Three winters had passed, and the palace had settled into a different kind of noise. The halls that had once felt too quiet now seemed almost impossible to keep peaceful for more than a few minutes. There were schoolbooks left on tables, toys forgotten in corners, little shoes abandoned outside the nursery bedchamber, and the occasional sound of pups arguing over something that rarely seemed important enough to fight about. Emma had grown used to it, and although she sometimes complained about the noise, she secretly loved knowing that their home was filled with the sounds of their heirs growing up.
One moonrise, Emma was sitting at the feeding table, sorting through a few household reports, when Charlotte rushed into the chamber with Elyon close behind her.
"Mother!"
She looked up just as Charlotte climbed onto the chair beside her.
"What happened?"
"Elyon took my pencil."
"I didn't take it," Elyon protested as he hurried into the chamber. "I borrowed it."
"You didn't ask."
