MOON SHADOW

CHAPTER ONE

Lilah waited patiently in the waiting room. With a book on her lap, she was too preoccupied to even pay attention to the words on the page. She felt like she had reread the same paragraph at least five times since sitting.

Despite it being her birthday, she was spending the morning having the last meeting with her event planner before her debut. Her mother had to skip the meeting since she had to work early to get the evening off for Lilah's birthday dinner. She had never gone to an appointment alone before, and wondered if her jitters were nervous from being alone or excitement for doing her first adult thing alone. Or perhaps she was just nervous because her debut was in a week.

The door to Kathi Mendoza's office opened, the event planning walking out while rubbing one of her eyes. When she looked upon Lilah, she paused for a second, leaving her hand covering her eye. She looked as if she had just seen a ghost.

Lilah hadn't noticed though, she was too busy placing her book back into her bag. By the time she stood up and looked at Kathi, the older woman had a smile back on her face.

"Come on in," Kathi said between gritted teeth, moving a fallen strand of wavy brown hair out of her face. Her Australian accent sounded very muffled the way she was speaking. "We have a lot to discuss."

Lilah grinned in response, going into the office. Kathi locked the door and sat down on the other side of her desk, pulling out a binder.

"Is it your actual eighteenth birthday today?" Kathi asked her.

Lilah blinked a few times at her, nodding. "Y-Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Just a good guess," Kathi shrugged it off. She opened the binder, flipping through pages that had pictures of party plans—decorations, lights, balloons, centerpieces, color schemes, and everything else in between. "So, you're still okay with this theme?"

"Yes," Lilah nodded. "I've been wanting to do a Winter Wonderland themed debut since I was in, like, the fifth grade."

"Your parents must be very excited for you. Debuting their only daughter into society as a woman, it's a big deal. The world is only going to get bigger and scarier from here. Nothing a Filipina girl looks forward to more than the day of her debut... well, other than maybe her wedding."

Lilah chuckled, assuming that she was joking about the world getting scarier.

"Lilah, if you don't mind," Kathi said slowly, pulling the binder back towards herself and closing it shut. "I have something I want to talk to you about."

Lilah turned her head to the side, a little bit confused. She merely nodded, unsure what Kathi wanted to discuss that wasn't debut related.

"I'm going to ask you to do something and it's going to sound silly," Kathi said, keeping her calm and slow voice. "I want you to cover one of your eyes and look at me, and tell me what you see."

Lilah's head moved back in confusion, her eyebrows contorting down. She frowned, but complied with the weird request. She placed her right hand over her right eye, staring at Kathi through her left. Her open eye widened and her mouth opened just slightly in surprise.

There was a dim light surrounding Kathi, like she was just barely shining.

"How are you doing that?" Lilah asked her, looking around for something that could be projecting the shine onto Kathi. "Is this some new device you want me to see for my debut?"

Kathi closed the binder that was in front of her, signalling they were no longer talking about her debut. She folded her hands in front of her on the desk and shook her head.

"No, Lilah. This is all real. You're eighteen now, so you're going to be going through some changes other than being an adult," Kathi said. "I'm going to be straight up because I don;t believe in sugarcoating what I'm about to tell you. You are a descendant of a demigod. You're going to get abilities that you hadn't had before, and things aren't going to make sense at first. People will come after you and try to kill you—"