Séraphine (Eternelles: A Prequel, Book 0.5) by Zee Monodee, Natalie G. Owens Page A

excitement to trepidation, but she wanted to be brave, just like her mother always was. Her mother, immortal Adrasteia “Adri” Dionysios, who’d lived in every place imaginable for the past two thousand eight hundred years or so. An heiress of indeterminate wealth and influence, whose first home had been none less than Mount Olympus!
    Sera placed a hand over William’s as they sat at The Taylor Pub, a respectable establishment and fitting choice for their last dinner in London. Their simple meal of fish and chips had gone down like a charm. Nothing but a good old British meal would have done on the eve of departure toward her new life in America. She wondered if they’d have such food in New York City. William said everything could be found in the world’s greatest metropolis. Who knew what awaited her there? She swallowed past a sudden lump of emotion and a sense of nostalgia that washed over her. Why did she have to be such a chicken?
    The stranger lounged back in his chair and called for the bill. Stretching long, muscled legs under the table, he waited patiently. He seemed somewhat calmer now, as though he’d worked through some difficult problem. She noted he’d only had a beer since she’d seen him come in. No food. He’d drunk very slowly, his posture contemplative. Sera wondered what thoughts could possibly afflict him so.
    Something tugged at her brain. Something about this man…. Once again, she pushed the insidious thoughts away and threaded her fingers through William’s over the table.
    “Everything will be fine. Your father is lucky to have you, and you’ll be able to help him more than ever in your new position.”
    Morrison, Sr. had scored his son a post as consultant with the newly created American Society of Safety Engineers, who he was involved with as board member. After the factory tragedy, it became clear that better safeguards for workers were needed, and William’s father wanted to be part of that change. To bring his son into the equation, considering William’s chosen career as an engineer, seemed only natural. Plus, William’s grades and stellar academic accomplishments in both England and Sweden made him a shoe-in. She couldn’t be prouder.
    The thought of what she was up against made Sera swallow. Until now, all she’d had was her mother who’d taught her she could be everything she wanted to be. Adri had encouraged her in her studies and given her everything she needed to live a happy, normal life, despite their unusual circumstances. Sera had been allowed to exercise her brain and live free of cultural restraints, to excel as one of probably a handful of post-Victorian women to reach such exalted academic heights—and surely the only British woman to possess a doctorate degree in an age when women still had scant footing in non-traditional roles.
    No, the woman who’d mothered her had never let her down.
    For Sera wasn’t technically Adri Dionysios’ flesh and blood, but just a girl who’d quite literally fallen into the woman’s arms one night in France. Although her mother had suddenly felt the pain of childbirth and fed her milk from her breast, hers couldn’t have been termed a pregnancy in the true sense of the word. It had been happenstance, fate, magic—nothing that could be explained away with a coating of sanity to a mere mortal. The night it had all come to be, Sera had been but a newborn wrapped in a cloak of flames, yet unharmed, who Adri instantly adopted as her one and only daughter. And Sera was something entirely different—in part a gypsy, perhaps, a clue provided by the unique shell pendant she’d had around her neck at the time, but she’d yet to learn her true origins.
    Then again, she was also something more. A creature of fire, of myth, something so extraordinary as to suggest an unbelievable existence—all of this her secret, of course, the part of her she couldn’t share with the very human William. If she’d been working at that factory