Chapter 3 brings the whole family to the Maryland Renaissance Faire, and it’s one of the warmest, most purely fun chapters in the book so far. Chip wrangling Addison’s toddler tantrums and Sadie’s regal pronouncements about her future queendom gives the chapter genuine charm, while the outing’s real purpose, collecting the children’s finished protective charms from the smith, ties the fun back into the series’ larger stakes.

The charm-binding ceremony itself is a lovely piece of magic-system worldbuilding, with Sadie and Addison each receiving charms infused with different qualities suited to their future roles, agility and resistance to coercion for the coming queen, strength and loyalty for her future weapons master. The visible spark of magic sealing into each child, and Chip’s realization that his own protective amulet reacts in sympathy, deepens the family’s magical bond in a way that feels earned rather than expository.

The chapter’s lingering hook comes from what Rose won’t explain: her cryptic exchange with the smith about a decision he still hasn’t made hints at the hidden blade subplot from Chapter 2, and Chip’s growing suspicion that Rose is keeping something from him sets up exactly the kind of slow-burn mystery this series thrives on. It’s a chapter that balances genuine family joy with the sense that bigger secrets are still waiting to surface.

📖 Catch up with the Guardian family — get Fae PTA on Jamie Davis’s site:

jamiedavisbooks.com/books/fae-pta/

 

Fae PTA — Chapter 3

I checked the backpack full of kid supplies for the day’s outing. Rose had something important to do with the children, although she didn’t tell me all the details. It had something to do with a blacksmith who worked locally. This weekend, he was plying his ancient trade down at the Maryland Ren Faire in Crownsville. It was about an hour away, over near Annapolis, the state capital.

“Addy, go and get your shoes. I’ll help you put them on. Aunt Rose is almost here.” The toddler waddled off into the kitchen where a shelf with cubby holes had spots for the kid’s shoes, hats, and gloves. He came back with a pair of sneakers that lit up in flashing red LEDs whenever he took a step. They were his current favorite things in the world.

“Light up shoes?” He asked, holding them up for me.

I took the shoes and then picked him up to set him on the edge of the dining room table so I could reach his feet more easily. I slipped the shoes on the tiny feet and closed the tabs that held them tight.

“All set, little guy. Go look out the window with Sadie for Aunt Rose to get here. I’ll be right there after I load up a few things into the van.” I ran through a mental checklist almost automatically now whenever I took the kids out of the house. Addy was in pull-up diapers. From everything I could see, he was nowhere near ready to potty train at almost three. Ellie across the street had commented about boys and their little fire hoses taking longer to learn that particular skill. I couldn’t wait to have him out of diapers. It would make leaving the house much easier.

I took the backpack diaper bag out to the car, picking up their cups full of water for the ride on my way through the kitchen to the garage. I put the diaper bag in the back with the stroller and set the cups in the holders in each kid’s car seat. I returned to shouts from little voices in the hallway.

“Addy, you have to listen to me. I’m going to be your Queen someday.”

“No. You Sadie. Not Queen.”

“What seems to be the problem here, Sadie?”

She pointed at the front bay window in the living room. “He pulled on the curtains to climb up onto the front windowsill. I told him he wasn’t allowed up there.”

I looked at Addy, standing in a defiant pose in the middle of the hallway with his little fists balled up. He looked as determined as he did about everything right now. He had definite opinions about things and how they should be. I’d had to start using the timeout chair more frequently in recent weeks. Addy pushed back on just about everything.

“Addy, you are not allowed up into the bay window. You know that.”

“I not see.”

“You could climb in the chair by the window like you usually do to look outside,” I suggested.

He looked like he was working up to a full-blown temper tantrum. However, Aunt Rose arrived to save the day by distracting the kids from their argument.

“Aunt Rose\!” They both shouted. They ran to meet her at the front door before she could even close it behind her.

“Easy, easy, kids. Give me a chance to come in before you jump me.”

The kids giggled as they wrapped their arms around her. Addy slid down her leg until he sat on her foot with his arms and legs wrapped around hers. He laughed as she half limped and shuffled along the floor for a few steps with him in tow, seated on her foot.

“Okay, that’s it,” Rose said. “Get up, guys. We’re going to a place where people play dress-up all the time, so they look like old-time princes and princesses. I think it’ll be fun for you to see all the silly shows and eat lunch there.”

