Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

The breakfast hall was already a battlefield. Wards shimmered over the buffet, as if the staff expected an actual siege. I nudged Elyzara with my elbow, both of us attempting (and failing) to act casual as we threaded through a gauntlet of curious stares and a cloud of enchanted gossip-motes drifting just above the coffee urns.

"Smile," I whispered. "Look like you have absolutely nothing to hide."

"That's easy for you to say," Elyzara muttered, her cheeks slightly pink. "I look guilty even when I've only borrowed a library book."

She did, and I adored her for it.

We'd barely claimed our spot at the long House table when Mara pounced, sliding in beside Elyzara and planting her elbows on the table. "So. Lovely sunrise, was it? Early strolls, hand-in-hand, long meaningful silences tell me everything." Her voice was low and perfectly pitched for maximum audience.

"Good morning to you too, Mara," I said, summoning my most regal yawn. "Nothing happened. We watched the sun. We pondered the nature of biscuits. We invented a new handshake—secret and highly classified."

"Secret romance handshake?" Riven, appearing as if by teleportation, dropped a folded parchment in front of Elyzara. "For statistical purposes. Are you Team Secret Romance, or Team Coincidence? The academy must know."

Elira snorted, sitting across from us, and distracted the nearest eavesdropper by flicking her wand at a plate of toast. The toast responded by launching an aerial assault on the pancakes, who retaliated with a well-aimed blueberry barrage.

"Honestly," Elira said, voice arch, "if you want everyone to stop staring, a breakfast food war is a decent distraction."

She wasn't wrong. Plates spun, muffins quaked, syrup rained. For a few blissful minutes, no one was gossiping about us. They were too busy ducking a rogue croissant or shrieking as marmalade slithered up sleeves.

Mara surveyed the chaos with fond pride. "Behold, the power of a well-timed pastry riot."

Across the hall, Professors were performing triage on wounded crumpets. The Head of Magical Discipline stood atop a table, shouting "Cease fire!" as a scone whizzed past her ear.

Elyzara leaned in, voice barely audible beneath the commotion. "Do you think they know?"

"Define 'they,'" I replied. "The student body? Certainly. Your parents? Definitely. The magical toast? Undoubtedly."

Elyzara sighed. "Maybe we should've just eloped."

The thought nearly made me spit out my tea.

Meanwhile, in a shadowy alcove far above, two pairs of eyes watched through a shimmering scrying mirror. Verania was frowning so deeply she was in danger of developing a permanent wrinkle. Sylvithra, elegantly robed, took notes on a roll of parchment labeled "Crisis: Daughter's Heart."

"Observe," Verania muttered, gesturing at the mirror where Elyzara and I were locked in not-so-subtle eye contact. "Emotional subtext. Smiling. Elbow contact. This is unacceptable."

"Perhaps," Sylvithra mused, "it is simply indigestion."

"I've seen that look before. That is the look of a child about to ruin our plans for a quiet succession." Verania straightened, summoning a shadowy feline from a puff of silver smoke a cat with emerald eyes and an expression that promised nothing but trouble. "Shadowpaws, surveil. Report anything suspicious. Use all nine lives if necessary."

Shadowpaws blinked once, sauntered straight into the hall, and promptly leapt onto our table. Mara shrieked, Riven swooned ("A familiar! On our table! Is this a proposal?"), and the cat, unfazed, began methodically batting a muffin toward Elyzara.

"Is that… your mother's cat?" I whispered.

Elyzara, who had gone pale, nodded. "He only shows up before either a royal decree or an ambush."

Shadowpaws fixed me with a stare that was at once both a threat and an invitation to pet him. Elyzara reached out, only to have the cat flick its tail and unbelievably begin to speak in a clear, slightly bored drawl.

"Her Majesties send their regards. Also, their warnings. Should there be heartbreak, doom will follow. Would you like a muffin?"

The entire table went silent. The enchanted jam froze mid-drip. Even the Headmistress looked up, as if expecting a formal duel.

Riven, incapable of silence, blurted, "What about heartbreak from muffins?"

Shadowpaws ignored him. "This message will self-destruct in ten seconds. Kidding. But do be good, or I'll be forced to return with backup. Possibly the kraken."

The cat leapt down, tail high, and strolled from the hall as if nothing unusual had occurred.

"Do you ever feel," I asked Elyzara, "like your life is a parody of a cautionary tale?"

"Only on days ending in 'y,'" she replied.

