Vanessa gapped as she stepped through the massive wooden doors into the castle. People from all over milled around the entrance hall, talking in accents she had never heard before. Did those gentlemen in kilts have tails?

"Aunt Nessa!"

She turned around and they collided into her. She stumbled back and dropped her bag.

"Jim!" She took his face in her hands, "Look how big you've gotten! What on earth are you wearing?"

He stepped back and she gasped.

Jim chuckled and pulled on the hem of his leather tunic, "My work clothes. I came straight from Heartstone and just dropped Wally and Xena with Mum and Da. I barely had time to change."

"Heartstone?"

Jim sighed and hung his head.

"Claire will put your stuff in your room." He hung a bright blue crystal on her bag and set it against the wall. "You've missed a lot these past six years. I started training to be the market leader just after you left. Come on. I'll explain on the way to Mum and Da's office."

"Will this include how your family got invited to the coronation of New Avalon?" She put her hand on his shoulder.

He licked his lips and led her down the first hall, "Actually, we weren't invited. We did the inviting."

"...What?" She furrowed her eyebrows.

Jim swallowed and smiled sheepishly at her, "Mum and Da are the Queen and King of New Avalon."

Vanessa stumbled as the news sank in. She grabbed his arm. "Jim. What is New Avalon? How did…this…happen?"

She slowed to a stop in the doorway to a grand ballroom. Elegant stained-glass windows lined the back wall, painting the polished stone floor with bright blues and reds. Along the other three walls were massive tapestries that hung from the ceiling and nearly touched the floor. A long table stood in front of the windows, overlooking the dancefloor and hundreds of round tables that surrounded it. Yet more long tables lined the left-hand wall. She stared up at the tapestries.

"Is that Mary?" She stepped up to look more closely at the tapestry.

Jim rushed to her side and grinned up at the tapestry, "Yup. We had a bit of a 'temporal accident' about a year ago and ended up back with King Arthur. We fought some battles, met some legends, Mary got blessed by the Lady of the Lake. It was a whole thing."

Vanessa could hardly breathe as she looked over the tapestries. The thick, woven fabric was so heavy that they didn't even twitch as in the wind from the open window. The first was clearly of King Arthur's court but she couldn't help noticing some of the knights looked familiar. But a majority of the others featured massive monsters, flying magic, and tiny dragons.

*Creeek!*

A door on the other side of the ballroom opened and another woman rushed in with yet another tapestry folded over her arm and over her rounded belly. She scurried over to one of the blank spaces behind the head table. Vanessa gaped as a massive sandstone creature followed the woman.

"Morgana! Do NOT!" He marched to her side and grabbed the tapestry, "Put that tapestry down! Barbara said no strong magic until the baby comes!"

"It's just a levitation charm, Angor! I'm fine!" Morgana snatched at the tapestry.

"Not with a tapestry that big!"

Jim grabbed her arm and gently led her on, "It's a long story. Gran is not taking the magic restrictions very well."

"Gran? Morgana? And what was that thing she was talking to?!"

Their shoes clacked loudly as they approached a winding set of stone stairs.

"That was Da's mum and yes, she is Morgana la Fay. She was talking to her partner, Angor. He's a troll. They're stone beings and typically live underground. He and Gran live in Heartstone with me. I told you. You missed a lot."

They continued down another hall, the vaulted ceilings disappearing into darkness above them as the sun set outside the windows. Heavy wooden doors lined one side of the hall and thick glass windows were the only source of light on the other side. With the disappearing light came the dark chill.

"This is the last one." Mary's voice drifted from around the corner.

"I've got it. Shit! Baby on fire! Baby on fire!"

"What!" Vanessa surged forward, in front of Jim and towards the open door.

It was one of the many bedrooms that hid behind the doors. Mary and another dark haired woman were contending with a light gray infant covered in bright red flames. However, the baby giggled up at them even as they tried to extinguish the flames. A ring of water appeared around the baby as Mary's hair and eyes glowed blue. The baby giggled and rolled onto their back, watching the water swirl around them.

"Be careful, Mary! Remember that water burns them!" The dark haired woman grabbed a gray fire blanket and approached the baby.

"Don't let them near the tapestries! Oma will kill us!" Mary shouted over her shoulder, "Nari! Take them to Teju Jagua's room!"

A tiny green creature gathered up the tapestries and scurried past Vanessa, out of the room, and down the hall. Jim grabbed her hand again and tugged her along.

"Don't worry, Mary and Tanta Liza can take care of Belrok. They do that all the time." They approached another set of ascending stairs. "Mum and Da's office is at the base of the tower and the labs are at the top. Your room is just down the hall from the royal chambers where all of us are. I'll show you were that is after–"

"Jim," Vanessa pulled him to a stop and looked up at him, "Are you trying to tell me that you know magic exists? That the whole family does?"

He blinked and looked around, "Yeah. Mum and Claire are wizards; Da, Onkel O, and I are polymorphs; Toby's a freaking alien! Mary is the Lady of the Lake now. Magic is all around us. During the last couple of adventures, we unloaded a heap of it onto Arcadia. The town was destroyed a couple of times…people died…Uncle Kanjiar was the first. Just over a year ago. And…and when Popa Vendal fell I had to take over Heartstone as the Market Leader. Da became king less and a day later. Mary and Eli nearly died…"

Tears cascaded down his cheeks and he covered his eyes with one hand. His shoulders shook and Vanessa reached out to him.

"It's been a lot, hasn't it? Have you talked to your parents about this? Or your…grandmother?"

"There hasn't really been time," He wiped his eyes and sat on the first step, "It's all kind of been one after another for the past year. More so for the past six months or so. After that adventure we've pretty much been working on rebuilding Avalon and figuring out what it even is now. Everyone's been so busy, we've barely had time to really talk."

Vanessa rubbed his back for a moment and looked out the nearest window. The sun was just disappearing behind the mountains that surrounded the town. The stairwell was getting colder.

"Come on," Jim wiped his face and forced himself up, "Mum and Da are waiting and I haven't even told them you're here yet."

He helped her to her feet and led her the rest of the way up the stairs and down the last hallway to the office.

LLB

AN: Story time! I accidentally sent this chapter to my writing professor instead of my homework. She took it really well and we worked on this chapter as my assignment so if it seems a little different than my usual work, it's because it went through more rewrites than most of the things I write.