Chapter 861: Little Prayers: Aurora Maria Potter

The chocolate soufflé arrived like a small miracle—risen perfectly, dusted with powdered sugar, accompanied by a drizzle of crème anglaise that the waiter poured with ceremonial precision, like he was baptizing it into the Church of

Diabetes.

Charlotte made a sound that was borderline criminal when she took the first bite.

"Good?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"I would commit crimes for this. Serious crimes. Felonies."

"I’ll remember that next time I need an alibi."

She laughed, already going back for another bite. The kiss tension had melted out of her completely now. Her shoulders were relaxed. Her smile came easy.

She looked younger somehow—like the weight of being Charlotte Thompson, CEO, had been lifted for one blessed evening. Like she’d temporarily escaped whatever corporate hellscape required her to smile at people who looked like they still used Yahoo Mail.

I felt her before I saw her.

A presence at the edge of my peripheral vision. Small. Warm. Radiating the kind of innocent curiosity that only children possess—that pure, unfiltered wonder that adults spend their whole lives trying to recapture, usually through overpriced therapy sessions and celebrity

wellness podcasts

that somehow still end in a divorce announcement.

I turned my head slowly.

A little girl stood about four feet from our table. Maybe five years old. Maybe six. Dark curly hair that looked like it had been carefully brushed this morning but had since staged a rebellion. Big brown eyes that were fixed on my face with an intensity that would’ve been unsettling if it came from anyone over three feet tall.

She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t speaking. Just... staring.

Her eyes grew wider with each passing second, like she was peeling back layers of something only she could see. Uncovering mysteries. Solving equations that existed in whatever magical dimension children’s minds operated in.

The kind of focus most adults only reach when they’re stalking their ex on Instagram at 3 a.m.

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to break whatever spell she was

weaving

for herself.

Ten seconds passed. Fifteen.

Her little mouth fell open slightly.

Twenty seconds.

I watched her with gentle amusement, letting her have her moment. There was something sacred about the way children processed the world—this complete, unfiltered absorption of information before the brain caught up with words.

Adults rushed to fill silences.

Children lived in them. Adults panicked if a conversation lasted three seconds without noise, like silence was a personal attack.

Where had she come from?

I glanced around the restaurant, looking for a frantic parent, a searching waiter, any sign that someone was missing a tiny human. The nearby tables were occupied by couples and business dinners.

The staff moved efficiently between stations. No one seemed to be in

child-recovery mode.

She must have slipped away from somewhere. The back, maybe? A staff area?

I turned back to her. Those brown eyes hadn’t left my face.

"You’re so handsome."

The words came out like she hadn’t meant to say them at all—like they’d been sitting in her head and just...

escaped.

Tumbled out before she could catch them. Her cheeks flushed pink immediately, but she didn’t look away.

If anything, her stare

intensified.

Charlotte made a small choking sound beside me, her hand flying to her mouth, like she’d just watched a child casually deliver a pickup line with more confidence than half the

men on Tinder.

"Thank you," I said, keeping my voice soft. Warm. The voice I’d learned to use with children—gentle enough to not startle, clear enough to be understood. "That’s very kind of you to say."

She nodded slowly, still in her

daze.

Still studying my face like it held the answers to questions she hadn’t learned to ask yet.

Then she started circling.

Literally circling.

Moving around my chair in a slow orbit, her head tilted back to keep her eyes on me, examining me from every angle like I was an exhibit at a museum.

She looked at my shoulders. My back. Frowned. Leaned closer to peer at the space behind me.

What was this—National Geographic:

Predator Edition?

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

She didn’t answer. Just continued her inspection, rising up on her tiptoes to check the area around my shoulder blades, her little brow furrowed in concentration like she was about to expose a government conspiracy.

"They’re not there," she murmured, almost to herself.

"What’s not there?"

She completed her circuit, stopping in front of me again. That wide-eyed wonder was still there, but now there was something else too.

Determination.

The look of a detective who’d hit a dead end but refused to give up. The same look every celebrity PR manager gets when their client says

"It wasn’t me"

while standing next to a

leaked video.

"Your wings," she said. "I was looking for your wings."

Charlotte’s suppressed laughter had become actual tears now. She was pressing both hands over her mouth, shoulders shaking.

"My

wings?"

"You look like the angels in Mama’s book. The ones with the pretty faces." She tilted her head, curls bouncing. "But they have wings.

Big ones

. So, I thought maybe you were hiding yours somewhere."

"Hiding them?"

"Maybe they fold up? Like a bird’s? Or maybe—" Her eyes went wide with a new theory. "Maybe they’re

invisible!

Like a superhero!"

I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on my knees so I was closer to her eye level. Her face was so open. So earnest. This wasn’t a child performing for adults or seeking attention. This was genuine

curiosity,

genuine

wonder,

genuine attempt to understand something that didn’t fit her

existing categories.

I loved kids. Always had. There was something about their complete lack of

pretense,

their

absolute commitment

to whatever reality they decided to inhabit, that felt more honest than anything in the adult world.

Adults lied for money, status, and

social media likes.

Kids lied because they genuinely believed they were a dinosaur for twelve minutes.

"Can I tell you a secret?" I asked, keeping my voice low. Conspiratorial.

Her eyes somehow got even wider. She leaned in, nodding so vigorously her curls bounced.

"I’m not an angel."

Her face fell slightly.

"I’m something else." I dropped my voice to barely a whisper. "Something better."

"Better than an angel?"

She matched my whisper, glancing around like we were discussing classified information.

"What’s better than an angel?"

"A god."

Her gasp was so dramatic, so genuinely shocked, that it made my heart swell. This was the magic of childhood—the ability to accept

impossible

things not with skepticism but with wonder. No fact-checking. No Reddit thread. No

"source?"

Just pure belief like I’d just announced I was

Beyoncé’s secret twin.

"A real god?"

"A real god?"

"Like in the stories?

The ones with the big beards who throw lightning?"

"Not quite like that. I don’t have a beard." I rubbed my jaw thoughtfully, like I was considering a life-changing career pivot. "Do you think I’d look good with a beard?"

She considered this with

tremendous seriousness

, studying my face again like she was a professional stylist about to ruin a celebrity’s image for a living.

"No," she decided. "You’re

too pretty

for a beard."

"Too pretty. Got it." I nodded gravely. "I’ll cancel my beard appointment."

She giggled—a bright, bubbling sound that made something warm bloom in my chest. The kind of laugh that was impossible to fake, impossible to resist. Could probably cure depression, and if it couldn’t,

at least it would

bully

it into taking a day off.

"Gods don’t have appointments," she said, her giggling subsiding into a grin.

"This god does. Lots of them." I sighed dramatically, like I was carrying the burden of the

entire cosmos

and also a minor back injury. "Very busy being godly. It’s exhausting."

More giggles. She was bouncing on her heels now, the last of her initial daze melting into excitement. Her entire body was vibrating with the kind of joy adults only experience when they get a refund email.

"What kind of god are you?" she asked. "Are you the

sun god?

The

moon god?

The... the..." She scrunched up her face, trying to remember her mythology.

"The water god?"

****

A/N:

Yes, I am curious what god id Peter!