It has been a couple of months now since the wedding, since the revelation about Jovah. Isabella has been busy. She is not as overt as some of her counterparts. It is not now impossible on Samaria to commit crimes of violence, for example - although anyone who gets going with one will tend to feel a sensation of being watched, and this is enough to noticeably ding reports of such misbehavior.

She's been noticed.

Linus has been calling all of the changes, collectively - because once one or two got overt attention the others were plain as day - "Jovah's hand moving among us".

Isabella is all right with the ship getting credit for her handiwork. It will be more accepted that way. No one riots over the god choosing to peer closely at them if they raise their hands to strike; no one theorizes about the appropriateness of meddling in the natural processes of things like childbirth when they believe Jovah is the active party.

Meanwhile she shadows Delilah. She makes routine visits to Monteverde to talk with Linus about this or that. (She can bring Micaiah, now that they're married.)

She gets steadily more pregnant. The heaviness is no burden to an angel, but it is somewhat physically awkward to be so bulky. She works around it. She's going to have a baby, and she just glows with it.

And, one day, for the first time since before the wedding, she finds Milliways in her and Micaiah's guest room in Monteverde.

"Oh, here it is, I was wondering when it would come by again," Isabella says.