Damaris is happy to help! Or at least happy to try. Definitely happy to demonstrate proper takeoff technique.

Peninnah watches her intently. She tries. She does not get off the ground. "I dunno what I do wrong!" she exclaims.

"I dunno either!" says Damaris. "Lemme see."

Peninnah tries it again.

"What'd you do different?"

"Dars, I already know you can fly and not fly whenever," complains Peninnah.

"I'm trying to figure out what the difference is!" she says. "You can try too, watch my wings!"

Peninnah watches her sister's wings intently.

There is a difference in how she uses them, when she's taking off and when she's staying on the ground. It's hard to describe, but it's there.

Peninnah adjusts as best she can, and jogs and flaps. She gets a little lift, but doesn't get much of anywhere. This doesn't stop her from being excited about it.

"See? You did it a little!" says Damaris. "Try again!"

Peninnah tries, gets aloft, and completely fails to correct for no longer wanting to ascend; she starts spiraling up and up and up.

Damaris chases after her to demonstrate gliding.

Peninnah is initially very nervous about the concept of holding her wings still in order to accomplish anything in midair, but eventually she manages it, promptly loses too much altitude and has to flap wildly, and tries again to somewhat better effect.

Damaris encourages her every flap of the way!

Peninnah glides, and realizes at the last minute she's going to overshoot and crash into a wall, and brakes, and falls to the ground from four feet up and five away from the wall - she runs a few steps to keep her footing and smacks, mercifully hands-first, into said wall.

"You did it!" says Damaris.

"Kinda!" giggles Pen.

"You can practice and get better!"

"I can!" And Peninnah has two more false starts, successfully takes off, and begins trying swooping sorts of tricks that are a bit too advanced for her and having to correct her course a lot.

Damaris takes off again, the better to keep an eye on her sister.

Swoop! Swoop! Wheeeeeee!

Wheee.

Keziah has been flying for a while, but when she is twelve, it is time for her to go on her first intercession as soon as something suitable within her flying range is found.

Her older sister offers to take her along.

Isabella's daughters to the rescue!

Two of them, anyway! Off they go. "Is this fun?" asks Keziah as they head out. "The whole thing. I know flying is fun and singing is fun."

"Flying is fun, singing is fun, grateful villagers feeding you pastries is fun," says Damaris.

"You and your pastries," giggles Keziah.

"Pastries are nice!" she defends.

"Yeah, but what does it matter where we get them?" laughs Keziah. "If the cafeteria serves them or if the villagers give them out or if you conjure one?" (Both of them are now considered mature enough to have little strings of triangles and squares invisibly on their persons.)

"I just like making people happy, I guess."

"I guess it's a better hobby than putting tacks on people's chairs."

"Ow," giggles Damaris.

"Yeah, not an appropriate angelic calling," Keziah grins.

"Unless you know a lot of people who really like to sit on tacks."

"I don't!" says Keziah. "...Do you think our lives will be a whole lot different, when everybody knows about things? Mom could fix all the weather everywhere for good, easy, she just doesn't because it'd be showy. Are we learning pointless stuff?"

"...A little bit pointless," says Damaris. "Not completely pointless. She might fix all the weather, but I don't think she's going to get rid of 'angels go places and fix things'. And it isn't pointless now - we're going to have to do it for years before she does anything like that."

"You think it'll still be, 'angels go fix things', not just 'people who work for Mom go fix things'? Because - once everyone knows, anybody could fly, or even teleport, and be better at fixing stuff than we are now, and everyone will know angels are just genetically engineered."

"We'll see, I guess."

"I guess we can go fix things, either way."

"Yep!"

"And probably get pastries, even."

"I sure hope so!"

"That would be really sad, if we had to trade pastries for Mom otherwise optimizing the world!"

"It would! I would ask her to make there be pastries again."

"And she would send an aaaaangel to fix your problem," laughs Keziah.

"But then," exclaims Damaris, "I would have to give them pastries!"

