Reading to students

I recently completed the novel portion of my PhD research, which is a practice-based PhD. I offered to read a little bit of it to my Drawing class students and happily, they have really been enjoying it and keep asking me to read more while they draw. One of my students, Erin, even did some illustrations of my characters, which tickled me to no end! The novel is called Two Lies and a Truth and it is a full-on epic fantasy. Here is the bad guy, Král Hazar in pencil and color, by Erin:
And here is Zohnya's father on the night she is born. Erin also drew the white stag and a few other bits from the story. Is that what the characters look like in my head? It doesn't matter! Once a story is out there, it doesn't really belong to the author anymore. All I can say is it is such a thrill to create a story that gets into other people's imaginations like this. It makes me so happy! So, I suppose, I'll just have to keep reading my novel to them!