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Luce tried not to iirl envisioned She lowered herself to the roof again and sheltered herself froolden spear, more out of habit than need She adjusted her body so that she could still see the tall brown brick clock toith the golden face Five-thirty She wasthe minutes until Daniel and the other Outcasts came back

"Do you want to sit down?" she asked Olianna, who lurked directly behind Luce with her arrow at the ready

"I prefer to stand guard--"

"Yeah, I don’t guess you can really sit guard," Luce mumbled "Ha-ha"

A siren wailed froh a roundabout When it passed and the air grew quiet again, Luce didn’t kno to fill the silence

She stared at the clock, squinting as if it would help her see through the fog Had Daniel reached the warehouse by now? What would Arriane, Roland, and Annabelle do when they saw the Outcasts? Luce realized Daniel hadn’t given anyone but Phil a pennon of his wing Hoould the angels know to trust the Outcasts?

Her shoulders were hunched up around her ears, and her whole body stiffened with the sense of futile frustration Why was she sitting here, waiting, cracking stupid jokes? She should have had an active role in this After all, it wasn’t Luce the Scale wanted She should be helping rescue her friends or finding the relic instead of sitting here like a distressed daht to return

"Do you remember me, Lucinda Price?" the Outcast asked so quietly Luce almost didn’t hear

"Why do the Outcasts call us by our full nairl’s head tilted down at her, her bow and arrow listing against her shoulder

"It is a sign of respect, Lucinda Price We are your allies now You and Daniel Grigori Do you reht for a second "Were you one of the Outcasts fighting the angels in my parents’ backyard?"

"No"

"I’ about my past Have we already met?" The Outcast lifted her head just a bit "We knew one another before"

"When?"

The girl shrugged, her shoulders rising delicately, and Luce suddenly realized she was pretty "Just before It is hard to explain"

"What isn’t?" Luce swiveled back around, not in the mood to decode another cryptic conversation She stuffed her freezing hands inside the sleeves of her white sweater and watched the traffic ed into slanted spaces on crooked alleys, people in long dark coats roceries home to their families

Luce felt painfully lonely Was her fa of her? Did they picture her in the cramped dorm room she’d slept in at Sword & Cross? Was Callie back at Dover by now? Would she be huddled in the coldseat of her roo on the phone about her weird Thanksgiving trip to see some friend asn’t Luce?

A dark cloud drifted past the clock, rendering it visible as it struck six Daniel had been gone an hour that felt like a year Luce watched the church bells ringing, watched the hands of the great old clock, and she let her memory drift back to her lives spent before the invention of linear ti and the harvest

After the sixth gong of the clock came another--

closer, and Luce spun around just in time to see Olianna slump forward to her knees She fell and landed heavily in Luce’s arel over and touched the Outcast’s face

Olianna was unconscious The sound Luce had heard was the Outcast being hit in the head

Behind Luce stood an enory rinkles and looked i under his dull blue eyes and below his protruding chin, beneath a ht hand was the flagpole heliainst the surface of the roof

Luce shot to her feet, feeling her fists rise even as she wondered what good they’d be against this enors were a very pale blue, just a shade away fros were s only a little farther than his arolden was pinned to the front of the old-black feather Luce knehose wings it had coiven this creature a pennon fros?

He wouldn’t have This feather was bent and severed andsome of its matter near the quill Its point was ht like the brilliant pluiven to Phil, this feather seeruesoel’s black cloak

A trick

"Who are you?" Luce asked, falling to her knees

"What do you want?"

"Show soel’s throat convulsed as if he meant to bark, but his voice came out warbled and faint and old

"Earn ive it to you"

He gave her half an evil smirk and dropped his head low Then he pulled down the cloak to expose the back of his neck Luce blinked in the diold in the glow of streetlights led with the moon She counted seven points on the star

He was one of the Scale

"Recognize me now?"

"Is this how the Throne’s enforcers work? Bludgeon-ing innocent angels?"

"No Outcast is innocent Nor is anyone else, for that matter, until they are proven to be so"