"Witches are the kind of magic that Aurum had to start with," Kerron says. "There's lots of witches. Like me, and Daddy with his timer, and Her Majesty has something that makes a lot of other powers not work on her, and Alice can see the future, and Jasper can feel other people's feelings and push on them, and Addy copies other people's powers - that's why she's my magic teacher - and the Princess tells the truth, and like that. And ingots are a kind of magic from the same world as mints. Like witches sort of. People have powers that do stuff. But not exactly the same, Addy says, so I can have both."
"Yeah!" agrees Kerron. "Addy wants Mummy and Daddy to have more kids so she can see if they're witch-ingots too. Addy likes figuring out magic stuff. She's got really simple colorshapes and they're pretty much all about that."
"They haven't decided yet!" says Kerron. "I think they're gonna wait a little while before they have more though. I was an accident. I heard them talking about it when I was a day old and now I know all the words and Jasper thought I was gonna have complex from it but I dunno what a complex is or where I'd find mine if I had one."
"Oh. I know my parents love me," says Kerron. "There's all these colorshapes about it and they're easy to read when they're about me! So I'll be fine," says Kerron.
"You must really not like Mummy and Daddy," Kerron says, peering at the colorshapes. He starts to trace the path with one finger, then he stops and picks up his synthetic again for a big swallow. "You sorta explained about Mummy, but why Daddy?"
"Can I help? I bet I can help!" says Kerron. "Daddy's simpler than Mummy. Mated vampires are kind of like that. Most of his colorshapes are about wanting her to be happy and safe. Most of the rest are about me. Some of the ones that are about me are about her too."
He thinks. "There was this one colorshape that I couldn't read because I didn't know what it was about at all, and I asked Addy for help with it and she said -" He switches into a higher register, generic Midwestern accent with a trace flavor of German in place of his forty percent Manx to sixty percent assorted American - "'it means your dad is insecure and everything would be much simpler for him if your mum would just turn already' - but then she didn't explain what that means. Is she in love with somebody besides Daddy? ...Is she gonna fall out of love with Daddy? Humans can do that and she's mostly one! Then what would happen to me? All the hybrids I know with broken-up parents are grown up already but I'm still little! And Daddy would be so sad!"