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Prologue

UNDER FIRE

MOSCOW OCTOBER 15, 1941

Lucinda!

The voices reached her in the murky darkness

Conored the further Echoes of her na licks of heat rippling across her skin Was that Daniel’s voice or Ca that she corew harder to discern, until Luce couldn’t tell theood or evil Enemy or friend They should have been easier to separate, but nothing was easy any that had once been black and white now blended into gray

Of course, both sides agreed on one thing: Everyone wanted to pull her out of the Announcer For her protection, they would claim

No, thanks

Not now

Not after they’d wrecked her parents’ backyard, made it into another one of their dusty battlefields She couldn’t think about her parents’ faces without wanting to turn back--not like she’d even kno to turn back inside an Announcer, anyway Besides, it was too late Caht was her And Miles had saved her, but even that wasn’t simple He’d only been able to throw her reflection because he cared about her too h? She couldn’t tell

In the end, when the Outcast had approached her, Daniel and the others had stared at Luce like she was the one ed the

You are our entrance into Heaven, the Outcast had told her The price What had that o she hadn’t even known the Outcasts existed And yet, they wanted soh to battle Daniel for it It must have had to do with the curse, the one that kept Luce reincarnated lifetime after lifetime But what did they think Luce could do?

Was the answer buried somewhere here?

Her stoh the cold shadow, deep inside the chasm of the dark Announcer

Luce--

The voices began to fade and grow diiven up Until--

They started to grow louder again Louder and clearer

Luce--

No She clamped her eyes shut to try to block them out

Lucinda--

Lucy--

Lucia--

Luschka--

She was cold and she was tired and she didn’t want to hear them For once, she wanted to be left alone

Luschka! Luschka! Luschka!

Her feet hit so very, very cold

She was standing on solid ground She knew she wasn’t tu in front of her except for the blanket of blackness Then she looked down at her Converse sneakers

And gulped

They were planted in a blanket of snow that reached midway up her calves The dank coolness that she was used to--the shadowy tunnel she’d been traveling through, out of her backyard, into the past--was giving way to soid

The first tih an Announcer--froas--she’d been with her friends Shelby and Miles At the end of the passage they’d met a barrier: a dark, shadowy curtain between them and the city Because Miles was the only one who’d read the texts on stepping through, he’d started swiping the Announcer with a circular motion until the murky black shadow flaked away Luce hadn’t known until now that he’d been troubleshooting

This ti alone, through an Announcer summoned of her own fierce will But the way out was so easy Almost too easy The veil of blackness simply parted

A blast of cold tore into her,her knees lock with the chill Her ribs stiffened and her eyes teared in the sharp, sudden wind

Where was she?

Luce already regretted her panicked juh time Yes, she needed an escape, and yes, she wanted to trace her past, to save her former selves from all the pain, to understand what kind of love she’d had with Daniel all those other ti told about it To understand--and then fix--whatever curse had been inflicted on Daniel and her

But not like this Frozen, alone, and completely unprepared for wherever, whenever she was

She could see a snowy street in front of her, a steel-gray sky above white buildings She could hear so in the distance But she didn’t want to think about what any of it meant