With a huff, she flung her backpack across her shoulder and stomped down the steps to the front door.

“You have to tell her sometime.” Mother pushed away from a pillar and strolled forward with feline grace.

I slipped the catalog into a junk drawer, then tramped to the nook where our upstairs computer sat. It was networked to three other computers, one in the basement where Mother worked out and Bubbe conned-make that consulted with, her clients-and two in my tattoo shop on the main floor, one in my office and the other at the reception desk. I’d given up the Amazons’ nomadic way and with it their resistance to modern technology. Counting in my head to avoid screaming, I pulled out the chair and plopped down.

“Do I?” I asked.

“You know you do. Someday she’s going to notice-”

I shot Mother a disbelieving look. “What? That she’s stronger than the other girls? Or maybe more talented artistically? So? There’s nothing unusual about either of those things.”

“How about the fact that her great-grandmother is five hundred years old?”

“She doesn’t look a day over seventy.” I shook the mouse to snap the computer out of sleep mode, wishing I could snap Mother off as easily.

“At the very least, she should be working with me at the gym.” Part of being a warrior, Mother didn’t let go easily.

I gave up pretending to work. “Why? So she can learn to cleave a man’s head from his shoulders with one swing of a broadaxe? Not a much-needed skill at West High-our property taxes get us that much, at least.”

Mother wrapped a strong hand around my bicep, her gold snake bracelet brushing coolly against my skin. “The mothers of those other girls”-she nodded her head toward the TV-“probably thought that too.”

I stared at the blue background of my computer’s desktop, my shoulders tensing.