"You gave it all up? For me?"
He touched his forehead to hers. "I wouldn't change a thing."
"But I was nothing," Luce said. She felt heavy, like she was dragging. Dragging him down. "You had to give up so much!" She felt sick to her stomach. "And now you're damned forever."
Turning o the car, Daniel gave her a sad smile. "It might not be forever."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on," he said, hopping out of the car and coming around to open her door. "Let's take a walk."
They ambled to the end of the street, which didn't dead-end after all, but led to a steep, rocky staircase going down to the water. The air was cool and moist with sea spray. Just to the left of the steps, a trail led away. Daniel took her hand and moved to the cli 's edge.
"Where are we going?" Luce asked.
Daniel smiled at her, straightening his shoulders, and unfurled his wings.
Slowly, they extended up and out from his shoulders, unfolding with an almost inaudible series of soft snaps and creaks. Fully exed, they made a gentle, feathery fwump like a duvet being ung over a bed.
For the rst time, Luce noticed the back of Daniel's t-shirt. There were two tiny, otherwise invisible slits, which parted now to let his wings slip through. Did all of Daniel's clothes have these angelic alterations? Or did he have certain, special things he wore when he knew he planned on
Either way, his wings never failed to leave Luce speechless.
They were enormous, rising three times taller than Daniel, and curved up into the sky and to either side like broad white sails. Their broad expanse caught the light of the stars and re ected it more intensely, so that they glowed with an iridescent shimmer. Near his body they darkened, shading into a rich earthy cream color where they met his shoulder muscles. But along their tapered edges, they grew thin and glowed, becoming almost translucent at the tips.
Luce stared at them, rapt, trying to remember the line of every glorious feather, to hold all of it inside her for when he went away. He shone so bright, the sun could have borrowed light from him. The smile in his violet eyes told her how good it felt for him to let his wings out. As good as Luce felt when she was wrapped up in them.
"Fly with me," he whispered.
"What?"
"I'm not going to see you for a little while. I have to give you something to remember me by."
Luce kissed him before he could say anything else, lacing her ngers around his neck, holding him as tightly as she could, hoping to give him something to remember her by, too.
With her back pressed to his chest, and his head over her shoulder, Daniel traced a line of kisses down her neck. She held her breath, waiting. Then he bent his legs and gracefully pushed o the edge of the cli .
They were ying.
Away from the rocky ledge of the coastline, over the crashing silver waves below, arcing across the sky as if they were soaring for the moon. Daniel's embrace shielded her from every rough gust of wind, every brush of ocean chill. The night was absolutely quiet. As if they were the only two people left in the world.
"This is Heaven, isn't it?" she asked.
Daniel laughed. "I wish it were. Maybe one day soon."
When they had own out far enough that they couldn't see land on either side of them, Daniel banked gently north, and they swooped in a wide arc past the city of Mendocino, which glowed warmly on the horizon. They were far above the tallest building in town and moving incredibly fast. But Luce had never felt safer or more in love in her life.
And then, all too soon, they were descending, gradually nearing a di erent cli 's edge. The sounds of the ocean grew louder again. A dark single- lane road wound o the main highway. When their feet touched down lightly on a cool patch of thick grass, Luce sighed.
"Where are we?" she asked, though of course she already knew.
The Shoreline School. She could see a large building in the distance, but from here it looked completely dark, merely a shape on the horizon. Daniel held her pressed to him, as if they were still in the air. She craned her head around to look at his expression. His eyes were damp.
"The ones who damned me are still watching, Luce. They have been for millennia. And they don't want us to be together. They will do anything they can to stop us. That's why it isn't safe for me to stay here."
She nodded, her eyes stinging. "But why am I here?"
"Because I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, and this is the best place for you now. I love you, Luce. More than anything. I'll be back to you as soon as I can."
She wanted to protest, but stopped herself. He'd given up everything for her. When he let her out of his embrace, he opened his palm and a small red shape inside it began to grow. Her du el bag. He'd taken it from the back of the car without her even knowing, carried it all the way here inside his hand. In just a few seconds, it had lled out entirely, back to its full size. If she hadn't been so heartbroken about what it meant for him to hand it over to her, Luce would have loved the trick.
A single light went on inside the building. A silhouette appeared in the doorway.
"It's not for long. As soon as things are safer, I'll come for you."
His hot hand clasped her wrist and before she knew it, Luce was caught up in his embrace, drawn to his lips. She let everything else fall away, let her heart brim over. Maybe she couldn't remember her former lives, but when Daniel kissed her, she felt close to the past. And the future.
The gure in the doorway was walking toward her, a woman in a short white dress. The gure in the doorway was walking toward her, a woman in a short white dress.
The kiss Luce had shared with Daniel, too sweet to be so brief, left her just as out of breath as their kisses always did.
"Don't go," she whispered, her eyes closed. It was all happening too fast. She couldn't give Daniel up. Not yet. She didn't think she ever could.
