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He wanted to stand there, ad her forever, but then he rerabbed her by the arh Even as he spoke, Daniel felt overcoainst his hand The last tiht he'd lost her to the Outcasts Do you have any idea what a scare you gave me? You're not safe here on your own, he said

Luce didn't start arguing with Daniel, as he'd expected Instead, she screamed and slapped him smartly across the face

Because she wasn't Luce She was Lucinda

And, orse, they hadn't even met yet in this lifetime She must have just come back from London with her family She and Daniel must have been about to meet at the Constances' summer solstice party

He could see all of that now as the shock registered on Lucinda's face

What day is this? he asked desperately

She would think he was insane Across the room, he had been too love-struck to note the difference between the girl he'd already lost and the girl he had to save

I'm sorry, he whispered This was exactly why he was so terrible as an Anachroniss One touch of her skin One look into her deep hazel eyes One whiff of the scented powder along her hairline One shared breath in the cramped space of this tiny shop

Lucinda winced as she looked at his cheek In the ht red where she'd slapped him Her eyes traveled toin Her pink lips parted and her head cocked slightly to the right She was looking at him like a woman deep in love

No

There was a way it was supposed to happen A way it had to happen They were not supposed to meet until the party As much as Daniel cursed their fate, he would not disrupt the lives she'd lived before They hat kept her co back to him

He tried to look as uninterested and scowly as possible Crossing his arht to createhis eyes everywhere but where they wanted to be On her

I' her hands over her heart I don't knohat ca like that

Daniel wasn't going to argue with her now, though she'd slapped him so many times over the years that Arriane kept a tally in a little spiral notebook marked Youre Fresh

My ht you were someone else He'd already interfered with the past too an to back away

Wait She reached for hi hih I can't quite remember--

I don't think so, I'm afraid

He'dthe curtain on theto see if Cam was still outside He was

Caestures, telling some fabricated story in which he was surely the hero He could turn around at the slightest provocation Then Daniel would be caught

Please, sir--stop Lucinda hurried toward Daniel Who are you? I think I know you Please Wait

He'd have to take his chances on the street He could not stay here with Lucinda Not when she was acting like this Not when she was falling in love with the wrong version of himself He'd lived this life before, and this was not how it had happened So he had to flee

It killed Daniel to ignore her, to go away fro hiht back to the sound of her voice, to the embrace of her ar power of her love

He yanked the shop door open and fled down the street, running at the sunset, running for all he orth He did not care at all what it looked like to anyone else in town He was running out the fire in his wings

Chapter Seven

SOLSTICE

HELSTON, ENGLAND JUNE 21, 1854

Luce's hands were scalded and splotchy and tender to the bone Since she'd arrived at the Constances' estate in Helston three days before, she'd done little more than wash an endless pile of dishes She worked froravy boats and whole armies of silverware, until, at the end of the day, her new boss, Miss McGovern, laid out supper for the kitchen staff: a sad platter of cold ht, after dinner, Luce would fall into a dreamless, timeless sleep on the attic cot she shared with Henrietta, her fellow kitchen irl who'd come to Helston from Penzance

The sheer a

How could one household dirty enough dishes to keep two girls working twelve hours straight? But the bins of food-caked plates kept arriving, and Miss McGovern kept her beady eyes fixed on Luce's washbasin By Wednesday, everyone at the estate was buzzing about the solstice party that evening, but to Luce, it only meant more dishes She stared down at the tin tub of scuzzy water, full of loathing

This is not what I had in , always, on the rim of the cupboard next to her washtub She still wasn't used to being the only one in the kitchen who could see him It made her nervous every ti dirty jokes that only Luce could hear and no one--besides Bill--ever laughed at

You children of the millennium have absolutely no work ethic, he said Keep your voice down, by the way