"Are you saying you won't share? Will I have to fight you to get some of my own pastries where we're going?" cackles Keziah.

"You can have all the pastries that are yours," says Damaris.

"Who decides which ones are mine, huh?"

"Me."

"Who died and made you captain of Jovah?" snorts Keziah.

Damaris giggles.

"I wonder what Yseult and Céleste are doing right now, they don't have to go through the motions of being professional angels... I wonder how old they are now. And if they have little sisters by now."

"That's a weird thought," laughs Damaris. "I wonder if we'll be older than they are, when Jane comes back?"

"You were once!" says Keziah. "I mean, not exactly, but our mom was pregnant with you when Rose hadn't even decided to have Yseult."

"I don't think that counts," she says, giggling.

"I guess not. I wonder if time ever goes backwards? Like, could they be younger than they were when we saw them?"

"I don't think that works," says Damaris. "Where would the time go? What would happen to the Yseult and Céleste who met us?"

"They'd happen later, I guess? And not mention that they saw us when we were younger?"

"Can you imagine them doing that? I can't."

"Well, maybe something bad would happen if they mentioned it. Maybe things wouldn't happen how they remember them, if they did?"

"You two were seven! Can you imagine acting perfectly like you'd never met somebody you already knew, when you were seven?"

"Nnnnno," acknowledges Keziah, laughing softly.

Damaris giggles.

"Do you think there will be more of you by the time Jane is back? From one of the other worlds? Maybe me too, I guess it gets less and less likely for Ariel and Pen though, depends how many kids they have."

"Unless there's one family where we all come out in the wrong order, or something," laughs Damaris.

"Do you think that could happen? All four of us backwards maybe, Pen oldest and you youngest? I don't think so, you're such a big sister."

"Weirder things have happened!"

"What weirder things?"

"Cousinoids. Cousinoids are weirder."

"How are cousinoids weird? It would be really strange if - if Glass's kids and the Joker's kids were the same as us, because then they'd be the same as each other without any of the same parents!"

"It's not their not being us that's weird, it's their being at all," she says. "I mean - not that I want them to stop. It's just, I can wrap my head around alts, but alts of our parents getting together with people who aren't alts of our other parent and having kids that are almost kind of like our cousins or half-siblings or something... it's weird!"

"Well, Glass doesn't have one of Daddy," says Keziah reasonably.

"That doesn't make it less weird."

"What if by the time Jane is back you and Yseult are both grown up and married? Do you think the people you marry will be alts?"

"I have no idea. I have no idea how I could have an idea. I have no idea if I'm going to get married!"

"If you did get married what kind of person would you want to marry?"

"Somebody I got along with, I guess."

"I wonder if by the time we grow up it will be allowed to marry other angels?"

"Why, are you looking at any?"

"Nooooo!"

"Are you sure?"

She laughs.

"Well, what if I was?"

"Then you'd have to wait a while, I guess. Or arrange special dispensation."

"Only if she liked me, though."

"There is that."

Flap, flap.

"Ooh, do you see it? I don't see it."

"Over there!"

Keziah requires a little more altitude and some squinting, but then she can see it. "Ooh. Cool. Wow, it is too warm around here, isn't it."

Keziah has about an average angel's voice along all dimensions, except that she can sing ludicrously high notes with it.

Damaris is, as always, louder than your average angel.

Looks like in this town there are little cakes and caramel apples. Keziah is just as happy.

Ooh, caramel apples. Those might be even better than pastries.

"Ha!" laughs Keziah. "Didn't they give you enough of those?"

Via brainphone on account of her mouth being full: [Evidently not!]

[You have such a sweet tooth.]

[Who, me? Never.]

[Yes, you!] Keziah sticks out her tongue at her sister.

Damaris does not return this gesture. Because her mouth is full of tasty caramel apple.

[So that was an intercession. It was pretty neat.]

[Yep!]

