesitantly, unsure whether or not the king would want to hear her report directly.

"Please, stay, all of you," said Jon loudly. "I want to hear about this Immortal magic from each of you, and see the site of the attack myself before we form a plan of action. That's why I traveled we've traveled here in person."

Penelope raised her eyebrows at this speech and her features began to form that delicate smirk which Neal had already learned to recognize.

"All of us?" Neal repeated, gesturing at the squires and at Yuki and Nessaren.

Jon paused to consider this. "I will send your squires and your charming children away to make mischief before we begin discussing politics and strategy, but I do want your opinion and Yuki's."

Kel saw Penelope and Dalton mouthing the word mischief and interrupted. "By mischief," she told him, "he means taking Nessie and Fira and running the pages through hand-to-hand combat practice in the great hall."

"And Sarralyn, too, if she's woken from her nap," Daine added opportunistically.

Penelope shrugged, and, seeing that all available furniture was taken up, dropped into a graceful cross-legged pose on the carpet.

Half an hour later, Jon nodded his dismissal at them. George grabbed Dalton's wrist and whispered something in his ear while Penelope knelt so that Nessaren could scramble onto her back for a piggyback ride. (Nessie had been quite taken with the idea of frequent rides when she learned that "Penny" would be traveling with her parents.)

"You know where to find them?" he asked as Dalton bent over to pick up Kefira.

"Walnut writing desk in the western corridor, third drawer down." Dalton nodded.

"Clever lad."

MMMM

"I love that cat," Dalton breathed and Penelope carefully slid the door to Daine and Numair's chambers shut so as not to disturb Silverspot and Sarralyn. "I don't know how we would have managed three of them on the stairs."

"What stairs?"

"The ones George told me about—Sir Nealan was right, I think I am going to learn all sorts of things from him," Dalton explained as they walked.

He stopped at the walnut writing desk and set Kefira down so that he could pull out the third drawer out. Penelope set Nessaren down and knelt beside him as he reached his hand through the empty space where the drawer had been and pushed at one of the stones in the wall. There was a soft grinding noise and a small patch of stones beside the desk slid back slightly revealing a very narrow staircase.

"The Baron designed it and the Lioness did the spell that makes it so easy move," Dalton said, smiling at Penelope as she examined the secret passageway. "George says there's a small hidden chamber that the kids are playing in at the bottom of these steps. Then there's another passage we can take to get to the great hall for practice."

"Is there a spell to light it up too?" she asked. "Or are we supposed to trip down it in the dark?"

"We'll have to take a candle for that," he said pulling matches from another drawer and lighting one.

Somehow, in their eagerness to start, Nessaren ended up on Dalton's back and Kefira on Penelope's. The toddlers waited until they had descended a few steps and resealed the door before expressing their displeasure at this arrangement. Both started howling and Kefira began attempting to strangle Penelope while Nessaren reached her hands around and covered Dalton's eyes.

Dalton tried to brush her hands away and ended up dropping the candle, plunging them all into darkness and making the girls howl even louder.

A long stalemate ensued during which Dalton used language that would have shocked Kel—but that both little girls had heard from their parents during various emergencies—and Penelope came to a new appreciation of the fact that her childless aunt had been willing to adopt her and refrain from strangling her during her childhood. She fully understood the fear that had driven her aunt to distribute charms against pregnancy to all of her nieces—and Penelope swore that she was never removing hers even if she didn't think she needed it just yet. She wondered how the human race in general had managed to reproduce for so many generations without killing off all of its offspring and whether Sir Nealan and Lady Keladry were crazy because of their children or if the children were a symptom of their madness.

"We surrender," Penelope said meekly into the darkness. "We promise we'll let you two switch, as soon as we get a light and we can see what we're doing." Gradually the cries subsided and all four of them were left in quiet, nearly pitch-black darkness.

"I think we might have preferred to stay and listen to them talk politics," Dalton remarked. "Our headaches would be about the same by now."

"Hello?" called a voice. "Are you still alive up there?"

