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Veth Brenatto knew a thing or two about magic. That wasn’t understatement—she knew one or two things, verging on three if Caleb was there to help. She also knew a thing or two about kids, and that was understatement. What she didn’t know was how to use magic to find her godsdamned kid.
“Caleb!”
Mid-dance, he turned to her with a smile. Caleb was hardly a lush, but this far into the night he was warm in the cheeks and glassy-eyed with well-earned drink and mirth. “Veth Brenatto!” He said, abandoning his drink on a nearby table and sweeping her up into his arms with uncharacteristic—but honestly nice to see—joviality. “How are you enjoying the festivities, mein Freund?”
Veth yelped in surprise as he lifted her, grabbing onto his shirt for balance. “Caleb, something’s wrong,” she said urgently.
As quickly as it came, his smile faded. “What is it?”
“Okay, well it’s not wrong wrong, but it could be bad,” she clarified. “I can’t find Luc. One second he’s standing next to Yeza and the next—poof! Gone. Why did I ever teach him to sneak again?”
His eyebrows rose. “Do you suspect he is in trouble?”
“He’s a teenager!” Veth said, a shiver running up her spine at the thought of it. Her son. A teenager. Sneaking off at a party like this. There was no telling what trouble he could be getting into. “Of course he’s in trouble. Do you have a spell that can find him? I don’t know one.”
“For you?” Caleb said, gently dropping her back to her feet. “Ja. Let us go find your son.”
*
“There are no little halfling boys here,” the coat check attendant, a half-elven man with shoulder length brown hair and kohl rimmed blue eyes said, looking supremely bored.
“I would have to disagree,” Caleb said. “I know for a fact there is one specific little halfling boy back there.”
The attendant was unfazed. “Nope. Haven’t seen any.”
“Oh, screw this,” Veth said, and vaulted over the coat check desk faster than the attendant could squeak out a “Shit—wait!”
“Luc Brenatto!” Veth groused. “Come out here! Your father will be worried sick if you go missing at—oh.”
“Oh my gods,” Luc said with baldfaced mortification.
“Oh my gods,” Veth repeated, because it wasn’t every day you walked in on your teenage son making out in a closet with a girl so tall he was on his tip-toes on a step-stool just to reach her lips.
“Oh my gods,” the girl in question said, her words primly accented, her hands still on Veth’s son’s waist, holding him up on his toes.
Awkwardly, the girl took one big step back from Luc and straightened her shirt, curtly pushing large, round glasses back up her nose. “Never speak of this,” she ordered him, pushing curly brown hair back over slightly curved, elven ears as she hastily retreated from the room.
“Mom, what the fuck?” Luc hissed, clambering down from the stool.
“How was I supposed to know you’d be doing that?” She hissed back. “You’re like, ten! You shouldn’t be making out yet! Who even was that?”
“I’m fifteen!” Luc shouted. “Probably, at least!”
Caleb cleared his throat. “Veth, I believe that was one of the de Rolo brood.”
The name rang a bell, but not a loud one. “And the de Rolo’s are?”
Caleb visibly fought off a smile. “The family of the man who invented firearms.”
Veth quieted at that, and placed a firm hand on Luc’s shoulder. “Son, I will only tell you this once: You cannot screw this up for me, you have to marry that girl!”