Page 8 - gAIa — Advance excerpt

ing her. She liked that unique and tender name, because it did
its job identifying her, but also carried the bond between them.
No longer a baby, five-year-old Callie was now shrieking in
the garden with a joy that had nothing to do with anything col-
lapsing.
“She’s fast,” said Clio, appearing over Redy’s shoulder, her
arms crossed as she watched her granddaughter in a way that
meant worry she would never admit to. “Like her mother.”
“Like her grandmother,” Redy corrected.
They watched as Callie stopped in front of her pappou Liang,

cupping something in her hands to show him. By the time she
opened her tiny fist, the light had already faded. Liang gri-
maced with sadness at the empty little palm. An empty fate,
like the rest of her generation’s.
“Glow-worms, not fireflies,” he chuckled. “We’re too far north
for fireflies, Callie.”
The Eauton Archive would not admit children like her. Only
minds of adults could be archived. The wealthy, the powerful,
those who had bought their place in eternity. But also the quiet
ones who had earned it, thanks to the battles Eurydice Cao had
fought with the UN committee. There was no provision for mi-
nors, though. She had fought for them too, but lost.
The gate creaked. Orpheus Renard arrived late, as he always
had, as he always would. He stood at the edge of the garden,
watching Callie dart from light to light on the grass, running
past him like a stranger. He hadn’t seen her since she was six
weeks old.
“The last time I saw her,” he called out as he approached
Redy, “she was tiny, like a firefly herself.”
“You left a note on the table, and you were gone before she
woke up.”
He said nothing. He had never been good at staying, and both
of them knew it, which made things no easier for either of the

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