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Daniel ignored him "Under normal circumstances, I think you’d enjoy the trip" His expression turned stormy "But we don’t have room for normal for the next nine days"
Luce felt his hands on the back of her shoulders, gathering her hair and lifting it off her neck He kissed her along the neckline of her sweater as he wrapped his arms around her waist Luce closed her eyes She kneas coant whoosh of the love of her life letting out his driven-snohite wings
The world on the other side of Luce’s eyelids darkened slightly under the shadow of his wings, and warmth welled in her heart When she opened her eyes, there they were, asinto the wall of Daniel’s chest as he pivoted toward the
"This is only a temporary separation," Daniel announced to the others "Good luck and wingspeed" With each long beat of Daniel’s wings they gained a thousand feet The air, once cool and thick with Georgia hus as they clian to tear
The ground belo distant, and the world that it contained blended and shrank into a staggering canvas of green Sword & Cross was the size of a thulihted as they fleay from the sun, toward the darkness on the horizon
Flying with Daniel was , more intense than herhad shifted: Luce had the hang of it by now She felt at ease, in sync with Daniel, relaxed into the shape of his arhtly at the ankles, the toes of her boots kissing the toes of his Their bodies swayed in unison, responding to the s, which arched over their heads and blocked out the sun, then throttled backward to cohty stroke
They passed the cloud line and vanished into theall around them but wispy white and the nebulous caress of e into the sky Luce didn’t pause to wonder how she would breathe up here at the limits of the atmosphere She ith Daniel She was fine They were off to save the world
Soon Daniel leveled off, flying less like a rocket and more like an unfatho, their velocity increased--but with their bodies parallel to the ground, the wind’s roar sly quiet, as peaceful as if it had just come into existence and no one had yet experiht?" His voice cocooned her,in the world that wasn’t all right could be made so by love’s concern
She tilted her head to the left to look at hi His eyes poured out a violet light so rich it alone could have kept her aloft
"You’re freezing," he ers to warh Luce’s body
"Better now," she said
They broke through the blanket of clouds: It was like that mooes froray to an infinite palate of color The difference was that theand the plane had fallen away, leaving nothing between her skin and the seashell pinks of evening-reaching clouds in the east, the garish indigo of high-altitude sky
The cloudscape presented itself, foreign and arrest-ing As ever, it found Luce unprepared This was another world she and Daniel alone inhabited, a high world, the tips of the tallest minarets of love
What mortal hadn’t dreamed of this? How many times had Luce yearned to be on the other side of an airplane ? To old of a sun-kissed rain cloud underfoot? Now she was here and overcome with the beauty of a distant world she could feel on her skin
But Luce and Daniel could not stop They could not stop once for the next nine days--or everything would stop
"How long will it take to get to Venice?" she asked
"It shouldn’t be too er," Daniel almost whispered into her ear
"You sound like a pilot who’s been in a holding pattern for an hour, telling his passengers ‘just another ten minutes’ for the fifth time," Luce teased
When Daniel didn’t respond, she looked up at hi in confusion The metaphor was lost on him
"You’ve never been on a plane," she said "Why should you when you can do this?" She gestured at his gorgeous beating wings "All the waiting and taxiing would probably drive you crazy"
"I’d like to go on a plane with you Maybe we’ll take a trip to the Bahaht?"
"Yes" Luce sed "Let’s" She couldn’t help thinking how ht way for the two of them to be able to travel like a norht nohen so much was at stake