CHAPTER 1
TILDA
Iwake up three seconds before my alarm because motherhood has rewired my brain into a haunted security system.
For one glorious breath, I lie still in the dark and pretend I am a woman with options. A woman in a quiet apartment. A woman who sleeps until her alarm and drinks hot coffee while looking wistfully out a window at the neon fog rolling over Novaria’s lower skyline.
Then something metallic clatters in the next room.
I open my eyes. “Oh, for the love of?—”
Another clatter. Then a soft, fascinated toddler hum.
I throw back my blanket and sit up so fast the room tilts. My apartment is one of those narrow, prefab units that look temporary even when they’ve been standing for fifty years. The walls sweat faintly in winter, the heating vents rattle like they’re making a political statement, and the kitchenette is so close to my bed I could season eggs from the mattress if I had no self-respect left. Which, on some mornings, feels optimistic.
“Jesse?”
Silence.
That’s worse than a scream. Jesse is never louder than when he’s being quiet.
I stumble into slippers, scoop my hair into a knot that would insult knots everywhere, and push open the bedroom door.
My son is in the living area wearing only one sock and a diaper, standing in a pool of blue light from the street-facing window. He’s very small. He’s very beautiful. He is also holding the toaster upside down like he’s trying to understand its spiritual purpose.
“Jesse,” I say, in the tone of a woman standing one inch from the edge.
He looks up at me with those solemn eyes. Red-gold scales shimmer faintly over his cheeks and along his arms in the early light. He got that from Bron. He got the impossible strength from Bron too, which is lovely in theory and catastrophic in a cramped apartment full of discount furniture.
“Toast,” he informs me.
“No. Not toast. Fire hazard.” I cross the room and gently take the toaster from his hands. It’s heavier than it looks. So is he, in his own way. “How did you even reach that?”
He points to the cheap dining chair shoved against the counter.
Right. Of course. He built himself a crime.
I set the toaster out of reach and crouch in front of him. He smells like sleep and baby shampoo and the faint mineral scent that always clings to his scales after a bath. My heart does that stupid thing it always does, tightening until it aches.
“You can’t climb before dawn and reorganize the appliances,” I tell him.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
He blinks.
I sigh. “Because if you crack your head open, I can’t afford the med-gel deductible.”
He considers this. “Okay.”
He says okay to everything with the serene countenance that says he has no intention of compliance.
I scoop him up, and he goes willingly, warm and solid against me. Strong. Too strong for his age. Half-Vakutan, full headache.
“Breakfast,” I say. “We are doing breakfast, clothing, and basic civilization. In that order.”
He presses his face into my shoulder. “No civ’lization.”
