“The story was bound up in relics—many relics, over millennia. But there are three especially that seem relevant to our search, three that may hold the answer as to where the angels fell to Earth.
“We don’t know what these relics are, but we know where they were last mentioned: Venice, Vienna, and Avalon. They were in these three locations as of the time of the research and writing of this book. But that was a while ago, and even then, it was anyone’s guess whether the items—whatever they are—were still there.”
“So this may end up as a divine wild-goose chase,” Cam said with a sigh. “Excellent. We’ll squander our time searching for mystery items that may or may not tell us what we need to know in places where they may or may not have rested for centuries.” Daniel shrugged. “In short, yes.”
“Three relics. Nine days.” Annabelle’s eyes fluttered up. “That’s not a lot of time.”
“Daniel was right.” Gabbe’s gaze flashed back and forth between the angels. “We need to split up.” This was what Cam and Daniel had been arguing about before the room started quaking. Whether they’d have a better chance of finding all the relics in time if they split up.
Gabbe waited for Cam’s reluctant nod before she said, “Then it’s settled. Daniel and Luce—you take the first city.” She looked down at Daniel’s notes, then gave Luce a brave smile. “Venice. You head to Venice and find the first relic.”
“But what is the first relic? Do we even know?” Luce leaned over the book and saw a drawing sketched in pen in the margin.
Daniel studied it now, too, shaking his head slightly at the image he’d drawn hundreds of years ago. It looked almost like a serving tray, the kind her mom was always looking for at antique shops. “This was what I was able to glean from my study of the pseudepigrapha—the dismissed scriptural writings of the early church.” It was egg-shaped with a glass bottom, which Daniel cleverly had depicted by sketching the ground on the other side of the clear base. The tray, or whatever the relic was, had what looked like small chipped handles on either side. Daniel had even drawn a scale below it, and according to his sketch, the artifact was big—about eighty by one hundred centimeters.
“I barely remember drawing this.” Daniel sounded disappointed in himself. “I don’t know what it is any more than you do.”
“I’m sure that once you get there, you’ll be able to figure it out,” Gabbe said, trying hard to be encouraging.
“We will,” Luce said. “I’m sure we will.” Gabbe blinked, smiled, and went on. “Roland, Annabelle, and Arriane—you three will go to Vienna. That leaves—” Her mouth twitched as she realized what she was about to say, but she put on a brave face anyway.
“Molly, Cam, and I will take Avalon.”
Cam rolled back his shoulders and let out his as-toundingly golden wings with a great rush, slamming into Molly’s face with his right wing tip and sending her lunging back five feet.
“Do that again and I will wreck you,” Molly spat, glaring at a carpet burn on her elbow. “In fact—” She started to go for Cam with her fist raised but Gabbe in-tervened.
She wrenched Cam and Molly apart with a put-upon sigh. “Speaking of wrecking, I would really rather not have to wreck the next one of you who provokes the other”—she smiled sweetly at her two demon companions—“but I will. This is going to be a very long nine days.”
“Let’s hope it’s long,” Daniel muttered under his breath.
Luce turned to him. The Venice in her mind was out of a guidebook: postcard pictures of boats jostling down canals, sunsets over tall cathedral spires, and dark-haired girls licking gelato. That wasn’t the trip they were about to take. Not with the end of the world reaching out for them with razor claws.
“And once we find all three of the relics?” Luce said.
“We’ll meet at Mount Sinai,” Daniel said, “unite the relics—”
“And say a little prayer that they shed any light what-soever on where we landed when we fell,” Cam muttered darkly, rubbing his forehead. “At which point, all that’s left is somehow coaxing the psychopathic hell-hound holding our entire existence in his jaw that he should just abandon his silly scheme for universal domination. What could be simpler? I think we have every reason to feel optimistic.”
Daniel glanced out the open window. The sun was passing over the dormitory now; Luce had to squint to look outside. “We need to leave as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” Luce said. “I have to go home, then, pack, get my passport. . . .” Her mind whirled in a hundred directions as she started making a mental to-do list. Her parents would be at the mall for at least another couple of hours, enough time for her to dash in and get her things together. . . .
“Oh, cute.” Annabelle laughed, flitting over to them, her feet inches off the ground. Her wings were muscular and dark silver like a thundercloud, protruding through the invisible slits in her hot-pink T-shirt. “Sorry to butt in but . . . you’ve never traveled with an angel before, have you?”
Sure she had. The feeling of Daniel’s wings soaring her body through the air was as natural as anything.
Maybe her flights had been brief, but they’d been unfor-gettable. They were when Luce felt closest to him: his arms threaded around her waist, his heart beating close to hers, his white wings protecting them, making Luce feel unconditionally and impossibly loved.