“Come on,” I added. “Everyone into the van. The sooner you’re in, the quicker we’ll get there.” I turned to Rose. “By the way, I heard from Sammi. Her mom is sicker than she thought and she’s staying on longer as her caregiver until she’s better. We’ll need to figure out the sitter situation if we’re going to keep up with training and other errands.”

“I don’t like to hear that,” Rose said. “It took long enough to do all her background checks as it was.”

“You let me know what you want to do. We’ll need an alternative we both can live with.”

She nodded and headed for the garage. It didn’t take long after that to load up the kids with her help. Soon Rose and I were on the road for the Renaissance Faire. I hadn’t been to one since I was a teenager and I found myself looking forward to it as much as the kids were, even without the alternative reason she had for going there with us.

I asked Rose, “So are you going to fill me in on why this trip is so important the weekend before school starts?”

“I told you a few weeks ago the kids are old enough to get their protection charms. I had them fashioned and the smith has them ready. The problem is, this weekend he’s working at the Ren Faire so we have to go there to pick them up and finish the process of sealing them to the kids.”

“What’s that entail? Sounds ominous.”

Rose waved off my concern with a flick of her wrist. “It’s nothing. We have to enact the final magic with the charms worn by them. That’s what seals the magic to them. That’s all.”

“If you say so.” I went back to concentrating on my driving. Rose and I shifted to talking about the upcoming start of school. We chatted about school supplies and how Sadie would get to and from school. I had wanted her to ride the bus like a normal kid. However, Rose wanted us to start off driving her to and from school. In the end, I prevailed, and Rose agreed to let Sadie ride the bus with her friends from the neighborhood.

The drive went faster than I expected and before I knew it, we had turned into the grass parking area outside the crenelated wooden fence erected around the faire. I got Addy settled in his stroller while Rose helped Sadie climb out of the van. Rose had purchased our tickets online and we showed the codes from her phone at the gate to get admission.

We spent the first hour just walking around. It was a lot more elaborate than I’d remembered from my youth. Of course, that was close to fifteen years before so I shouldn’t be surprised by the changes. We walked and saw some of the sights. I ate a deep-fried turkey leg for lunch. Addy thought that was funny. I even offered him a bite, which he turned down amidst gales of three-year-old laughter.

“I don’t like turkey, Unca Chip.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “You’ve never had it before.”

He crossed his arms and turned his head away, when I offered a bite one more time. I pulled the offered turkey leg back. I didn’t argue with toddlers. I was fine with him eating the chicken fingers and fries I had gotten them from the same booth. Sadie had already gobbled hers down. The kid had a hollow leg sometimes with the way she ate. Rose chalked it up to a heightened Fae metabolism which had to feed both physical and magical growth.

“Come on,” Rose said as she stood. “Time to go see the smith. I told him to expect us after our lunch.”

“He takes appointments?” I asked.

“For something like this, he does. He knows who our family is. He’s connected to the mountain dwarf royal family, and they’ve long been allies of ours.”

“You didn’t say he was an Unusual.” I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t some sort of dwarf from a Tolkien novel.

“You’ll see soon enough. He’s not far from here. Come on.”

I got Addy back into his stroller to help corral him better. Sadie tagged along in front with Rose. She occasionally pointed to something and asked Rose a question. At one booth they stopped, and Rose bought Sadie a wooden sword to play with as we walked.

I heard the ringing of the smith’s hammer before we rounded the corner and saw him for ourselves. My eyes went wide. He actually looked like a dwarf from an epic fantasy tale, though he was taller than I pictured them in stories. He looked more like a short, extremely muscular man with a thick beard and long hair.

He looked up and spotted Rose coming. He put up his tools and whatever he was working on. Then he flipped a sign by the forge from open to closed. The forge had a roof built over it held up by four thick wooden posts. The fire vented through a stone chimney jutting up through the thatched roof. Wooden panels had been attached to two of the four sides to block access to the hot forge and tools inside.

He pulled folding wooden panels across one of the open sides of the forge facing the main thoroughfare and gestured for us to come around to the remaining open side of the forge. He waited at the back of the workshop while we filed in. He held two small leather pouches in his hands and greeted the children with a big grin.

“Your aunt had me make very special presents for you two. Do you want to see them?”