Of course, nothing draws attention quite like a talking cat. Rumors, previously confined to the odd whisper or enchanted parchment, now exploded throughout the academy. By midday, a magical painting near the Great Stairs was scrawling out epic poetry:

"Behold, the princess and her vampire bold,

In gardens dappled, secrets told.

Forbidden love, a tale retold :

Who will defy the crown's firm hold?"

Riven, blushing furiously, claimed credit for the poem but adamantly denied writing the last line, which unfortunately rhymed "heart" with "tart." Elira spent a solid ten minutes interrogating the painting before it dissolved into weepy iambic pentameter.

There were other rumors too: that Velka had been turned into a frog and then back again, that the two of us had secretly eloped to the Demon Realm (the cuisine alone would have been a dealbreaker), and that Mara was actually our secret chaperone, armed with a basket of anti-romance cookies.

Through it all, Elyzara and I kept our heads high, or at least tried to. It wasn't easy to ignore a crowd of first-years pretending to faint dramatically every time we passed, or upperclassmen organizing "wedding gift funds" (for charity, they claimed).

After Potions, we dragged Mara and Riven into the east gardens, seeking sanctuary among the suspiciously gossiping rosebushes.

"Enough," Elyzara said, voice steel beneath the nerves. "Please. No more rumors, no more matchmaking, no more anonymous poetry slams. We just want to exist without the entire school scripting our lives."

Mara looked contrite well, as contrite as she could with a mouth full of scone. "Sorry. We got carried away."

Riven, eyes wide, nodded. "I suppose we did. For what it's worth, your love story is much more interesting than Advanced Magical Ethics."

There was a pause. A rare moment of honesty hovered in the air.

"I just don't want to disappoint anyone," Elyzara said quietly. "Not my parents, not you, not… myself."

Velka me reached out, brushing her hand. "If being true to yourself disappoints them, maybe they need to change. Not you."

Mara grinned, shoving a lumpy cookie into Elyzara's hand. "Try this. It's for banishing bad moods. And, possibly, unwanted parental surveillance."

Riven leaned in, voice low and conspiratorial. "If it helps, I think you two would make a terrible tapestry. No one wants to embroider that much moonlight hair."

We laughed, a little wobbly, a little more ourselves. The moment didn't fix everything, but it smoothed some of the rough edges.

Of course, peace was fleeting. As we exited the garden, a mob of students blocked our path, waving quills and parchment. The Student Gazette's editor face flushed with excitement brandished her press badge like a battle standard.

"Princess Elyzara! Lady Velka! The school demands an exclusive interview! The theme: Can love survive revolution? Please answer honestly and with as much drama as possible."

Elyzara turned pale. I considered faking a faint. Mara looked for exits.

Before any of us could speak, Shadowpaws reappeared, leaping onto the nearest bench and addressing the crowd in sonorous tones.

"My clients decline to comment on love, revolution, or the merits of marmalade. This is a gross invasion of privacy, and any further inquiries will be met with… consequences."

He bared tiny fangs, swatted the editor's notepad, and proceeded to eat it, page by page.

The crowd gawked. Riven, ever the opportunist, started taking bets on whether the cat would eat the pencil too.

As the crowd slowly dispersed, I caught a flicker of movement a face I didn't recognize, watching from the shadows, eyes bright with calculation. The Phoenix Study Group, perhaps, or someone worse.

Trouble, I thought, had a way of finding us.

But as I slipped my hand into Elyzara's and we stepped forward into rumors, into sunlight, into whatever revolution waited I found I wasn't afraid.

Shadowpaws, having devoured the last of the notepad (and, in a fit of feline pique, the reporter's backup pencil), licked his whiskers with supreme satisfaction. "Royal decree: all further interviews must be scheduled with my secretary. She is a garden snail. Good luck."

He vanished in a swirl of silvery mist, leaving a flustered crowd and a faint trail of magical static in his wake.

Mara let out a low whistle. "I wish I had a cat that could end awkward conversations like that. Or a snail secretary. Both, ideally."

Elyzara looked at me, worry and mischief tangling in her eyes. "We can't hide forever, can we?"

I shook my head, feeling the sun warm the top of my hair. "If we tried, someone would write a tragic ballad about our mysterious disappearance. With far too many verses about moonlight and longing."

Elira, catching up at last with a single, well-aimed toast still clinging to her sleeve, smirked. "They'd probably get your nose wrong, Velka. All epic poems do."

Riven peered over Elyzara's shoulder, trying to spot the mysterious watcher who had faded back into the academy's shifting crowds. "Do you think that was—?"

"I think," I interrupted, "we should keep our eyes open. And our friends close."