"Tobe?" Dalton called back. "Is that you?"

A lit candle appeared and Penelope could just make out Tobe's face behind it. He seemed both worried and amused.

"Yeah," he answered, bending down to relight Dalton's candle and passing it to him. "Can you help us? Petran's stuck in the crawlway and he won't come out. He won't even answer us."

"Just as long as he isn't screaming," Dalton muttered, as Tobe helped them to switch Nessaren and Kefira.

The girls sang a cheerful rhyme—which was almost as painful as their screaming had been in the enclosed space—as Dalton and Penelope descended the stairs and followed Tobe into the hidden chamber that George had mentioned. All the pages—all new second years--except for Petran were sitting next to the entrance to a small passage, one too low to walk through.

"We were all crawling through to see where it led," Deric explained. "We dared him to go first, but then we rounded a bend and the passage got even tighter, and he just froze. He won't turn around and he won't go forwards."

"He's sneezed a few times," Selina offered, "but he doesn't answer if you shout at him."

"He must not like small spaces," Dalton said calmly as he settled Kefira in Tobe's lap.

"He's terrified out of his wits," Deric said gleefully.

Dalton bent suddenly and took a firm hold of Deric's shoulder. "But you aren't going to bother him about it unless you want everyone to be reminded of the way you panic underwater."

Penelope caught Dalton's eye and nodded as she set Nessaren down beside Tobe. He was the only one with enough authority to keep all the other second years from teasing Petran. They all listened to Dalton because he was sixteen, nearly seventeen, but not all of the boys would obey Penelope.

Penelope bent and crawled halfway into the passage to call Petran. There was no answer.

"Please, just turn around come out," she called again. "You won't feel trapped anymore when you get out here. The king's arrived and Mindelan wants us to practice weaponless combat before supper."

Dalton grasped her around the waist and pulled her out. "Let me try," he whispered, and stuck his own shoulders through the opening. "Petran," he called, "do you want someone to come help you?"

"I can't move." Petran sounded genuinely panicked.

"I suppose a rock could have fallen or something," said Tobe. "He might actually be stuck."

"I'll go," Dalton muttered reluctantly and began crawling forwards. He was much larger than the eleven-year-olds and it was a tight fit for him.

"I'm smaller," Penelope said. "I can do it." Dalton flashed her a grateful smile as he backed out.

"I think it had better be Dalton," Selina said in a small voice. "Petran doesn't like to listen to me or Penelope even when he's not caught in a small tunnel."

Dalton sighed and turned towards Penelope. "I think she's right," he said, expecting her to argue, "I'll go."

Penelope surprised him by nodding quickly. "I'm going to go fetch Mindelan," she told him, "in case there's a problem."

"I'll go with you," Tobe offered. "And we can get these two out of here." He took Kefira's hand and started leading her up the staircase. Penelope did the same with Nessaren.

MMMM

Kel jumped up in alarm when Penelope appeared in the doorway, looking dusty and worried. She breathed a sigh of relief when she caught sight of Tobe with Kefira and Nessaren.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Penelope said, making a small, somehow feminine, bow towards Jon and Thayet, "but I believe that there is a situation which Lady Knight Keladry might like to attend to."

Kel could tell from her formal speech and guarded tone that she didn't want to go into details in front of an audience, so she nodded gratefully and departed as Thayet announced that she thought it was time to take a break for tea.

"What's wrong?" Kel asked as she followed Penelope down the corridor. "And how did you get all those red marks on your neck?" she added suspiciously.

"Ask your daughter," Penelope muttered. Then she launched into an explanation of Petran's dilemma, leading Kel towards the hidden passageway as she spoke.

MMMM

Dalton was just helping Petran back out of the crawlway when Kel arrived. She took one look at his pale face and was instantly reminded of her tree-climbing experiences as a page.

"Why don't all of you head out to the great hall and start practicing?" she said to Penelope and Dalton and the other pages. "Petran will be along to join you in a few minutes."

Petran stood with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back, as though he expected to be punished, while the others set off down the passageway that led to the hall.