[It would probably be cheating to just hover for a while and brainphone Jovah and tell him what to do. At least singing's fun.]

[It is!]

[Why do you suppose we got made angels? I mean, somebody has to control the weather, but there could be more ears to hear prayers from the ground - or more interfaces - or something. And instead there's angels.]

[Maybe Jovah knows. We could get Mom to find out.]

Damaris laughs.

Keziah beams.

Peninnah meets them, when they land. "Did you intercession good?" she wants to know. "Is it weathering nice there now?"

"We did! It is!"

"And we got cakes and caramel apples!" agrees Keziah, picking up Peninnah to toss her into the air and catch her again as she wafts down on braking wings. "It was fun. When you're a big girl you'll go too."

"I'll be big and eat cake!" laughs Peninnah.

"A flawless plan."

"Yes. Is a good plan," says Peninnah, fluttering happily.

Damaris grins at her.

So does Keziah. Back into the Eyrie they go.

Whee!

It is a couple of months later when Keziah can be found sort of moping in her room, lying on her front on her bed with a book open that she isn't reading.

A knock on the door.

"Come in?"

"Oh, just - stuff?"

She squirms. "I dunno. Just - I have a crush on a person."

"Aha," says Micaiah. "Everything is explained."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe not everything. A lot, anyway."

"Oh. It's complicated," complains Keziah.

"I'm good at complicated," he assures her.

"Ahh," says Micaiah. "Yeah, that's complicated all right."

"I told you!" Keziah puts a pillow over her head and groans.

"Nooooooo."

"Do you want her to?"

"She'd think I was gross for one reason or the other or both!"

"Maybe so," Micaiah agrees. "Or maybe not."

"But if she does that would be awful."

"It would," he says. "Awful things happen sometimes."

"And - and maybe she'd tell everybody, and everybody in the whole hold would also think I was gross."

"There's plenty of people around who know you're the furthest thing from gross," he says. "Me. Your mother. Your sisters."

"Well," says Keziah, "yeah, but - it would still be pretty bad if everybody else thought it."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Or even if only some of them did."

"Yeah." She takes the pillow off her head and is somewhat more audible when she says, "So maybe I shouldn't tell her. I think I maybe like boys, and mortals, too."

"It wouldn't ruin your whole life, though," he says. "If you did tell her, even if the rest of the hold did decide you were gross for a while. It might feel that way, but in a few years hardly anybody would care."

"Years is a long time, and I'm scared."

"I know," he says. "These things are scary. Want a hug?"

"Yeah." She sits up enough to hug him.

"Nobody at all?"

"Not any more than anybody thinks it's gross for me to love your mom."

"Only when you get mushy," says Keziah.

He grins unrepentantly.

She squirms. "I dunno what I wanna do."

"Then maybe you just wanna think about it for a while," he suggests. "Until you figure it out."

"Yeah," decides Keziah. "I think I'll do that."

"Thanks, Daddy."

"Anytime, precious."

So Keziah doesn't say anything, and thinks, and doesn't get much of anywhere, and continues to be flusteredly friendly when she sees Junia at music lessons or in the cafeteria or around the Eyrie.

Keziah doesn't finish her dessert; she runs after Junia. "Junia?"

"Why are you leaving? Are you going to another hold?"

"I am going - away," says Junia. "For. Reasons."

"Why though? Don't you like it here?"

"If there's something wrong my mom can fix it! She can fix anything!"

"My mom can! She can!" insists Keziah. "What is it? Or - or if you don't want to tell me you can just tell her, or my dad, they can fix it."

"I do not know your mom!" exclaims Junia. "I do not know your dad! You do not know my problem! And I do not want to talk about it in the middle of the hall!"

Keziah wilts. "Well - well we can go somewhere else - but she can," she says more softly.

"Mom's done those," Keziah points out swiftly.

"She can fix it," Keziah says firmly.

"You do not even know what it is," says Junia, looking despairingly at the floor, "how do you know?"

