Where was Daniel?
She was zipping up her second boot when she heard a voice through the cracked French doors opposite the bed.
“You will not regret this, Daniel.”
Before he could respond, Luce’s hand was on the doorknob—and on the other side she found him, seated on a zebra-print love seat in the living room, facing Phil the Outcast.
At the sight of her in the doorway, Daniel rose to his feet. Phil rose, too, standing stiffly beside his chair. Daniel’s hands swept across Luce’s face, brushing her forehead, which Luce realized was tender and bruised.
“How are you feeling?”
“The halo—”
“We have the halo.” Daniel gestured at the enormous gold-edged glass disk resting on the large wooden dining table in the adjacent room. There was an Outcast seated at the table spooning yogurt into his mouth, another leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Both of them were facing Luce, but it was impossible to tell whether they knew they were doing it. She felt on edge around them, felt a chill in the air, but trusted Daniel’s calm demeanor.
“What happened to the Outcast you were fighting?” Luce asked, looking for the pale creature in the robe.
“Don’t worry about him. It’s you I’m worried about.” He spoke to her as tenderly as if they’d been alone.
She remembered the church spire tilting toward her as the cathedral collapsed underwater. She remembered Daniel’s wings casting a shadow over everything as they dipped toward her.
“You took a bad knock on the head. The Outcasts helped me get you out of the water and brought us here so you could rest.”
“How long was I asleep?” Luce asked. It was night-fall. “How much time do we have left—”
“Seven days, Luce,” Daniel said quietly. She could hear how keenly he, too, felt the time slipping away from them.
“Well, we shouldn’t waste any more time here.” She glanced at Phil, who was topping off his and Daniel’s glasses from a bottle of something red called Campari.
“You do not like my apartment, Lucinda Price?” Phil said, pretending to look around the postmodernist living room for the first time. The walls were dotted with Jackson Pollock –esque paintings, but it was Phil Luce couldn’t stop staring at. His skin was pastier than she remembered, with heavy purple circles around his vacant eyes. She grew cold every time she remembered his tattered wings holding her likeness in the air above her parents’ backyard, ready to fly her someplace dark and far away.
“I can’t see any of it very well, of course, but I was told it would be decorated in a way that young ladies would find appealing. Who knew I would develop such a taste for mortal flesh after my time with your Nephilim friend Shelby? Did you meet my friend, in the bedroom?
She’s a sweet girl; they’re all so sweet.”
“We should go.” Luce tugged on Daniel’s shirt bossily.
The other Outcasts in the room rose to attention.
“Are you sure you cannot stay for a drink?” Phil asked, moving to fill a third glass with the cherry-red liquid, which he couldn’t help spilling. Daniel put his hand over the rim, pouring instead from a bottle of sparkling grapefruit soda.
“Sit down, Luce,” Daniel said, handing her the glass.
“We’re not quite ready to leave.”
When the two of them sat, the other two Outcasts followed their example. “Your boyfriend is very reason-able,” Phil said, kicking his muddy combat boots onto the marble coffee table. “We have agreed that the Outcasts will join you in your efforts to stop the Morning Star.”
Luce leaned into Daniel. “Can we talk alone?”
“Yes, of course,” Phil answered for him, rising stiffly again and nodding to the other Outcasts. “Let us all take a moment.” Forming a line behind Phil, the others disappeared behind a swinging wooden door into the apartment’s kitchen.
As soon as they were alone, Daniel rested his hands on her knees. “Look, I know they’re not your favorite—”
“Daniel, they tried to kidnap me.”
“Yes, I know, but that was when they thought”—
Daniel paused and stroked her hair, working out a tangle with his fingers—“they thought that presenting you to the Throne would atone for their earlier betrayal. But now the game has changed utterly, partly because of what Lucifer did—and partly because you’ve come further in breaking the curse than the Outcasts anticipated.”
“What?” Luce started. “You think I’m close to breaking the curse?”
“Let’s just say you’ve never been this close before,” Daniel said, and something soared inside Luce that she didn’t understand. “With the Outcasts’ help fighting off our enemies, you can focus on what you need to do.”
“The Outcasts’ help? But they just ambushed us.”
“Phil and I have talked things over. We have an understanding. Listen, Luce”—Daniel took her arm and whispered, though they were the only ones in the room—“the Outcasts are less of a threat with us than against us. They’re unpleasant but they’re also incapable of lying. We will always know where we stand with them.”
“Why do we have to stand with them at all?” Luce leaned back hard against the zebra-print pillow behind her.
“They are armed, Luce. Better-equipped and with more warriors than any other faction we will face. The time may come when we need their starshots and their manpower. You don’t have to be best friends, but they are excellent bodyguards and ruthless when it comes to their enemies.” He leaned back, his gaze settling out the window, as if something unpleasant had just flown by.