Bella De La Luna

walk into rooms t

ne had taught her; it was

e a callus. Every school year

om, established social landsc

o enter it without making hers

h of those outcomes had costs

ither on

ent scale. Larger room, high

e walked in - but the fundam

one side, Raphael one step be

el that said present but not p

ppearin

as reading

or at least the cool distanc

the quality of attention she f

er to hope than suspicion. T

. She was the thing they

f that was c

d kept her expressio

seats to her right who wore

worked very hard to keep neut

looked like. Marisol had gro

d not believe she was worth

woman away und

from her mother's intr

Lila took her thr

ent Bloodli

vault, the long tables set fo

y feet tall, each one carved w

ou understood the carv

the eighth pill

was a woman - slight in bui

her sides, palms outward, t

dered this a form of power r

collar, carved precisely

mother," Ma

quality reserved for name

rgued for every alliance it r

Luna to be among the warrior

who had built the compact, or

one who never backed

small, fierce pause

d and looked

the expression that was too

ging with the dignity of some

person she is try

how to do this

wh

n them. "I don't know you.

derstand the reasons, I read m

ked at me like that. I don

ment. "You don't have to do

at needs a response." She paus

of three hundred miles. I am

m. But I am also not going to

you haven't yet had time to le

hat is

the woman who had stood at

ree hundred miles to visit a cr

said. "I c

A DE L

in the manner of someone pu

safe

ortress - through the library

f territories she was only be

face of the fortress

ley spread out in the mornin

through it, the peaks on the far

e had ever seen and she stood t

her life, that the world was a

a

," Lila said. "Rosa used to

d her of what t

s the wo

e world being allowed t

d thought about the back lane

about the view it had - a s

en, until last night, the

o train,"

before her mother could say

ts me dead figures out where I

harder

ething new - not the overwh

breakfast. Something more sp

ke Rosa's hands wit

ietly, "your great-great

walked back tow

r, and the valley s

someone had been watching th

n sent. That the people who h

rn had just learn

d know b