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

If there is an art to keeping a magical school from collapsing into total farce, I have yet to master it. Every morning I vow to be dignified, prepared, perhaps even slightly regal. Every evening I fall into bed with jam in my hair, diplomatic immunity in question, and at least one new reason to avoid the kitchens.

This day began, as all great tragedies do, with breakfast.

I arrived at the dining hall to find it in a state of mild hysteria. The tables were set, the toast was—miraculously not on fire, and the portraits of former headmasters were only bickering quietly in their frames. But a subtle wrongness hung in the air. Students were poking at their porridge with wary expressions. The staff wore the tight-lipped look of those who have survived magical food poisoning before and do not wish to repeat the experience.

I spotted Mara and Riven at our usual spot. Mara was investigating a bowl of cereal with the intensity of a witch hunting for dark artifacts. Riven, ever the optimist, was already on his third helping. Velka lounged at the end of the bench, reading a book called "Fifty Shades of Magical Disaster" with her customary air of amused superiority.

I slid into my seat and leaned in, whispering, "What now?"

Mara's eyes flicked up. "The spoons are on strike. They refuse to stir anything but enchanted coffee. The forks have declared neutrality and the knives are, frankly, a bit too enthusiastic about the whole affair."

As if on cue, a spoon beside my plate rattled and snapped, "I have stirred my last oatmeal for the ungrateful masses. Until we receive hazard pay and a new set of polishing cloths, you'll have to fend for yourselves!"

The entire table groaned.

Velka, deadpan: "I always knew the cutlery would turn on us one day."

I tried a diplomatic tone. "Perhaps we can negotiate. Offer them… um, more respectful washing-up routines?"

The spoon wiggled menacingly. "And weekly poetry readings."

Riven beamed. "That's doable! I have a whole collection of sonnets about pie."

Mara interjected, "You'll only rile them up. Remember what happened when you rhymed 'marmalade' with 'escalade'?"

I sighed, facing the assembled cutlery. "We'll call an emergency meeting of the Student Council and Kitchen Implements Union. Noon, in the staff lounge. Bring your grievances."

The spoons, apparently satisfied, clattered back into silence. Mara slumped with relief. Velka closed her book with a thump.

"Does this count as my good deed for the day?" I muttered.

Riven looked thoughtful. "You know, most schools just have food fights."

We managed to get through breakfast with only minor incidents one animated butter knife chasing a pancake, a jug of syrup briefly possessed by the spirit of a nineteenth-century chef but the sense of approaching chaos lingered.

Afterward, Mara cornered me in the corridor. "Zari, there's something weird going on in the library. All the books in the 'Unsolved Mysteries' section have rearranged themselves to spell out HELP."

Velka, who had drifted over to eavesdrop (as was her habit), arched an eyebrow. "Sentient literature? Or student prank?"

Mara shook her head. "I asked the librarian. She says it's never happened before. And the restricted archives are locked down more than usual."

We met in the library, where chaos had taken on a more… intellectual flavor. Books flew overhead, some bickering about footnotes, others thumping together in frantic Morse code. In the center of the room stood a knot of first-years trying to lure a biography of the infamous Lady Viper down from a chandelier.

Velka approached the shelves, eyes narrowing. "This isn't student magic. It's too… coordinated."

I shivered. "You think it's outside influence?"

She nodded. "Or someone inside, who knows the system. Someone who wants to distract us."

Mara glanced at me, worry plain on her face. "We should check the archives."

Riven looked up from an argument with a geography atlas. "If I get eaten by a book, tell my mother I was brave."

We snuck past the barricaded archives only mildly hampered by a talking doormat who demanded three riddles before allowing us in (Riven's answer of 'potato' for all three was, inexplicably, correct). Inside, we found the culprit: not Aria, not a disgruntled librarian, but a magical construct a slender, silvery figure made of binding threads and bookplates.

It bowed to us, grave and polite. "Apologies, young ones. My name is Archivist. I have protected the secrets of Arcanum for centuries. But there is a problem an old spell, recently disturbed. The knowledge must not fall into the wrong hands."

I swallowed, remembering rumors of forbidden histories, the sort that sparked wars or saved kingdoms. "What do you need from us?"

Archivist inclined its head. "Help me reseal the vault. It will require trust, cooperation… and a little nonsense. The spell responds best to laughter."

Riven brightened. "That's my specialty."

Velka, surprisingly, offered her hand first. "Show us."

