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"What wouldn’t she have wanted els turned to look at Daniel

"Last night we told you that none of the angels remember where we landed e fell," Daniel said

"Yeah, about thatHow’s it possible?" Shelby said "You’d think that kind of thing would leave an impression on the oldfor nine days throughon your face, breaking your wings, rolling around concussed for who kno long, wandering the desert for decades looking for any clue as to who or what or where you are--and then talk to ot acknowledg on her shrink voice "If I were going to di-agnose you--"

"Well, at least you remember there was a desert involved," Miles said diploh

Daniel turned to Luce "I wrote this book after I lost you in Tibetbut before I’d met you in Prussia I know you visited that life in Tibet because I followed you there, soyou the way I did made me turn to years of research and study to find a way out of this curse"

Luce looked away Her death in Tibet hadagain

"Caht," Daniel said "None of us recall where we landed We wandered the desert until it was no longer desert; andered the plains and the valleys and the seas until they turned to desert again It wasn’t until we slowly found one another and began to piece together the story that we reels at all

"But there were relics created after our Fall, physical records of our history that ifts--they think--fro time three of the relics were buried in a te the Crusades, they were stolen, spirited away to various places None of us knehere

"When I did o, I focused on theto as er hunt for the relics," Daniel continued "The gist of it is that if these three artifacts can be collected and gathered together at Mount Sinai--"

"Why Mount Sinai?" Shelby asked

"The channels between the Throne and the Earth are closest there," Gabbe explained with a flip of her hair

"That’s where Moses received the Ten Coels enter when they’re delivering es from the Throne"

"Think of it as God’s local dive," Arriane added, sending a Hacky Sack too high into the air and into an overhead la it a point to single out Shelby with his eyes, "Mount Sinai is not the original site of the Fall"

"That would be way too easy," Annabelle said

"If the relics are all gathered at Mount Sinai," Daniel went on, "then, in theory, we’ll be able to decipher the location of the Fall"

"In theory" Cam sneered "Must I be the one to say there is so the validity of Daniel’s research--"

Daniel clenched his jaw "You have a better idea?"

"Don’t you think"--Cam raised his voice--"that your theory puts rather a lot of weight on the idea that these relics are anything more than rumor? Who knows if they can do what they’re supposed to do?" Luce studied the group of angels and demons--her only allies on this quest to save her and Danieland the world "So that unknown location is where we have to be nine days from now"

"Fewer than nine days from now," Daniel said "Nine days froels cast out of Heaven--will have arrived"

"But if we can beat Lucifer to the site of the Fall," Luce said, "then what?"

Daniel shook his head "We don’t really know I never told anyone about this book because, Caht, I didn’t knohat it would add up to I didn’t even know Gabbe had it published until years later, and by then, I’d lost interest in the research You had died another ti there to play your part--"

"My part?" Luce asked

"Which we don’t really yet understand--" Gabbe elbowed Daniel, cutting him off "What he means is all will be revealed in the fullness of time" Molly smacked her forehead "Really? ‘All will be revealed’? Is that all you guys know? Is that what you’re going on?"

"That and your i to Luce "You’re the chess piece that the forces of good and evil and everything in between are fighting over here"

"What?" Luce whispered

"Shut up" Daniel fixed his attention on Luce "Don’t listen to hied it It just sat in the rooels and de else about Luce’s role in stopping the Fall

"So all of this inforer hunt," she said, "it’s in that book?"

"More or less," Daniel said "I just have to spend some time with the text and refresh in" The others ive Daniel space at the table Luce felt Miles’s hand brush the back of her arm