Their twins were eleven years old when Blythe and Seren began to travel. Pryderi was eight. They’d debated leaving the children in Amane– espionage was risky, and a stable home with their aunt would be far safer– but in the end, they couldn’t bear it. Pups needed to know their parents loved them, and they wouldn’t be able to understand that this was for them.

“Besides,” Blythe said, trying to talk herself into the idea as well as Seren, “who’d be suspicious of married musicians traveling with kids? We’ll just be wandering minstrels like any others.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Seren nuzzled her hair. “I hate using them like that, though.”

“We’ll give them just as good a life as they could have in Amane,” Blythe determined. “We won’t tell them everything until they’re older, no need to worry them with that.”

Of course, things never went smoothly. Lost children, young ones who needed a home for a month or a year, kept finding them. Seren saw herself in them, and Blythe could never turn away someone who needed help. They did their best with them all. Taught them what they could, and when it was time for them to leave, found them a safe place to stay, just as Blythe’s family had done for Seren once.

Four years into travel, Seren left in wolf shape to take Fionnuala hunting and returned as a human, walking beside a tense young girl with leaf-brown hair and green wings showing through a patchy glamour.

“Seren.” Blythe pinched her nose. 

“Her name’s Leaf.” Seren patted the girl’s shoulder. “I found her in the woods.”

“I need to talk to you.” Once they were alone, with Fiachra distracting Leaf, Blythe demanded, “What were you thinking? She’s high fae. Her court will throw an unholy tantrum.”

“She’s starving, love,” Seren said gently. “She’s doing her best to glamour, but that dress doesn’t hide that she hasn’t been eating enough. She’s like a scared little bunny rabbit.”

“Bad analogy, wolves eat rabbits.” Blythe sighed and uncrossed her arms. “So you want to keep her?”

“At least long enough to teach her how to fend for herself.”

“Fine.” Blythe sighed. “We’ll teach her what she needs to know to make her own way, and then send her on it. Just like the others.”

Two weeks later, Leaf became Vida, and soon after that everyone knew she wasn’t going to leave.

A year or so after that, the twins returned to the wagon one evening with two children in tow. The boy was about their age, the girl several years younger. She held his hand tight.

Blythe tipped her head curiously, holding to her human shape. Wolf ears and tail tended to make older non-shifters nervous, though the little ones tended to love them. “What do we have here?”

“Can they come with us?” Fin asked.

“Fia and Fin said we can travel with you…” the boy said hesitantly.

Blythe hesitated. Most of their foundlings were older, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

“Of course,” Seren said, and just like that, the Cantores pack grew by two.

They named themselves Dream and Bloom. Bloom, it turned out, couldn’t hear, and whether she couldn’t or just didn’t speak, Seren and Blythe weren’t sure. Either way, everyone got better at Common sign quickly.

The two fell into the rhythm of the pack’s life, and life continued as it ever had.

Others came and went, but Vida, Dream, and Bloom stayed. Soon, Blythe and Seren could hardly remember what life had been like before them.