"Your home is beautiful," Laura said.

"Thank you. Esme designed it herself," I told her.

The three of us were sitting down in the living room, after dropping the girls off in Hope's playroom. Emmett was with Jacob, who now did most of the work on the cars. He said that he wanted to do some work on the Jeep, but I was pretty sure he was worried about scaring Maddie. Emmett felt that kids, besides our own, found him too scary.

The playroom was themed after the forest in Sleeping Beauty, Hope's favorite movie. It was visible from the living room, so I could keep watch on her if she wanted to play alone. Alexei had his own upstairs, but since he was older, we didn't have to keep as close a watch, and Emmett and I could just rely on our advanced senses to keep track of him.

"Really? Did you build it all yourselves too? I imagine that'd be the sort of thing vampires could do quickly. And probably better than any human building crew," she answered curiously.

Esme smiled. "Actually, Rosalie's great-nephew Chris and his wife used magic to make it. They were able to do it far better than we ever could."

"Chris… you mean Chris Hale?" she asked. "And Ace Larke?"

I nodded. "Yes. Their grandfather is my little brother. He turned 101 this year."

She whistled in amazement. "Wow. You have quite the family, Rosalie."

I laughed, nodding again.

I already knew a little bit more about Laura than she had told me. When I told Brielle and Chris about her, Chris had mentioned that he knew her from his time at The Academy. They'd been classmates for 14 years, until they were 19, so they'd been friends during their time there. Laura was apparently offered a role as an assistant enforcer, and could've become immortal, but she turned it down. She'd met her now husband, and wanted to stay with him. Chris went to her wedding.

This was Hope's first ever playdate, and Maddie seemed like a good friend for her to have. Apparently her sister Lydia had the potential for immortality, though only her parents knew that now. Most kids didn't officially find out that information until they were 10, at the earliest. Some like Brielle and Chris, figured it out themselves before then, but The Academy felt that it was too much to burden a child with. Around 11 most started to make the decision on whether to graduate out of The Academy, so they had to know what their potential was.

I was pretty sure Laura thought Maddie had the same potential. If Maddie chose to be immortal, then the girls would literally be friends forever. Laura must've liked the idea of making sure that her daughter would have at least one person after she died.

There were a lot of giggles from the playroom as Laura, Esme, and I chatted. It was adorable to see the girls playing together. They really got along phenomenally.

There was an extra purpose to the playdate. We'd decided to make this a weekday normal, specifically to make it easier on The Academy at dismissal time. Students had to pass through custom magic gates into their homes or special locations. If Laura was here, then Lydia could just be dropped off with Alexei, and the school would be able to use the gate Brielle had made into our house.

A few hours later, the door to the coat closet opened, and Alexei and Lydia came in. Alexei ran to me for his after school hug, and I swept him up in my arms, holding him close.

Lydia looked a lot like her mother. Light brown hair, with big curls, and gray eyes. She was an adorable little girl with one of her two front teeth missing. She was very outgoing, and didn't hesitate to talk to me.

"Hi, Mrs. McCarty," she greeted politely, as soon as I set Alexei down. "I'm Lydia."

I smiled, and she blinked, as if in awe. These days I found myself being surprised by people's reaction to my appearance, as it was no longer a constant focus.

"Hello, Lydia. I'm Rosalie McCarty, and I'm Alexei and Hope's mom."

She nodded. "Alexei told me about you while we were waiting for Sakuragawa-sensei to send us home. He said that you were really pretty and nice."

Alexei blushed and hid his face against my leg. I laughed and reached down to pat his head.

Lydia ran into the playroom to hug her baby sister, and my son followed her to do the same. It seemed the older girl might be a good influence on him, though he was already very loving towards Hope.

Eventually Laura and the girls had to head home so they could make sure that Lydia did her homework before their father, Alan, served dinner.

Hope cried when Maddie left, and Emmett swept back into the house to comfort her. Esme and I took Alexei into the kitchen for his afternoon snack, and to get his homework done.

"Mama, did you know that my teacher, Sakuragawa-sensei, is from Japan?" Alexei asked.

"I did, baby. You told me about it. Did you learn some cool stuff from her today?"

"Yeah! She taught us how to change the size of our pencils. But Ioseph, made his too big, and it was really crazy. He got frustrated, and he would only speak Russian, so I helped Sakuragawa-sensei calm him down, and she gave me a sticker for being good," he rambled excitedly.

"That was so nice of you Alexei," Esme praised. "You must be a very good classmate."

"Spasibo, Babushka!" he thanked her in Russian. I loved his school stories, and it made me so happy to see that he was enjoying it, and making lots of friends. He seemed to be growing close to Ioseph, a boy from Russia in his class, and he and AJ were in almost all of Alexei's stories.

Alexei loved raspberries a crazy amount, so we were using them to incentivise him to do his homework. Right now he was learning about the basic rules of magic, on top of normal preschool material. Brielle had been giving us a magic crash course for several months so that we were ready to help as much as we could. Most witch children had at least one witch parent, like Lydia and Maddie, but Alexei didn't. So instead, we'd agreed that either Gavrila, the next High Witch in charge of education, or Brielle, would come to the house twice a week to help with practicing magic, and the rest of us would help with magic theory. Thanks to Brielle, we all had perfect recall of everything he'd be learning.

Esme was in charge of the normal school material. While any of the rest of us could've handled it too, Esme was a teacher while she was human. It hadn't lasted long, as Carlisle had turned her when she was less than a year into her career, but she'd always wanted to try teaching again. Edward said she'd considered it many times, but the risk was too great. Though Alice had dropped a few hints recently, that Esme may be able to try within our next few moves.

Alexei and Hope brought us all joy in so many ways that I don't think I could count them. Not a single member of our family was left untouched. My life was beyond blissful, and every day was filled with endless joy.