Chapter 36

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.

Eva sat down beside Jiro. "That wasn't Ronan. It was your daughter. She's waking up."

A single, sleepy cry rose from Sierra's crib. Several of the lights in the room blew up.

I quickly lifted her out of her crib and began to rock her. "That's not my fault," I said with a guilty glance at Nyx.

"She's your daughter," Nyx pointed out, but I could tell she was too happy with her baby to be truly angry with me.

The walls were really shaking now. And Sierra was still crying.

I began to pace with her in my arms. "Maybe if I just find a position she likes…"

Sierra stopped crying.

I sighed in relief. "Thank goodness."

My baby cooed, and the rest of the lights in the ceiling blew up.

"So things blew up when you're happy too?" I handed her to Nero. Maybe he'd have better luck with her.

And sure enough, as soon as he began to rock her, the walls stopped shaking. And when she laughed, nothing blew up.

"How did you do that?" I said in awe.

"Some people are just better with children," Nero said smugly.

As he looked fondly upon our daughter, I stuck my tongue out at him.

"You are chaos, Leda. Nero is order," Jiro said.

Yeah, that made a lot of sense—and yet no sense at all.

"Wait, so you're saying that whenever I hold Sierra, things will go all…all wonky?" I asked him.

"At least until you learn to control your inner chaos," Jiro replied.

Standing beside me, Stash was laughing his ass off.

"Oh, shut up," I said and stuck my tongue out at him too.

"Sierra's magic is very potent for one so young," Eva said brightly. "It might not be long before she starts blowing things up, even when you're not holding her."

Nero stopped bouncing her in his arms. "What do we do about that?"

Eva smiled. "Embrace the unpredictable nature of parenthood."

Nero looked at her blankly, like her words hadn't computed in his brain.

"He means you'll have to wing it, General," I said helpfully.

"Thank you, Pandora. I know what it means." Nero hit me with a deliciously dark look that sent shivers down my spine.

"You just refuse to accept it?"

"I have trained you to behave, Leda. I will do the same with our daughter," he said with complete confidence.

I glanced at Basanti. "Hey, Basanti, did you hear? Nero thinks I know how to behave."

"Nero is high on parenthood and is talking shit," Basanti replied in her no-nonsense manner.

Wow, she must have been really high on parenthood too. I hadn't seen her in such a good mood in a long time.

"Leda, your daughter is the love child of order and chaos." Alec looked very pleased. "It's going to be fun to watch her grow up."

Spirits were high all around today. Naturally. We had the Guardians on the run, and the Earth was whole once more. It had been a good day.

"Don't celebrate too soon," Jiro warned me.

"Jiro, your doom-and-gloom attitude is really killing the mood," I told him.

"You accomplished a lot today, Leda. No one can take that away from you," he said. "But you must know that there's a whole give-and-take balance to magic. Nothing comes for free. There must be something that fuels any magic performed."

"Yes, we know. The phoenix Indira told us all about that," I said breezily.

"She told you about the balance between life and death, as a phoenix would see things," Jiro said. "But it's more complicated than that."

Speaking of passive magic…

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you and Eva something," I said to him. "When Grace was young, she and her sisters came across some beings who called themselves eidolons and spirits. They claimed to be the deities of light and dark passive magic, respectively."

"They are," Jiro confirmed.

"So what more can you say about them?" I asked him.

"A lot. Just as I can say a lot about a lot of things," he said with enough smugness to make even an angel blush. "The universe is a big place, full of wonders and horrors. That's what I'm trying to tell you, Leda. When you played with the laws of magic—when you ripped open the Sanctuary and pulled it into this realm—you opened up the door to other realms."

Eva came to stand beside him. "Realms where magic doesn't work in the way you've come to expect. Realms where countless threats lie in wait, ready to strangle you."

"There is great magic out there, magic the Guardians can use against you. That's why you must find them quickly, before they acquire powerful weapons against you," Jiro told me.

"What happened to your oath of non-interference?" I said, allowing my brows to lift.

Because their shifting double standards totally deserved a good eyebrow lift.

"As you once said, plans change," he replied.

At that moment, I liked Jiro more than I ever had.

"You might have chased the Guardians away from the Earth, but they aren't done with you yet," Eva said. "And they aren't done with your family, Leda. Not by a long shot."

I looked around the room, at all the friends and family gathered here. "And we aren't done with the Guardians. Nor are we done with Ava, Sonja, and anyone else who has manipulated our entire lives." I looked up at the sky. "You hear that, Guardians, gods, and demons? We've had enough, and now we're coming for you."