For thirteen years, Ellis Lane has known nothing but the cracked brown architecture and algae-matted seas of Vernassis, Earth-Analogue 717, in the Anthro-Conglomerate created by Demarii Kaition to keep humans safe from the marauding aliens who would come to destroy them. The slight, inscrutable politician is savior to many, and Ellis adores her. The ruling Church of our Father does not approve of her, but says nothing, in the face of such adulation. Demarii Kaition disappeared two years before Ellis was born, and often, she dreams she will find the woman and her daughter. This hope is tempered by the anxiety that Kaition will hate her, for Ellis has the ability to do things that no natural human should be able to do.
Jana Lane dies in a factory accident. Upon her mother's demise, Ellis inherits the key to her closet. In it, she finds a congressional sash of honor-Demarii Kaition's. What was her mother doing with a famous woman's belongings? Why is there no data on Jana Lane before Ellis's birth? Why is someone trying to kill Ellis? Most importantly, is she asking the right questions? Or is she answering the wrong ones?
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night
-Sarah Williams
For my mother, the gentlest, wisest and fiercest of her kind.
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