I said my goodbyes to my friends quickly. Friends. Plural. And apparently now included Jade Runebringer? When had that happened? Well statistically not all Kelpies could be bad. Maybe there was a little hope for me yet.

I darted through the school towards the council room. Monsters class was outside and in the back of the school while the room for the council was close to the front. Fifteen minutes wasn't that long of a time, which would be fine for those with access to teleportation spells.

Which I did not.

I was barely on time for the meeting.

Anubis was already glaring as I tried to catch my breath. The only person missing was the Basilisk head.

Vivian was surrounded by floating papers again. She was mumbling to herself a little as we waited. I tried to keep my nerves down. Keep focused, Serafina.

"Sorry I'm late. You'd think after a few years I would be better with all this damned paperwork." The Basilisk head wasn't a professor I knew. I only knew he was the head of Basilisk Tower because of the way Bastet talked to him.

"It's been a very special year for us all," Vivian responded with just a hint of amusement. "It'll make the time go quicker. Boring years may be less work but they always seem to be the slowest."

She said that, but a quip in the back of my mind about how special we were finding the year by comparison went unsaid. I also felt a twinge of sympathy for Basilisk Tower, more students meant more parents. I basically had it on easy mode compared to what Bastet was probably dealing with.

But that was his problem.

I may not have had the same quantity of issues, but that didn't mean I didn't have things I needed to be worried about. I rubbed at my wrist.

A very special year indeed.

As excited as I was about Mom's visit I was also starting to get nervous. No one, other than maybe Vivian, knew what she was like. And I had no way of knowing how she was going to react. Sure, she had been in meetings with teachers before, but those always been with Dad and she had always let him do most of the talking.

I wasn't sure either of us could really handle this. The best I could do was hope that Vivian could either keep Mom in line or motivate her to not make much trouble.

"Serafina, thoughts?" Vivian asked.

Anubis has a strange look on her face. Everything about it screamed contempt. But I guess with this many professors around it would be a bad look for her to say anything.

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It also didn't tell me what Vivian was asking.

I tried to scramble some kind of answer together. For Vivian's sake if nothing else. "Well…if the problem is too many parents arriving and not enough staff to manage them all, why not stagger the arrival of the parents?"

I wasn't sure why Anubis was glaring at me but there was just enough of a hint something in Vivian's face that made me relieved. It reminded me a bit of Mom's proud look, it just had a dash more smugness mixed in.

Surely, she wouldn't look like that if I said anything that made it clear I was distracted.

Professor Aetos narrowed his eyes at both me and Vivian.

I didn't duck behind her out of fear. I had the urge to, but I suppressed it.

He gave up when Vivian didn't react to all to him.

I was really glad I wasn't in Kelpie. I think I would die of fright if I had to see both him and Horus daily.

Vivian continued as if nothing happened, "None of the rest of you seem to have any better ideas. Unless you'd like to offer one?"

Anubis looked like she wanted to say something, but Professor Gorgon gave her a look and shut down whatever it was. Probably better that way. For me at least. I mean…I doubted it would be good long term but it wasn't like she and I ever were going to be friends so not a big loss.

Gregory Set spoke first, "We should start with figuring out Basilisk's time first. Then adjust the schedule around them."

Dellik nodded in approval.

I wondered if this was less them asking our genuine opinions and more of a test of our problem-solving skills. Probably wasn't the time to be asking that.

"Obviously Dragon Tower can be worried about last, once everyone else is happy with their timeframe and plan," I commented quietly, more aimed at Vivian than the rest of the room.

I saw her nod slightly in agreement.

(*********)

Later, I was sitting in front of the stained glass window looking at the sunset when Fethris tapped the glass to get my attention.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Nothing to report as of yet. They're having to shuffle the arrival times around because so many people are going to be here. We're last priority because only six people are showing up."

Which was fine and fair.

But it also meant I had nothing to tell anyone.

"So once again we're stuck in limbo while everyone tries to make up their minds."

"Something like that."

He sighed and leaned back against the glass. There was a comfortable quiet between us for a moment, "Do you think there's a chance they'll see an Echo during their visit?"

"Depends, I think Dragon Tower is sneaky and won't let them see one if it doesn't want them to. I also think it depends on how much time they spend here. If it's a few minutes then we're good."

"You think the tower is smart enough for that?"

"It's smart enough to talk and make choices. If it wants to show them something it will and there's nothing we'll be able to do about it. It locks doors if we don't cooperate."

Fethris blinked at me for a moment. "I hope it doesn't try that with my father. He might try to make Professor Hearth remove me from Dragon Tower."

"She's Vivian Hearth, I don't get the feeling that there's many people that can 'make' her do anything."

He nodded with an amused look on his face. "Probably. I wish he'd told me more about his school years sometimes."

"Mom never told me names, it was either 'all of us' or 'my best friend and I' or 'our Kelpie friend' when she would talk about it."

"Father was a Kelpie. That last one was probably him."

"There was something about a giant talking toad and an emergency evacuation of a third-year class."

Fethris laughed loudly after a second.

The part of me that missed having this kind of thing felt warm. The other smiled back and tried to keep nerves down. Regardless of how it was going to happen, time was ticking onwards.

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