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It was chaos on the street The crowd at the trenches was disappearing, everyone scattering up a dozen narrow streets Some hustled down the stairs of the round; others disappeared into dark doorways

A block away, Luce caught a glie, in a red hat and a long wool coat She turned her head for just a second before she sprinted on But it was long enough for Luce to know

There she was

Luschka

She wrestled free of Baba's aro

Luce took a deep breath and ran down the street, straight into the roiling s

Are you crazy? Kristina yelled But they didn't follow her They would have had to be crazy themselves

Luce's feet were nuh snow on the sidewalk When she reached the corner where she'd seen her red-hatted past self dash by, she slowed Then she sucked in her breath

A building that took up half of the city block directly in front of her had caved in White stone was streaked with black ash A fire churned deep inside the crater in the building's side

The explosion had spat out heaps of unrecognizable debris fro The snoas streaked with red Luce recoiled until she realized that the red streaks were not blood but shreds of red silk It ed racks of clothes were scattered in the street A mannequin lay on its side in a ditch It was on fire Luce had to cover heron the fulass and stone cut into the snow

She should turn back, find the grandet to shelter, but she couldn't She had to find Luschka She'd never been so close to one of her past selves before Luschka ht be able to help her understand why Luce's own lifetime was different Why Ca it was her, and told Daniel, It was a better end for her A better end than what?

She slowly turned around, trying to spot the flash of the red hat in the night

There

The girl was running downhill toward the river Luce started running, too

They ran at precisely the same pace When Luce ducked at the sound of an explosion, Luschka ducked, too--in a weird echo of Luce's own movement And when they reached the riverbank, and the city caid stance as Luce herself

Fifty yards in front of Luce, her an to sob

Soleveled Luce tried to fathoht, but they felt distant and unreachable, like soirl was on the ht her if she'd wanted to They ran around giant craters cut into the cobblestone road They ran past burning buildings, crackling with the awful racket a fire et They ran past s out at the sides

Then Luschka hooked left down a street and Luce couldn't see her anymore

Adrenaline kicked in Luce pressed forward, her feet pounding harder, faster on the snowy street People only ran this fast when they were desperate When soer than the toward one thing

Luschka--

His voice

Where was he? For a irl whose life was in danger of ending at any ot that this Daniel wasn't her Daniel, but then--

Of course he was

He never died He had always been there He was always hers and she was always his All she wanted was to find his arrasp He would knohat she should be doing; he would be able to help her Why had she doubted him before?

She ran, pulled in the direction of his voice But she couldn't see Daniel anywhere Nor Luschka A block away from the river, Luce stopped short in a barren intersection

Her breath felt strangled in her frozen lungs A cold, throbbing pain tunneled deep inside her ears, and the icy pinpricks stabbing her feetstill unbearable

But which way should she go?

Before her was a vast and empty lot, filled with rubble and cordoned off fro and an iron fence But even in the darkness, Luce could tell that this was an older de destroyed by a bomb in the air raids

It didn't look like ly, abandoned sinkhole She didn't knohy she was still standing in front of it Why she'd stopped running after Daniel's voice--

Until she gripped the fence, blinked, and saw a flash of so brilliant

A church A e triptych of olden spires extending high into the sky And inside: rows of waxed wooden pews as far as the eye could see An altar at the top of a white flight of stairs And all the walls and high arched ceilings covered with gorgeously ornate frescoes Angels everywhere

The Church of Christ the Savior