Prologue
Lilith King’s transformation occurred on her seventh birthday. That was the day of her awakening, in the parlance of the Sempiternals. It was a day cut out of mystery—a beginning and an ending.
Lilith rose early, excited—she knew her father would have a gift for her, something unexpected and perfect; he always did. Her father loved her beyond measure, and she knew it. But as she dressed hurriedly, foreboding also nagged at the back of her mind. The woman who was supposed to be her mother, Plamena, was to be removed, finally. To an asylum in Moesia, near her surviving family in Sofia.
“Family descendants,” her father explained.
Lilith had the impression her mother was very old, although this was belied by her youthful mien—especially in the warmth of late-afternoon sun filtering into her chamber. In the rich yellow-orange light, Plamena’s bedridden features were softened—her shadowed crow’s feet disguised. The madness in her eyes was almost erased.
Lilith’s father insisted it was for the best—more for his own benefit; the girl didn’t need convincing. For the final few months, Lilith’s mother was restrained to her bed rails, cloistered in the farthest chamber on the upper floor of their vast house. The doctor had ordered it, and her father had reluctantly consented, lest she attempted to harm Lilith again.
Lilith would sometimes spy on her father as he tended to her mother, through the open door, from the safe distance of the landing. She observed the softness in his eyes as he sat at her bedside.
“My Plamena,” he would whisper, wiping the brow of the woman with the crazed expression—the eyes that sometimes rolled back and forth frenetically in their sockets, as if yanked to and fro by invisible steel wires.
For Lilith’s part, her mother always scared her. Throughout her childhood, Lilith’s mother had gradually deteriorated into a dribbling, catatonic mess. At least, until the crazy took hold of her. That’s when her mother heard the voices, or so she claimed. That’s when she became dangerous—when Lilith’s very life was in danger.
Lilith feared it must be her fault—that she wasn’t good enough, not deserving of a mother’s love. Shouldn’t a mother love their child? Shouldn’t a daughter love their mother, rather than being terrified of her?
Once, Lilith ventured in, unobserved, while the nurse was away and her father was on a facecall in his grand study downstairs. She crept forward, hoping her mother might open her eyes and smile at her, tell her that she was loved. But her mother never did. And at each subsequent failed attempt to engage her mother, a little more of Lilith became broken inside, until she stopped trying.
As she entered the large drawing room downstairs, her father was already seated at the breakfast table that overlooked the ornamental garden at the rear of the house.
“My little seraph, my birthday girl,” he called out, with a broad smile, as Lilith entered. She smiled too and ran toward him, arms outstretched, laughing. And as he held her, she leaned into his shoulder, taking in his distinctive smell. He squeezed her tight, longer than usual, as if he didn’t wish to let her go. And as Lilith savored his warm embrace, she contentedly gazed out through the windows at the large garden beyond him, where strange shadows dwelled in the afternoon.
Lilith, her father, and her invalid-mother inhabited a very large villa in central Cambridge. Lilith vaguely understood her father was wealthy. But she also somehow knew, even at the age of seven, that he couldn’t care less about material things. She was aware he wasn’t the same as other men, different from other fathers. And he was famous, that she understood too, something to do with his medical research. Lilith adored him—he made her feel safe. She was his Lily, and always would be.
As a child, Lilith liked the sound of her father’s pet name for her—seraph. She imagined it was an allusion to her temper, the flames of her outbursts that got her into trouble at school; Lilith had a prickly disposition even then, announced in advance to all and sundry by her shock of orange-red hair and startling green eyes—“nuclear green,” as one teacher had once described them.
But as the years went by, the image that her pet name conjured, of wings on fire and the intimation of the angelic, made Lilith think of both rage and innocence. And later, at the age of twenty-three, after the Monster, any vestige she once had of innocence was gone. Afterward, all that remained was the rage.
In the drawing room on that day, Lilith was just a newly minted seven-year-old, excited and not in the least bit hungry. Once the serving unit had delivered breakfast, Lilith made a hurried, token effort at eating. Her father sighed as he glanced at her plate. So she fixed him with a defiant look, with her emerald-green eyes, and crossed her arms. It was her birthday after all. And as he chuckled in response, she knew he had relented. Lilith hurriedly unwrapped the box, throwing open the lid. Inside was a pair of shiny, red leather brogues. She shook off her slippers and put them on, lacing up, chuckling with glee, despite the lack of socks. She hadn’t expected this, but immediately decided she had longed for exactly these all along.
“Shall we go for a walk?” her father asked, while still studying the uneaten food on her plate.
“To test them?” Lilith asked, excitedly.
“To make sure they work,” her father replied with a wink. But as he spoke, a shadow feathered his face. “No need for you to be here …” Lilith studied his haunted expression. She knew what he meant. The medical daemons would arrive soon, accompanied by her father’s personal lawyer, to remove her mother in a medical transport. Lilith nodded, glancing down at her feet. She was ready.
“Do you want to say goodbye first?” he asked.