"Because my mom can do almost anything there is and the things she can't do aren't even things you know are things," says Keziah, folding her arms. "...Let's go talk in a music room."

"I - I do not know how to explain," she says, wrapping her wings around herself again. "Something is wrong. Something is wrong and very soon everyone will know it is wrong and it will be very bad and I need to go away first."

"What's wrong?"

"I am - I have - wrong things," she says, wringing her hands. "There is something about me, about my - " She hugs herself and shakes her head rapidly.

"Are you sick?"

Keziah pitches forward and hugs her on complete impulse.

"If you can't tell me can you tell my mom?"

"I do n-not know," she sniffles.

"What would happen if you stayed?"

"I w-would grow up," she says, "and I would not - I - I would not appear to be a girl any longer."

"It's -" Kez starts, but then she says, "Maybe I'd better let her explain. Let me get her." She's about to brainphone when she decides she'd better actually leave the room. "I'll be right back - will you wait here?"

Junia nods.

"Okay. It's going to be okay!" Keziah assures her, and she hugs the other angel again and slips out of the room, closes the door, and runs to her mother's office.

"It's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of. Do you think it would be all right to include your mother in this conversation?"

"...Why?" says Junia.

"Because I can fix it," says Isabella, "and perhaps she would find that surprising if it happened without warning."

"...it would be all right," says Junia.

"Keziah, treasure, will you run and find Junia's mother, please? Their quarters are in the north section on the third level."

Keziah nods and dashes out again in search of Junia's mother.

While Keziah is looking, Junia continues to be sniffly and unhappy.

Keziah is back a few minutes later with a slightly graying mortal woman in tow. "Here she is," she announces.

"Thank you," says Isabella as Keziah closes the door. "In short - I can give Junia a body to match her self, but unless she wants to be as famous as Ithiel, I don't think this information should go any farther."

"I do not want to be famous!" says Junia.

"Does anyone else know that you do not currently match?" asks Isabella. "Who would have to be asked to keep the secret - is it only those of us in this room?"

Isabella smiles, and hugs her back.

Keziah squirms and smiles.

"I don't understand," murmurs Junia's mother. "Everyone says that with Ithiel, you went up, you prayed."

"I did those things," says Isabella, "but I didn't have to."

Junia detaches herself from Isabella and turns to hug Keziah instead.

Keziah is perfectly thrilled!

Junia lets go of Keziah and says, "I did not know that magic was a thing."

"Most people don't. My family does, and the oracle Alleluia and her family, and a few of my friends. And now you. Eventually everyone will know, but I want to take it slowly."

Junia nods.

"But if you ever need anything else, you can ask me, or my husband - or if it's something little, Keziah and her big sister Damaris can do a little bit of magic."

"How much is a little bit?" inquires Junia.

"I can do small things, and not too many at once before I have to go back to Mom or Dad to get more magic," says Keziah. "Uuuum, I fixed the window in the big choir room? Mark thought John did it and John thought Mark did it but it was really me."

"That is magic," Junia says thoughtfully.

"Yeah!" says Keziah. "My mom can fix anything, that's what I meant. So - so now you can stay."

"Yes," says Junia. She blushes slightly. "I wonder what I will say to - to - I forget who I told that I was leaving."

"Provided you didn't tell them why, it should be fairly simple to simply say that your plans changed."

"I am not good at - saying. Things. To people," says Junia, wings drooping.

"I can tell if you want," volunteers Keziah, "if anyone asks."

She nods hesitantly.

"Do either of you have any more questions or need any more help right now?" asks Isabella.

Junia shakes her head.

Junia's mother also shakes her head, and she goes and hugs her daughter and sighs with relief into her hair.

Junia hugs her mother.

Keziah shifts her weight awkwardly, then goes out after her own mother. Junia is not leaving and that means she has more time to be indecisive, right?

"Yes," says Junia, blinking at her.

"Okay, um, what songs do you like?"