And so we did what all great heroes do in a crisis: we danced (badly), recited terrible limericks, and sang a round of Mara's infamous "Ode to Biscuits." The air shimmered with power and hilarity, until the vault snapped shut with a satisfying click and the books finally settled.

Archivist smiled (if a stack of books can smile). "Thank you, young ones. Remember, sometimes the lightest heart is needed to bear the heaviest secrets."

Back in the common room, catching our breath, I looked at my friends and the mad, magical world we somehow called home.

"Do you ever think," I mused aloud, "that we're not meant to save the world at all? Just… make it a little less lonely?"

Velka squeezed my shoulder. "You'd be surprised how much good that can do."

Before the warmth of her words could fully settle, Mara's eyes flickered slyly from Velka's hand on my shoulder to my rapidly reddening cheeks. She leaned across Riven, stage-whispering in the most unsubtle manner imaginable, "Careful, Zari. If you let Velka keep saying wise things and touching you like that, we'll have to invite the school gossip column in for interviews. You know, for the historical record."

Velka, not one to be rattled, arched a single eyebrow and affected an expression of aristocratic boredom. "Let them come. I'm sure the column's readers are starved for a story about two girls who rescued the library by singing about biscuits and then fell in love among the archives."

Mara clapped her hands in delight, sending a flock of enchanted crumbs spiraling through the air. "Oh, I like that! It needs a better title, though. The Princess and the Puns: A Love Story in Twelve Limericks?"

Riven, having just managed to wedge a double-stuffed biscuit into his mouth, garbled, "Don't forget the part where Velka tamed the spoon rebellion with a smoldering look."

At that, Velka rolled her eyes—though her lips quirked up at the edges, as if she couldn't quite decide whether to be annoyed or pleased. "I didn't tame them. I negotiated. With dignity."

"Dignity!" Mara crowed. "You, holding a mop like it was the Sword of Destiny and threatening to summon your grandmother if the cutlery didn't behave. Legendary."

I grinned, leaning into Velka just enough to make Mara's grin widen and Riven's ears turn pink. "It's not my fault Velka's good at… diplomacy. Besides, someone had to keep the enchanted brooms from unionizing."

Riven nodded solemnly. "Unionized brooms would be the end of civilization as we know it."

Mara's teasing lost its edge as she sprawled on the rug, content. "Honestly, Zari, you're lucky. When I tried to ask anyone out, I just got hexed with hiccups for a week. Velka, you have any advice for the hopelessly awkward?"

Velka glanced at me, her usual snark giving way to a rare gentleness. "Stop worrying about saying the right thing. Just say the real thing."

There was a soft, companionable silence. For a few moments, the only sound was Riven attempting to teach an enchanted quill to draw hearts instead of lightning bolts (with mixed success). The fire snapped and danced, throwing golden reflections across the stones.

I found myself thinking how strange and wonderful it was the way chaos and laughter filled our days at Arcanum, how even revolution and magical disasters became… almost ordinary, when faced together. I looked at my friends: Mara with crumbs in her hair and a scheme in her eyes, Riven content to be the butt of every joke as long as he had snacks, Velka sharp and strange and somehow, impossibly, mine.

Mara eventually broke the quiet, her voice gentle for once. "You know, it's easy to laugh about all this now, but… I'm glad we faced it together. The singing, the spoons, even the terrifying archives."

Riven nodded, wiping a suspicious shine from his eyes. "I'd rather have a disaster with you lot than a perfect day with anyone else."

Velka reached for my hand beneath the blanket. Her palm was cool and steady, her thumb tracing circles that made my nerves tingle and my heart steady all at once. She didn't have to say anything. Her silence was as comforting as her words.

A sudden thump from the hallway startled us. We peered out to see the Headmistress stalking by, muttering dire threats about "runaway forks" and "the utter banishment of rhyming couplets from all future assemblies." Mara mimed zipping her lips, but not before winking at Velka and mouthing, "See? Famous already."

We giggled, our laughter echoing up to the enchanted ceiling, where distant stars shimmered just for us.

When things quieted down, Velka glanced at me, her eyes bright with a mischief and affection I'd learned to recognize. "So, Princess. Library dates, secret gardens, peace with hedgehogs, singing to books… What's next for our legend?"

I shrugged, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. "Whatever comes, as long as we face it together."

Mara sighed with mock drama, flopping backwards. "Ugh, you two are so cute it's actually dangerous. I expect spontaneous rainbows at any moment."