“What will Obatala do with Auntie Tyana?” Eleni asked as tears clustered on her eyelashes.

“Knowing Sky Father, he will take her to Alsar, the high-security prison for magical creatures who commit horrible crimes,” Papa answered. “She won’t hurt anyone else there.”

“Good,” Eleni said. “She deserves to be punished.”

Papa reached out to catch flakes of her fairy dust. “Be careful, baby girl.”

Eleni’s eyes went wide as she looked at me, Eli, and Frankie. Then it all clicked. My friends and I were feeling her emotions, her sadness. I remembered a story that Papa once told me about the aziza. Their fairy dust had the ability to affect other people’s moods and influence their decisions. The aziza had used their magic to keep strangers from invading their forest by making them think it was too dangerous to explore.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” Eleni apologized, ducking her head in embarrassment. She took a deep breath as if to calm herself, and the fairy dust disappeared. “I didn’t know that I could. Kimala was the one good with fairy magic.”

Papa stiffened at the mention of Kimala, like he always did when Eleni bought up her siblings or her mom. It might have been a long time ago, but Papa still missed them. As much as I’d been shocked to find out that he had another family before Mama and me, I could understand that the pain of losing them would never go away. Papa squeezed Eleni tighter against his side. He looked like he wanted to say something but he held her instead.

Ogun cleared his throat. “I’ll add another lesson on controlling one’s magic to my lesson plan this week.”

Back in the day—like earlier this year, right after school let out for the summer—most of the other godlings didn’t even know they were related to celestials. They hadn’t shown any magical abilities, and the orisha council had forbidden the other celestials from revealing the truth. Sound familiar? The council had a knack for rules, especially around magic. That was until the darkbringers started to attack our neighborhood and godlings started to show powers.

The cranky Johnston twins had once explained that the same thing had happened before the last war with the Dark. Godlings who’d lived ordinary lives started to come into their magic. It was like the universe could sense the need for the godlings to help the celestials protect the human world.

“It’s time to go home,” Papa said, looking us over. “You’ve been through enough today.”

“But, Papa, the council said the first celestial will arrive from the outer edges of the universe soon,” Eleni said, bouncing on her toes. “Can’t we stay a little longer?”