"I like many songs!" says Junia. "Do you have a favourite?"

"Um, I like - the Coruscating Praises?"

"Okay!" says Junia. "We can sing those."

"Okay! Um - when is a good time?"

"I do not know what times are free next week," she says. "Do you?"

"...No. We could go look at the sign-up sheet though."

"Let us do that!" says Junia, smiling.

And off they go! The sign-up sheet offers perennially unpopular early morning slots, and a few scattered middays and afternoons.

"I do not have any objection to mornings," says Junia. "Do you?"

"I can get up early as long as I know to go to bed earlier the night before," says Keziah, pointing at a sunrise slot the following morning.

"Okay!" says Junia. "We can sign up for sunrise tomorrow."

Keziah writes their name and their song. "You know the alto part?" she asks.

"Yes I do," says Junia. "But it might be a good idea to practice."

Junia does, indeed, know the alto part.

Keziah knows the soprano part! She can even do it in the original octave.

Junia is impressed. She keeps smiling.

"I think we sound pretty good. But, um, we could go through it again, if you want."

"I think I would like that!" says Junia.

Keziah grins and starts over again.

Junia sings with her. Beamily.

"You have a really pretty voice."

"Thank you!" says Junia. "Your range is amazing."

"It's not big, it's just really really high," says Keziah. "But I like it."

"I like it too!" says Junia.

Keziah blushes. "Thanks."

Junia smiles tentatively.

"Um, we sound pretty good together, maybe we should practice something else and we can fill in more spots?"

"That would be nice!" says Junia.

Keziah starts flipping through the discs of music. "Do you know this one?" she asks, putting out another soprano-alto duet.

"I do not know that one! But I can learn it."

Keziah puts it on. She hums with parts of the soprano part, but she wants Junia to be able to learn the alto so she doesn't sing along.

Junia listens carefully!

"How many times do you want to hear it before we sing along?" Keziah asks, when it's over.

"Once more," she decides.

Keziah puts it on again and flutters her wings to the beat.

Junia listens! Junia is a good listener.

And then Keziah starts it over, and sings soprano.

Junia joins in, and pretty well, too.

Singing is fun! And Keziah doesn't have to think of what to say because there are lyrics!

That is a tremendous advantage to singing, it is true!

Junia is extremely findable!

"Hi!" says Keziah. "We should go be ready to take over when Paul and Luke are done."

"Okay!" says Junia.

They do sound good together.

Yay! Keziah has been imagining various possible disasters that could befall their attempt, but none of them happen. She's beaming when they're through and turn over the floor to a trio of mortals.

"We can - I mean, you can sign up for as many as you want pretty much, as long as you have at least one person to go with you, and I'm usually free, if you want."

"Would you like to go and look at the schedule again?" she says brightly.

"Yeah!"

Off they go!

There are more early slots, and scattered day slots, and one late at night two days in the future.

"Do you have a preference?" wonders Junia.

"More people will hear us if we sing during the day," muses Keziah. "Because more of them will be awake. Is that good or bad?"

"I think it is neutral," says Junia. "But it will be different from singing in the morning. So we should do it, to find out if it is better or not."

"Okay." Keziah writes them in for noon in three days.

Junia smiles.

"We should practice more if we are going to do this a lot," ventures Keziah.

"That is a good plan," says Junia.

"Let's get breakfast and then we can go do that?"

"Okay," she says happily.

Breakfast! It is scones and sausage and spinach-y eggs.

"I like scones," Junia announces. "Scones are one of my favourite things."

"Scones are pretty good!" agrees Keziah. "What else do you like besides singing and scones?"

"Engineering," says Junia.

"Like - what Caleb does?"

"Yes! Like that," says Junia.

"My parents are friends with Caleb and Alleluia," says Keziah. "We go to Sinai, sometimes. They make neat things in the workshop."

"That sounds like fun," says Junia, a little wistfully.

"I can ask if we can bring you next time!"

...Junia beams.