“Of course I didn’t say anything once I realized it,” Nora confirmed the following afternoon. “What was I supposed to do? Alert! Something is majorly wrong with the night sky, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it! Be afraid, very, very afraid!” She threw up her hands. “I’m not social media, you know.”

  We were heading toward Fort Turri, though the heavily wooded backdrop of pine trees in the distance refused to let us catch a glimpse of its stone walls. We had chosen a road less traveled and yet quite worn from the elements, and I figured it was as good a time as any to start our argument for everyone to witness.

  “So you just let me think everything was okay?!”

  “Well, I mean, it is, isn’t it?” she replied. “All things in perspective, you know. The sun still rises and sets in the right direction, the moon has its phases, seasons come and go…” She glanced at a very silent Relias as if for reassurance. “So what if one thing is different?”

  “It’s not natural!” I roared, stepping between them.

  “You’re getting distracted,” Oliver noted from my side. “I believe your intent was not to talk about the stars but how angry you are about being left unaware.”

  I turned to him, finding him a bit too close. “Do you mind?”

  He grinned, one green eye shifting open from the side. “Not at all. Feel free to let it all out.”

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure what ‘it all’ even was.

  “I’m not a child. I could have handled it!”

  Nora stopped walking. “You have enough to handle. I’m just fine worrying about it myself.” She made a face, her lip curling in contempt. “Eventually, I’ll have it worked out in my head about how this all works, and it’ll be old news.”

  “You don’t get to decide what I worry about. Spill it.”

  Nora stopped walking with a loud sigh. “Of all the… Fine! Here’s what I have so far, okay? Hold on.” She started to draw in the dirt with the butt of her staff, its dual dark orbs bobbing up and down with her twitchy movements.

  “Physics doesn’t like it, but I think the sun and the moon both revolve around the world,” she murmured as she labeled her Speranza-centric model.

  Oliver moved closer, bending down to peer at her scratchings.

  “There are tides, right?” she asked. “We haven’t been to the beach yet, so I haven’t been able to confirm.”

  “Yes, Lady Nora. There are… tides…” Relias replied, trembling slightly, a greyish cast covering his now sweaty face.

  Oliver twitched, his focus lingering on the Holy Sage. “Hmm…” was all he said before turning back to Nora. “Go on. I’m curious now.”

  “Anyway… The stars. They must be fixed points in an outer layer of some sort,” she muttered angrily, speckling the perimeter of her model with swift stabs of her staff.

  I scratched my head, not sure why Nora was so discontented with her rationale so far. “Seems simple enough, I guess…”

  “You’re here,” Nora said, plonking her staff on Speranza. “Do you know how dense you’d be if it were true?”

  “Look, I know I’m not the brightest, but you don’t have to go insulting me!”

  Did you forget I’m the aggrieved party here?

  Nora’s eyes almost rolled into the back of her head. “Literal density! Not intelligence. You’d be one of the densest objects in the universe! Speranza would have to be a gravity well, holding on to everyone and everything!”

  D'oh.

  “So it’s just magic then,” I replied airily, knowing that would make her even more annoyed. “Magic.”

  “You—”

  “They used to move,” Relias said, his expression softening at some unseen memory.

  “What?” we asked, our heads turning in unison.

  He was shaking now, his hands wrapped around his staff in an attempt to keep him on his feet. “The stars… They used to move.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “The banned fables are true?” Oliver asked, his eyes widening in shock.

  Relias nodded, and Oliver’s face filled with utter revulsion.

  “What’s wrong with the stars moving?” I asked. “A drift of a couple of degrees isn’t anything to get upset about.” I stopped. “Oh, I guess if you’re used to navigating by them, it might—”

  “It is said that Euphridia moved them at her whim, solely for Raela’s amusement,” Oliver noted, his voice full of contempt.

  “You mean… She just… and suddenly… poof?” I started to shake. “That’s horrible!”

  Relias’s brows furrowed slightly. “I do not deny it must have been… unsettling, to those unprepared. Yet I believe it meant as a kindness—an intimacy shared between creator and creation.”

  “I can’t even begin to imagine how awful that would be. You’re minding your own business and suddenly everything in the sky above starts rearranging itself?!”

  “But it was for you—I mean, Raela…"

  “It’s too irresponsible! I don’t—No one needs anyone rearranging the stars for them! It’s a good thing she stopped doing that!”

  Relias let out a long exhale and sat on the ground, putting his head to his knees. “She stopped the day Raela left us. The stars have not moved since.”

  Even Oliver was smart enough to keep his opinions to himself, sharing in the silence as we let His Holiness collect himself.

