sun's up, a little after twelve
make breakfast for myself, leave the work for someone else

“I’m sorry, señorita,” Alvarez, the family butler, gave the ghost of a smile as he glanced at her through the rear-view mirror, “but I’m not phoning your father just because you were suspended from school again.”

Seven year-old Ángela leant back against the leather seat, folded her arms and pursed her lips. Orchestrating that fight had taken a lot of work – several weeks’ worth, in fact – and it had all been for nothing. Instead of being collected at the school’s iron gates by either or both of her parents, Ángela was on her way back home in the back of her dad’s idea of a family car, a Rolls Royce Phantom, with her damn butler driving. If Alvarez insisted on being stubborn (and experience had taught Ángela that he usually did), she might not even see her parents until tomorrow at the earliest. Tomorrow!

Time to try another tack. “My mother – ”

“Is out of contact until she returns from her mission, and your father is also very busy with urgent council matters.” Alvarez replied evenly, flipping the indicator switch to turn left. “These are very important duties, señorita.”

Ángela snorted sharply through her nose. “Not as important as me.”

Alvarez, wisely, chose not to reply. The silence didn’t last; if Ángie couldn’t have parental attention, then any kind of attention would do at a pinch.

“When do I get to stay at home?” She demanded to know. “Ned doesn’t have to go to school.”

“Señorita Ángela, Master Edward is two years old.”

“So?” She glared directly at the rear-view mirror and tossed her long, thick black hair, but Alvarez wasn’t looking. When he didn’t answer, she pressed him again for a new topic. “Why are we speaking English? I hate English.”

“Your parents are both accomplished linguists, and your father’s position as a former diplomat – ”

“We don’t even go to Shaman anymore!”

Alvarez’s eye twinkled. “Would you prefer to speak French, mademoiselle?”

Ángela’s lips curled back into a silent snarl. She fumed in silence for the rest of the journey. When they reached the gravel driveway, she shoved the door open before the car had even come to a halt and slammed it shut behind her, savagely hoping it might break. Perhaps if his precious car broke then daddy would come back to fix it. She stomped up the driveway, spitting into the fountain as she went, and kicked the door open with her heel. An empty hallway greeted her; the servants must have sensed she was coming and retreated to their own spaces. Ángela could track them down but she had bigger fish to fry.

If past experience counted for anything, almost everyone would leave her alone for at least several hours if she was seen to be throwing a tantrum. Having laid the groundwork in the car, that shouldn’t be too hard. She threw her schoolbag across the hallway, watching in satisfaction as it decapitated a state of a famous dead person Alvarez had put up last week, and proceeded to thunder up the stairs with all the delicacy of a raging elephant. As she didn’t pass anyone on her way to her bedroom, she paused outside Ned’s and screamed at the top of her lungs, just to make certain his nanny heard. Then she flounced into her own room and slammed the door shut with so much force that it might just carry some distance through the mansion.

Inhale, exhale. Ángela counted to ten in her head and then pushed the door back open ever so softly. She checked the corridor carefully before tiptoeing down the end to her father’s office, which was never locked and always full of useful things. A quick rummage in his drawer provided exactly what she was looking for. Grinning in triumph, Ángela held up the black hop loop to the light, admiring its rubbery texture. The drawer was full of them but she only needed one. Slipping it onto her wrist, she didn’t even bother to key in her own coordinates before jamming the go button with her thumb. The hop loop brought her to the last set of coordinates to be inputted: a forest clearing.

Ángie spun in a quick 360, her dark eyes taking in the carpet of bluebells, the red squirrel scampering across the ground and the dapple effect the light created on the wall of leaves. How very… natural. The clearing was largely a natural one, but it had been expanded recently by a felled pine tree. Ángela marched towards it turned and perched herself on the edge.

She folded her arms and waited.

Ángela
progeny of the warbird and the sun-god