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The Love Child of Order and Chaos

I’d just gotten Sierra settled into her crib in the garden library—now a nursery of another kind—when Cadence’s Aunt Eva and Eva’s husband Jiro popped up. There were cribs with babies in them all over the garden library, but the two Immortals went straight for Cadence’s daughter.

Eva smiled down on the child. “She’s beautiful.” Her gaze shifted to Cadence. “What is her name?”

“Eira,” Cadence told her.

“Perfect,” Eva said, brushing aside a tear.

Eira had been the name of Cadence’s mother, Eva’s sister.

Jiro patted Damiel on the back. “May your daughter grow in power and grace.”

Damiel drew his old friend Jiro into a hug.

“She is very tiny,” Eva said. “But very strong.”

Little Eira had grabbed on to Eva’s finger, and she wasn’t letting go. Her wings, an even mixture of black and white feathers, fluttered happily. As the daughter of two Immortals, she’d been born with wings too.

Jiro walked over and seated himself on the sofa opposite mine. “Well, Leda Pandora, I’ll say this for you: you sure know how to make an impact.”

He said ‘impact’, as in the kind that meteors made on the Earth’s surface.

“The fates of your daughter and these other six babies born at the same time are now intertwined.” Jiro spread his arms to indicate the babies in the room. “They’re bound together by that explosion of magic that burst forth the moment they all came into the world together.”

“You know, that sounds pretty epic,” I told him with a smile.

Jiro shrugged. “I’ve seen it before.”

I wondered what else the ancient Immortal had seen during his many millennia.

“You brought the Guardians’ Sanctuary back into this realm and in doing so, you rid the Earth of its wild weather, feral monsters, and crazy magic all at once,” Jiro said.

Which reminded me.

I turned toward Nyx, who sat across the room with Ronan, both huddled around their baby’s crib. “Hey, Nyx. If there are no more plains of monsters, what does that make me, the Angel of the Plains of Monsters?”

“Out of a job,” Nyx said lightly.

My face fell. “Really?”

“Don’t worry, Pandora,” replied the First Angel. “I’m sure I’ll find something to do with you. You’re the perfect solution to throw at impossible problems.”

I flashed her a grin. “Always happy to stir up some chaos.”

“Are you sure you can keep her under control?” Ronan asked Nyx.

“Of course not,” Nyx replied. “But, then again, neither can Faris.”

Ronan’s laugh, though quiet, made the airship’s walls rumble. The lights flickered a bit too.

“Knock it off, Ronan,” I told him. “If you break my airship, Nyx will totally find a way to blame me.”

The walls didn’t stop rumbling. In fact, they started shaking harder.

“Hey, Ronan!” I protested.