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"I'll e up before Luce could even respond

This was not good Luce ipped the phone shut She shouldn't have felt like Callie was intruding by inviting herself to Thanksgiving She should have felt great that her friend still wanted to see her But all she felt was helpless, ho this stupid cycle of lies

Was it even possible to just be normal and happy anymore? What on earth--or beyond it--would it take for Luce to be as content with her life as so around Daniel And she had her answer: The only way she could be carefree again would be to have never met Daniel To have never known true love

Soid wind assailed her skin She hadn't been concentrating on an Announcer speci cally, but she realized --just as Steven had told her--that her wish for answers must have summoned one

No, not one

She shivered, looking up into the tangle of branches Hundreds of stealthy, ether in the high redwood branches over her head Like soiant pot of black ink that had They owed together in the high redwood branches over her head Like soiant pot of black ink that had spread across the sky and dripped down into the canopy of the trees, bleeding one branch into another until the forest was a solid wash of blackness At rst it was almost impossible to tell where one shadow stopped and the next one began, which shadoas real and which an Announcer

But soon they began to morph andinnocently in the fading light of the day--but then more boldly They pinched the, wrenching their tendrils of blackness down, down, close to Luce's head Beckoning or threatening her? She steeled herself but couldn't catch her breath There were toonot to panic, knowing it was already too late

She ran

She started south, back toward the dor black abyss in the treetops justthe lower branches of the redwoods, drawing closer She felt the icy pinpricks of their touch on her shoulders She yelped as they groped for her, swatting theed course, swung herself around in the opposite direction, toward the Nephilie to the north She would nd Miles or Shelby or even Francesca But the Announcers wouldn't let her go I out in front of her, sing the light and blocking the path to the lodge Their hissing drowned out the distantLuce's friends seem impossibly far away

Luce forced herself to stop and take a deep breath She knew more about the Announcers than she ever had before She should be less afraid of the closer to so, some memory or information that could alter the course of her life And her relationship with Daniel The truth was, she wasn't just terri ed of the Announcers She was terri ed of what she ht see within them

Or hear

Yesterday, Steven'sout the Announcers' noise had nally clicked--she could listen in on her past lives She could cut through the static and focus on what she wanted to know What she needed to know Steven ive her this clue, e straight to the Announcers

She turned and stepped back into the dark solitude of the trees The whooshing sounds from the Announcers quieted and settled

The darkness under the branches engulfed her in cold and the peaty sht, the Announcers crept forward, settling into the di the natural shadows Some of them race Luce wondered whether their appearances re ected anything about the es they contained

Sothe with an old radio dial What she'd heard yesterday--that one voice a the riot of voices--had coht have been unfathoainst the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light She closed her eyes and cupped her hands together There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed thes, asking them to deliver her past, to illuminate her and Daniel's story She called on them to solve the mystery of who he was and why he had chosen her

Even if the truth broke her heart

A rich, feh so clear and full, it felt as if it were surrounding Luce, bouncing o the branches in the trees She tried to trace its origin, but there were so athered--Luce didn't kno to pinpoint the source And then she felt her blood go cold

The laughter was hers

Or had once been hers, back when she was a child Before Daniel, before Sword & Cross, before Trevorbefore a life full of secrets and lies and so el It was too innocent a laugh, too carefree to belong to her anymore

A breath of wind swirled in the branches overhead, and a scattering of brown redwood needles broke o and showered to the ground They pattered like raindrops as they joined a thousand predecessors on the e frond

Thick and feathery, fully intact, it drifted slowly down soravity It was black instead of brown And instead of falling to the ground, it drifted lightly onto Luce's outstretched palm

Not a frond, but an Announcer As she leaned down to exaain So

Gently, Luce gave the Announcer's prickly edges a pull It was ainst her ngers It grew larger at the lightest touch When it had grown to about a square foot, Luce released it frorip and was pleased to watch it hover at eye level in front of her Sheout the world around her

Nothing at rst, and then--