Lilith frowned and looked away. She examined the ornamental fountain in the middle of the small pond outside without responding, watching the blur of refracted morning light through droplets of water. Her father smiled at her faintly. “Get your jacket, I’ll go up, say farewell for both of us …”
Outside, they walked through the streets of Cambridge, toward Grantchester Meadows. It was still early, but already warm. Once they reached the banks of the Cam, Lilith began skipping, holding her father’s hand. Her shoes started to rub against one heel. She ignored the discomfort, glancing up at him. He smiled at her; she was happy.
“They’ll be at the house now … She’s going home at last, back to where she’s from.”
“Where are you from?” Lilith asked abruptly, seeking to shift his sadness away from a subject she didn’t fully understand.
“I’m not from anywhere,” he replied. “Too many places.”
Lilith screwed up her eyes. Her father’s answer made no sense. “But where were you born?”
“A cave,” came his strange reply. Lilith closed her eyes for a moment, imagining somewhere dank and uncomfortable.
“Was it dark?”
“Not anymore,” he replied. “Now it’s a grotto full of candles, incense, and light.” Lilith was confused. She glanced up at her father.
“What’s a grotto?”
Her father stopped walking and gazed down at her. “A grotto is a sacred place.”
“Did you live there with your mummy and daddy?” Lilith asked, using the Old Standard’s lexicon and grammar—it was still years before Unilanguage’s North American standard became the default variety of English in the Old Kingdom. Back then, Lilith was an unchipped nate, part of the transitional generation; she wouldn’t have Universal Grammar tech implanted in her head until her eighteenth birthday.
“Just my mother,” replied her father. Lilith knew all her grandparents were long dead—she was different from her classmates, whose elderly relatives sometimes collected them after school. The mention of a grandmother caused Lilith to suddenly feel longing for something she had never had—a nostalgic pang for a newly revealed hypothetical absence.
“What was her name?” Lilith’s unexpected question made her father jump slightly. Then there was a distant, wistful look as he glanced down again—not quite at her, more through her.
“Mary,” came his soft reply.
“Mary,” Lilith repeated, tasting the name. Testing it. “What happened to her?” she asked.
“She’s buried in a basilica.” Another strange word for a small child.
“Bas-lika,” Lilith repeated, mispronouncing the word. “What’s that?”
“A kind of church,” her father replied, solemnly. Lilith shuddered. Churches scared her.
By the time they arrived back home, Lilith could tell her mother was no longer there. The low-level growls that usually reverberated around the oak-walled panels of the upstairs landing were no more. Now silence reigned.
After they’d removed their outdoor garments, her father led her into the drawing room. His lawyer was awaiting their return. Upon seeing him, her father became visibly nervous. There was a woman sitting beside the lawyer. She smiled at the child.
“You must be Lilith,” the woman announced, standing. She was well-proportioned and friendly-looking.
Lilith instinctively moved behind her father. He held her hand, and pulled her back around in front of him, kneeling beside her. Lilith looked into his face, confused.
“This is Ms. Wilbur, she’s going to look after you,” he explained softly, before smiling back at the woman.
“Lilith can call me Kaye,” Ms. Wilbur said kindly.
Her father then turned back to Lilith, gazing at her with the kindness she loved. “I have to go away.” He gulped. “You must be very brave, Lily. Because what I’m doing is for you. You’re very special. I believe you will change everything. Not just here, but everywhere.” With that he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small bracelet from inside his breast pocket. He handed it to Lilith.
“Another gift?” she asked, with cautious excitement. Lilith turned it over in her hand. It was silver, with a small, strange-looking screen on the outer side. The screen was narrow and black, and numbers were spinning in iridescent green, fleetingly across the screen.
“I guess it is. This is a SwissSecure bracelet. It will live with you, expanding as you grow.”
“Is it alive?” Lilith asked.
Her father chuckled. “In a way, I suppose it is. When you’re older, after you’re chipped, the numbers will stop spinning. And then you’ll receive a message from me—two, in fact.”
“Memoclips?” Lilith asked, confused. She knew that was what the chipped adults called them.
Her father dipped his head. “Actually, faceclips. They will explain things … when the time is right. For one thing, where the music comes from, the Nunciature Evangelion—the Tower of Songs.”
“Music?”
“It will come to you, later today. This music will help you become your potential, but it will also be your one Achilles heel …” Lilith scrunched up her eyes in incomprehension. “That means it will make you vulnerable. You must never trust the music. When the time is right, the bracelet will settle, reveal the code, and play the faceclip. And after that, when you’re ready, you must also seek out your mother. You’ll know when. She is far more than you think … I know it’s not been easy for you. But she will have moments of lucidity, she can help you, explain.”
Lilith grimaced and shook her head. “What kind of music?” she asked, avoiding the mention of her mother. She imagined the tinkling piano of her music teacher.
Her father nodded faintly. “That will become clear, in time.” He paused, smiling at Lilith, taking in her face. “I love you, remember that. Always.”
With those final words, Lilith’s father clipped the bracelet onto the child’s right wrist. It snapped into place with a small metallic sound. He gave Lilith a long, gentle hug, before standing and nodding toward the two adults. Then he turned and left the room. Lilith couldn’t have imagined then, as she watched him walk out, his back straight and proud as always, that she would never see him again.
