a fruit compote more centrally on the long table. “Where is your brother, Eve? Why hasn’t he arrived yet? He must be present when Michael lifts the babe to the Creator.”
“Adam will arrive,” Eve assured her.
“How sad that Michael’s own parents won’t witness the ceremony.”
Michael got up, placing an affectionate arm around Deianna, hugging her. “Zoras and Heira are already deep within somnambulation somewhere along the first pathbeam. They came last night to see the baby and say their goodbyes. Leianna is already at home in their gift.”
Deianna studied the intricately carved wooden cradle holding her tiny granddaughter. “It’s beautifully crafted. Does it play music?”
“No, Mother.” Eve carried another wooden bowl, filled with slivered almonds and figs to the table. “And you still haven’t presented your own gift to Leianna, your first grandchild, whose name honors your own.”
Deianna smiled haughtily and reached for her scarpa, her cloth pouch, on the edge of the table. She took out a tiny wooden box, opening it. A gold ring crowned by a brilliant blue stone lay within. “My love is within the gem. It imparts wisdom and direction.” She handed it to Eve. “Give it to Leianna on the day she’s to be married.” She ignored the startled glances Eve and Michael gave her. “The others will arrive soon. Where is Adam?”
“Here I am, Mother.”
Adam appeared in the doorway, wearing a shortened and sleeveless blue summer robe. Handsome despite a pale complexion, his sandy hair tousled and hazel eyes laughing, his voice rang out, so silken and rounded, it irked rather than warmed the ear. “May I enter, in peace and friendship, the home of my beloved sister and her family?”
“Enter, Adam ben Mercurius,” Michael responded properly, “and share with us the spark of life.”
Adam avoided his mother’s glare, moving to the cradle and studying his newborn niece. “She’s beautiful. We’ll have to keep the boys at a distance when she grows up.”
“Only at arm’s length,” Michael answered, his words clipped and concise.
Adam picked the child up in his strong hands. She whimpered at first, then quieted as he rocked her.
His sister hovered beside him until Deianna, her finger softly brushing Leianna’s cheek, noticed her daughter was level with her own height. “Eve, you’re lifting again.”
“I’m happy,” Eve said simply.
“Even so, lifting is only for far-journeying. Talents are not to be wasted, and you know it. You have feet . . . plant them please.”
“May the House of Lucifer enter?” A new, much softer voice drew their eyes to the doorway as Eve lowered to the floor. An attractive young man with a mane of golden hair and startling blue eyes smiled warmly at Michael, receiving in return a grin borne of their longtime friendship.
Lucifer’s wife, dark golden hair piled high and fetchingly, her deep green eyes meeting Michael’s and Eve’s in greeting, stood beside him. The statuesque woman held Bael, their youngest son, firmly in her arms. The child’s small elven ears were nearly covered by his rich black hair; his piercing eyes cast curious darting glances about.
Ashtoreth, their three-year-old, his gaze shyly averted, clutched Lucifer’s hand. His hair, the same thick waves of sunlit blond as his father’s, was unruly.
“Enter,” Michael said. “Enter and share with us—always—our blessed new spark of life and the friendship which burns brightly and eternally between us.”
The family crossed the open threshold. Lucifer nodded toward his one-year-old, who yawned and burrowed his head into the crook between his mother’s upper arm and chest. “Bael’s just waking up. He slept most of the way, lulled by the sun and Affaeteres’s gentle gait.” He smoothed his elder son’s wild locks quickly into place. “Ashtoreth. Go and sit some place quietly until the others arrive.”
The boy scampered to a cushion near the kitchen entrance, hair falling in his face again. Aside from his renegade curls, his white shortrobe was spotless, as perfectly smooth as his father’s.
“Here, Ash.” Eve found a skane playball and handed it to him.
He lifted his bright aquamarine eyes up to her, the precocious patrician cast of his cheeks, nose and mouth somber, at first, then blossoming into an appropriately childish smile of gratitude. He fingered the soft clear globe. Three inches in diameter, it came to life in his hands, pulsating with glowing colors and patterns as quickly as Ashtoreth imagined them. Lavender, yellow and orange rays swirled and leaped within the tiny sphere, bouncing colorful shadows around the room. One danced across his little brother’s face. Bael reached out, trying to grasp the elusive streak. Ashtoreth laughed.
Bael’s eyes, midnight black flecked with gold, focused on Ashtoreth and the bright ball. He strained forward in his mother’s arms. “Meh!”
“No,” Affaeteres said, holding him tightly. She leaned over to lightly embrace Eve and Deianna, then nodded to Adam, smiling warmly at the newborn in his arms. “So this is our godchild.”
“Yes.” Eve took the baby from Adam, tucking her back into her cradle. “This is Zoras and Heira’s gift to her.”
“It’s lovely.”
Lucifer joined them. “The child outshines it.” His lips curved upward in amused approval. “Have your parents left?” he asked Michael.
“Yes. Early this morning. Eve’s father, Mercurius, is keeping the tally of those leaving on the transgalactic journey. I almost envy Zoras and Heira and the other elders chosen. To be helping our Creator establish a new world of sentient beings at a distant point in the universe . . .” He grinned pensively. “. . . almost worth the loss of separation from Eliom for 35 millennia.”
“Perhaps. Well, we will have to tend both the Garden and the Council in their absence, although I’m sure our remaining elders will be quick to advise us, solicited or not. But with good advice, no doubt, and many of us may rise more quickly to elder status now. Has Mercurius had a chance to see Leianna?”
“He’s been unable to visit. He sent a congratulatory message, along with a tiny skane pendant for Leianna.”
Lucifer clasped his shoulder, nodding understanding, both he and Michael watching Ashtoreth toddle over, the globe toy, now unhandled and returned to a milky white, abandoned on the floor cushion. The boy stared into the cradle, nose wrinkling. The baby, in turn, smiled up at him, her infant eyes alight with curiosity.
“What’s her name?” Ashtoreth asked, cheeks reddening slightly.
“Leianna,” Michael said.
“Ley-ahn-nah,” he imitated the formal name.
Affaeteres, one arm holding Bael, reached down to smooth her firstborn’s hair. “You see, Ashtoreth, the name ‘Leianna’ has an ‘ah’ on the end to give it the third sound. ‘Leiann,’ her little name, only uses the first and second sounds. A special name just for friends.”
“Ley-ahn,” he repeated. “Do I have a little name?”
“Yes.