Kel took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before addressing Petran. "I'm going to tell you a story," she told him finally.

"A story?"

"So that you will understand what I am about to ask you to do," Kel explained. "I'm going to tell you a story about what Lord Wyldon once ordered one of his pages to do to conquer her fear of heights."

"Her fear of heights," he repeated. "You mean your fear of heights?"

Kel nodded and gestured for him to sit beside her on the floor.

MMMM

Meanwhile, Penelope and Dalton let the second year pages drift ahead of them as they followed slowly to the hall.

"How did you get him out of there?" Penelope asked.

"I convinced him to go backwards and not think about it," Dalton replied. "It was a very long backward crawl for me, so it must have seem like eternity to him."

"Fears are such odd things; I've always felt safe in small spaces, like nothing could get to me…" she trailed off and was silent for a moment before adding, "I shouldn't let myself think things like that." She bit her lip and turned away from him, twirling the end of her braid between her fingers.

"Why not? You have as much a right to think that sort of thing as anyone else."

"Not quite. There are people who expect me to be beyond that sort of weakness if I want to—"

"You mean you expect yourself to be beyond that sort of thought," he said, reaching out to grab her braid and turn her head back towards him.

She gave him a half smile as she pushed his hand away from her hair. "It's the only thing I have in common with certain cranky conservatives."

"So," Dalton said calmly, "if you aren't bothered by tight spaces, what, aside from your irrational belief that you aren't good enough, frightens you?'

"Saying goodbye to you in two weeks," she whispered.

He grabbed her elbows and pulled her close so that he could kiss her forehead. "Me too," he said. "We'll both be counting the days to midwinter." He wrapped his arms around her and whispered. "And I really don't like snakes."

Another girl might have giggled, but Penelope gave a delicate snort. She stepped back from him so that she could meet his eyes. "I'm not so fond of being upside-down myself."

"Is that why you manage to land on your feet so often?" he asked as they hurried to catch up with the pages.

MMMM

Kel couldn't help smiling at Petran as he stepped out of the crawlway and saluted her. She had ordered him to crawl in, turn around, and crawl out after assuring him that she wasn't going to make a habit of ordering into small spaces on a routine basis. She thought he could get over his fear without being humiliated in front of the other pages every day.

"That's enough for today," she told him. "I won't ask you to do it again for a while, but—"

"But it would be a good idea for me to come down and practice on my own anyway," he finished.

She nodded, and gestured for him to follow her out.

MMMM

They found everyone gathered in the great hall when they arrived. Alanna was just asking Penelope if she had learned anything useful that afternoon when Kel stepped into earshot.

"Yes," said Penelope decisively. "I'm never having children."

"They look so angelic right now though," said George, pointing to Sarralyn, Kefira, and Nessaren who were seated around Silverspot and appeared to be attempting to pry her ears off her head.

"I couldn't imagine having children either when I was you age," Alanna told Penelope.

"Me neither," Kel agreed.

"Oh, I think I can imagine having children a little too well," Penelope explained. "It's my courage, and not my imagination that is at fault."

"I'd consider it wisdom and prudence rather than cowardice," Neal assured her. "They can be very loud," he added defensively as his wife glared at him.

"The real trick," Daine said, "is not to attempt to raise young Immortals and children at the same time."

"You want to tackle baby Immortals first," Kel explained, "because baby humans are much easier in comparison."

"I shall add that to my list of things to take into consideration," Penelope said gravely. Then, with a tiny smirk, and a wink at Neal, she added, "just after "avoid jousting accidents"." She bowed quickly, returned Neal's wolfish grin, and hurried off to change for supper.

Jon blinked after her. "Did she just suggest…I mean to say, was she referring to--"

"Hush, dear," said Thayet. "I want to catch this." She turned to watch Kel's annoyed muttering.

"I didn't quite hear that last bit," Neal was saying to Kel. "What was that about "cheek and impertinence" and a "volatile combination"?"

. Thanks for reading and feel free to drop a review!