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CHAPTER1
Feather
The only Celestial child in existence sat on the edge of a cloud, her bare feet kicking out into the void, her charcoal gray overalls shimmering against the shining white of the improvised bench. She was singing in her raspy, alto voice like she did almost every day, though usually she made sure no one was near enough to hear.
She hated her voice.
She hated her voice, her hair, the glitter that would not come out of her skin no matter how hard she scrubbed, the way her nose turned up at the end, and how small her boobs were.
This week, she’d decided she also hated all of her dads besides Mikhail, the smell of warm chocolate, and every genre of music except something called goth trap.
But she hated me the most.
She absolutely detested the way I said “Good morning,” the way my teeth clicked when I chewed, how I wore my own silver hair, the way I sneezed three times in a row “like some needy attention ho,” and every other detail about me.
“Precious hates me, Sunny,” I sighed, leaning into my best birch’s arms. “She absolutely reviles me.”
“Yes,” Sunny agreed, patting my head with a hand that was sticky with something I wouldn’t ask about, but hoped was caramel. “She’s supposed to. She’s just a teenager, and you’re her mom.”
“You’re her mom, too, and she doesn’t hate you.”
“Yeah, but I’m the nice mom,” Sunny gloated. “The cool mom. She has to like me more.”
Shewas the cool mom? I’d been the one to teach Precious how to play the kazoo. I’d had Mikhail build her a playscape and a treehouse, and trees, for crying out loud. I’d convinced Gavriel to let her listen to Imriel’s library of all the music that had ever existed—though if I’d known there was a goth trap song titled “My Mother Thinks She’s an Angel but She’s a Maggot Rat of Lies” in there, I would have reconsidered.
Sunny, the cool mom? Just because it might be true didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. I reached over and pinched Sunny’s right nipple, hard.
“What the fu—”
“Share the pain of motherhood, birch.” I glared at her. “I wrecked my spiritual vagina for that girl. I have stretch marks up and down my soul. I deserve to be the cool mom.”
“Feather, you did not push her ou—” Sunny let out a frustrated shriek when I tweaked her other nipple, for symmetry. And to get her to shut up.
“Motherfuckers!” Precious had heard us and jumped up, whirling around to face us. Her long, dark purple hair, perfectly formed ebony wings, and small charcoal horns were outlined by tiny pinpricks of glitter. Her shimmering skin was gorgeous against the pure deep nothingness that stretched out behind her, and I caught my breath, like I often did, at how absolutely perfect she was.
It shouldn’t have surprised me. I had named her, even if it had been a total accident:Precious, Perfect Devil, Little Glitter.
But then I’d tacked on more names, when we’d come to the Limen from Sanctuary.First and Only of Her Kind, Beloved by All Realms.And it was that, theOnly of Her Kindpart, that made her hate me so much.
“No, sweetie,” Sunny called back. “No motherfudgers. Just your mothers this time.”
Precious rolled her eyes so hard it had to hurt, and turned as if to go, but Sunny flew toward her, grasping her gently below the elbow as she landed, stopping her from leaving. I ran to catch up, my stupid tiny wings flapping behind me, and reached them just as Precious stopped struggling.
“Let me go. I have to check on Shadow,” she argued. It was rare to see her apart from her beloved, baby-Clydesdale-sized dog, and I wondered what had happened. “I left him shut in my room.”
I chewed at my lip. That was new. And suspicious. “Why would you do that?”
“I needed to be alone.” She still wouldn’t look at me.
“Too bad,” Sunny muttered. “We need to talk.”
“I don’twantto talk,” Presh groaned as Sunny sat her forcibly back down on the cloud bench.
“No one wants this talk, Presh.” Sunny’s eyes met mine over my daughter’s sweetly curved horns. “But it’s time. We need to explain things now that you’re… more mature.”
Precious went still, her galaxy-colored eyes moving back and forth between us like balls in a pinball machine.
Then she snorted a laugh that echoed across the clouds around us. For a moment, I would have sworn I saw a small part of the void itself perk up, or shift, as if it was listening to her laughter.