Sadie stopped and looked at me. “Can I?”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s part of the reason we’re here. Be polite and ask nicely, though.”

The smith nodded a greeting to me as I spoke. When I finished directing Sadie, I nodded back.

Sadie ran over and held up her hand. “Can I pick which one I want?”

“No, I made one special for each of you. Here, hold out your hand like this.” He demonstrated with his palm facing up.

Sadie mimicked him and waited for her reward. The smith opened one of the small pouches and tipped it over until a small gold-and-silver circle about a half inch across spilled out into her palm.

“Oooo, it’s so pretty. Look, Aunt Rose. It sparkles.” Sadie held up her hand to show us in the shadows of the open room.

I had to agree with her. Even in the shadows beneath the forge’s roof, the charm sparkled and twinkled with a light of its own.

I leaned over to Rose. “I see the sparkles. I suppose that’ll settle down when she’s out in public. I thought we didn’t want to draw attention to her?”

“Don’t worry, Chip,” Rose said. “That’s the magic waiting to be bound to her. Once that’s done, it will disappear, at least most of the time.”

The smith knelt down so he was eye to eye with Sadie. “I want you to take the charm in your fingers and press it up to your forehead.” He demonstrated by pressing with his pinched thumb and forefinger against the middle of his head right between his thick, bushy eyebrows.

Sadie smiled and nodded. She picked up the charm from her hand and put it up against her head. As soon as she did, the smith pressed his open hand against her head, holding her hand and the charm in place. He muttered something I couldn’t make out. A flash of light escaped around the edges of his hand on Sadie’s head.

He pulled his hand down and Sadie took the charm down to look at it. She pouted. “Where are the sparkles? They’re gone.”

“They’re in here,” the smith said. He touched the center of her chest with his forefinger. “The magic is in you, along with your own mana. It will forever be there for you to draw upon. Always wear this wherever you go and whatever you do. It will help to keep you safe.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a delicate gold chain. His thick fingers, calloused and scarred from years in the forge, were surprisingly dexterous. He easily threaded the charm on the thin chain. He leaned forward and attached it around Sadie’s neck so the charm hung down against her breast bone. She reached up and touched it.

As she did, a cold flash pressed against my chest as well. I reached up and touched the gold shark’s tooth amulet hanging around my own neck. It, too, had magic imparted to me because of spells infused into it by Lili and my brother before their deaths. It was my very special charm. Now Sadie had a charm of her own. Knowing I was still discovering what my shark’s tooth could do, I wondered what her charm did.

“What will it do?” I asked. “I don’t want her to surprise us with anything out in public by accident.”

The smith nodded at Rose. “At the request of the Princess, I infused it with copper and silver to give her agility of mind and body. It also has a core of cold iron to resist evil spells directed at her. It won’t give complete protection but will blunt the effects some.”

The smith stood and moved over to Addy. He knelt down and held a similar charm up to the toddler’s forehead. Once again he spoke words of power I didn’t understand. After he sealed the power in Addy’s charm, he strung it on a short leather thong and tied it around the boy’s neck to dangle onto his chest, too.

“His charm imparts strength of character and physique through titanium and platinum as he is destined to become his sister’s weapons master. There is also a similar core of cold iron for protection.”

Rose said, “Thank you for your service to our family. We will not forget what you have done for us here.” She stopped for a second and glanced my way before saying, “Have you given further consideration to my other request?”

The smith looked my way, then back to Rose. “I have not yet reached a decision.”

Rose let the matter drop and said, “Well, we don’t want to keep you from your fans here at the faire any longer. Thank you again for the charms.”

She took the stroller and pushed it out of the forge area and back onto the main path through the Ren Faire. I took Sadie by the hand and rushed to catch up with her.

As soon as I caught up, I asked, “Would you like to explain that last little interchange between you and the dwarf?”

“It is nothing. He has a decision to make and until he does, there is nothing to discuss. Let’s go back to the car. Addy’s going to get cranky soon and want to nap in the car on the way home.”

She brushed me off and moved towards the exit and the parking lot, pushing Addy in his stroller. I followed with Sadie in tow. I had a feeling I was missing something important.

📖 Loved Chapter 3? Keep going — get Fae PTAon Jamie Davis’s site:

jamiedavisbooks.com/books/fae-pta/