  “Nothing has been the same since… Paradise… The sky… Speranza…”

  “And why should it be?” Nora asked, taking a seat beside him. “The world has to move on, even if Euphridia can’t.”

  Relias raised his head slowly, a faint, almost rueful smile on his lips. “Perhaps… perhaps there is wisdom in that. The world will change, whether we will it or not.” He then shivered. “But it would be sinful of me to speak of the Goddess in an unflattering light,” he added, the smile fading. “I would ask that our conversation—”

  “No. It has to be said,” I found myself saying. “Relias… You’re just as much a victim as everyone else is!”

  “Victim?” His head shot up. “I am no—”

  “Euphridia neglected you and everyone else here. The sooner you see that, the sooner…”

  What? The sooner you can feel it? Be hurt by it? React? Accept?

  With a shake of my head, I refocused my argument. “I’m not letting her get away with it. And neither should you. Things must change! You said nothing has been the same since, right? And it won’t be. So, we gotta change with it.”

  Nora stood up, offering Relias a hand. “Rae’s being a bit dramatic about it, but she’s not wrong,” she noted, giving me an apologetic smile.

  Relias stood up with her help. “You are saying… That we must guide the change, so that as the world moves on, it moves toward what she would truly want…”

  Oliver scoffed. “I will start with what I want. Compensation.”

  “What is it with you and getting paid?” I asked. “Can’t you just transmute materials into gold?”

  “That would be, as you like to say, irresponsible,” he replied. “I’m not about to mess with the economic force of such a precious resource. And I wasn’t talking about financial compensation, so free yourself from the thought that I am a money grubber.” He ran his fingers through his hair, once again getting one untamable piece stuck on his left horn.

  It’d be weird if I fix it for him, right?

  He shook his head before I could embarrass myself. “At the very least, I will require a publicized retraction of a demon’s stated Purpose.”

  Nora snorted. “Good luck with that one.”

  Relias frowned. “You would be asking Euphridia to admit she was wrong about something.”

  “And?”

  Oliver’s question hung in the air.

  Relias closed his eyes tightly, refusing to look at any of us. “You should plan to allow her to blame another if that is the compensation you wish. Otherwise, you would be incurring her wrath directly.”

  Nora loudly inhaled to the point I thought she would burst. “You’re not saying she wasn’t wrong!” she shouted through a forceful exhale.

  Relias winced. “Lady Nora, I beg of you! Putting me in such a challenging position—”

  “Builds character,” I interjected, slapping him on the back.

  He stumbled a bit. “In-indeed…”

  “Ah, sorry…”

  Oliver muttered something I didn’t catch at first. “…Father. It is easy enough to blame him.”

  “It’s unfair, but you’re going to have to follow up with how you’re not like him,” I replied. “But don’t worry, like I said, I've got your back.”

  “I require that you have my front as well,” Oliver murmured.

  I couldn't help but chuckle in agreement.

  Nora nudged Relias. “And what do you want, Your Holiness?”

  “Me? I do not require any—”

  “Boo. Try again.” Nora made a motion as if she were rewinding something. “What do you want, Your Holiness?”

  Relias frowned. “How to help her… How can I better serve—”

  “Why do you have to do everything?” Nora asked. “Where is the rest of her help, anyway?”

  “She has AINA,” I remarked. “But I—”

  “Aina?” Relias asked. “Who is Aina?”

  “Oh… um… some sort of assistant? Haven’t met her myself, but I think she’s in Paradise somewhere overseeing NAUGHT.”

  “She… Did not tell me of this…” He sighed.

  I bet she doesn’t tell you much of anything.

  “I think she’s new,” I added to soften the blow. “She probably didn’t have the chance to tell you about her yet.”

  “That’s still only what, one other helper?” Nora criticized.

  “Euphridia is our Goddess,” Relias replied slowly, his eyes blinking. “She works through all of us to—”

  “She doesn’t have the right team mix,” Nora declared. “One assistant, and everyone else is mortal? I could see her not wanting to share the stage with a demi-god, but what about angels?”

  “Angels…?” Relias questioned.

  Nora inhaled, but I held up a hand.

  “Hold it.”

  “What?”

  I stamped my foot. “New Testament references only!”

  Nora narrowed her eyes, though a smirk formed on her face. “Sure. Revelation, chapter nine. Picture a swarm of locusts with human faces, women’s hair, lion’s teeth, and scorpion tails, their wings sounding like war chariots—”

  “Stop. Nope. We’re done here.” I clamped my hands over my ears, but she just kept grinning.

  “And then—”

  “Stop!”

  While she eventually came around to a more modern explanation of an angel’s description and Purpose, I spent the rest of the day silently cursing myself for thinking the nightmare fuel of a “biblically accurate angel” was exclusive to the first half of the Good Book.

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