“Peach cobbler!” she declared, her eyes fixed on Leo as if seeking some kind of reward. Rahel seemed mostly harmless, but something about how she looked at Leo irritated Sera in a way she could not quite explain. Her magic was bubbling, prickling and sharp, as if her talk with Leela had opened some sort of secret door inside her that had long been locked, the key only just discovered.

“I’m afraid I’m feeling awfully tired, Rahel,” Leo said, and Sera was impressed at how normal he sounded after such an otherworldly experience. “Perhaps my friend and I could retire for the night?”

Rahel frowned and her gaze flickered unwillingly to Sera. “Well, you can’t sleep in the same room together,” she said. “That’s not allowed. It’s my ship so I make the rules.”

Tears of frustration pricked Sera’s eyes—she had not just visited with her best friend and discovered the woman she had trusted all her life was a liar only to be separated from her one companion by a silly girl who was used to getting everything she wanted.

The moonstone was a bright sun against her chest, a connection between her City and this planet, like a tendon with synapses on either end, and Rahel gave a little squeak of shock as Sera stepped toward her. Leo gasped too.

Sera’s magic began to sing inside her, a song she felt she finally understood, though she could not explain how or why. Something had shifted within her, something that said this is how it is supposed to be, and a fire was lit in her heart, its heat spreading through her body. It felt like a blood bond except there was no one she was bonding with but herself. The heat began to climb, crawling up her chest, twining around her collarbone, curling into her throat, until it reached her eyes and a sudden clarity came upon her, a brilliant flash like a star being born, and she embraced the force of power coursing through her from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. The strength that had been building within her since they left Old Port was finally released and found it had purpose.

“I am a Cerulean,” she said. Her voice rang and shimmered in the air and she felt as if the whole world stopped for a moment to listen and obey her. “My blood is magic. And you will not take my friend away from me.”