She felt the rush of air that meant he'd already taken o . Her heart went after him as she opened her eyes and saw the last trace of his wings disappear inside a cloud, into the dark night.
Chapter Two
SEVENTEEN DAYS
Thwap.
Luce winced and rubbed her face. Her nose stung.
Thwap. Thwap.
Now it was her cheekbones. Her eyelids drifted open and, almost immediately, she scrunched up her face in surprise. A stocky dishwater-blond girl with a grimly set mouth and major eyebrows was leaning over her. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head. She wore yoga pants and a ribbed camou age tank top that matched her green- ecked hazel eyes. She held a Ping-Pong ball between her ngers, poised to pelt.
Luce scrambled backward in her bedsheets and shielded her face. Her heart already hurt from missing Daniel. She didn't need any more pain. She looked down, still trying to get her bearings, and remembered the bed she had indiscriminately collapsed into the night before.
The woman in white who had appeared in Daniel's wake had introduced herself as Francesca, one of the teachers at Shoreline. Even in her stunned stupor, Luce could tell that the woman was beautiful. She was in her mid-thirties, with blond hair brushing her shoulders, round cheekbones, and large, soft features.
Angel, Luce decided almost instantly.
Francesca asked no questions on the way to Luce's room. She must have been expecting the late night drop-o , and she must have sensed Luce's utter exhaustion.
Now this stranger who'd pelted Luce back into consciousness looked ready to chuck another ball. "Good," she said in a gravelly voice. "You're awake."
"Who are you?" Luce asked sleepily.
"Who are you, is more like it. Other than the stranger I wake to nd squatting in my room. Other than the kid disrupting my morning mantra with her weirdly personal sleep-babbling. I'm Shelby. Enchant?e."
Not an angel, Luce surmised. Just a Californian girl with a strong sense of entitlement.
Luce sat up in bed and looked around. The room was a little cramped, but it was nicely appointed, with light-colored hardwood oors; a working replace; a microwave; two deep, wide desks; and built-in bookshelves that doubled as a ladder to what Luce now realized was the top bunk.
She could see a private bathroom through a sliding wooden door. And--she had to blink a few times to be certain--an ocean view out the window. Not bad for a girl who had spent the past month gazing out at a rank old cemetery in a room more appropriate for a hospital than a school. But then, at least that rank cemetery and that room had meant she was with Daniel. She had barely begun getting comfortable at Sword & Cross. And now she was back to starting from scratch.
"Francesca didn't mention anything about me having a roommate." Luce knew instantly from the expression on Shelby's face that this was the Wrong Thing to Say.
So she took a quick glance at Shelby's d?cor instead. Luce had never trusted her own interior design instincts, or maybe she'd never had the chance to indulge them. She hadn't stuck around Sword & Cross long enough to do much decorating, but even before that, her room at Dover had been white-walled and bare. Sterile chic, as Callie had once said.
This room, on the other hand--there was something about it that was strangely ... groovy. Varieties of potted plants she'd never seen before lined the windowsill; prayer ags were strung across the ceiling. A patchwork quilt in muted colors was sliding o the top bunk, half obstructing Luce's view of an astrology calendar taped over the mirror.
"What'd you think? They were going to clear out the dean's quarters just because you're Lucinda Price?"
"Um, no?" Luce shook her head. "That's not what I meant at all. Wait, how did you know my name?"
"So you are Lucinda Price?" The girl's green- ecked eyes seemed to x on Luce's ratty gray pajamas. "Lucky me."
Luce was speechless.
"Sorry." Shelby exhaled and adjusted her tone, parking herself on the edge of Luce's bed. "I'm an only child. Leon--that's my therapist--he's trying to get me to be less harsh when I rst meet people."
"Is it working?" Luce was an only child too, but she wasn't nasty to every stranger she came into contact with.
"What I mean is ..." Shelby shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not used to sharing. Can we"--she tossed her head--"rewind?"
"That'd be nice."
"Okay." Shelby took a deep breath. "Frankie didn't mention your having a roommate last night because then she would have had to either notice --or, if she had already noticed, disclose--that I wasn't in bed when you arrived. I came in through that window"--she pointed--"around three."
Out the window, Luce could see a wide ledge connecting to an angled portion of the roof. She pictured Shelby darting across a whole network of ledges on the roof to get back here in the middle of the night.
Shelby made a show of yawning. "See, when it comes to the Nephilim kids at Shoreline, the only thing the teachers are strict about is the pretense of discipline. Discipline itself doesn't so much exist. Though, of course, Frankie's not going to advertise that to the new girl. Especially not Lucinda Price."
There it was again. That edge in Shelby's voice when she said Luce's name. Luce wanted to know what it meant. And where Shelby had been until three. And how she'd come in through the window in the dark without knocking over any of those plants. And who were the Nephilim kids?