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Their wings were bound, the Outcasts had said Were they in the same shape she was in? She hated that she had made it here and couldn’t even help the put her life in peril There was perhaps nothing worse than not being able to el’s muddy black boots appeared before her Luce peered up at his towering figure He bent down, s His black-gloved hand reached for her--

Then the Scale angel’s hand fell lied forward, crashing heavily into the work Luce The severed sculpture head that had apparently struck the Scale rolled eerily to rest on the floor near Luce’s face, see to stare into Luce’s eyes

As Luce rolled back under the table, s blurred in her peripheral vision More Scale Four of them flew in tawdry formation toward a recessed alcove about halfway up the wallwhere Luce no E, silver saw

Emmet must have thrown the head that had saved her froh the ceiling had enraged her kidnapper Luce had never thought she’d be so happy to see an Outcast

Emmet was surrounded by sculptures on platforms and pedestals, some shrouded, some scaffolded, one newly beheaded--and by four i closer to him in the air, cloaks extended, like shabby vampires These stiff black cloaks seemed to be their only weapon, their only tool, and Luce kneell it was a brutal one Her pained breathing was evidence of that

She suppressed a gasp as Emmet pulled a starshot from an unseen quiver in his trench coat and held it out in front of him Daniel had made the Outcasts promise not to kill the Scale!

The Scale backed sloay fro, "Vile! Vile!" so loudly that it caused Luce’s captor to stir on the table above her Then the Outcast did so that amazed everybody in the room He aimed the starshot at himself Luce had seen Daniel sui-cidal in Tibet, so she knew so about that ee that accoesture so extreme But Emmet seemed as confident and defiant as ever as he looked from one leathery Scale face to another

The Scale becae behavior They hovered ever closer, blocking the thin Outcast fro a carcass on a desert highway Where were the other Outcasts? Where was Phil? Had the Scale already done aith the torn echoed loudly through the roo cloaks like the gaping mouth of an Announcer that led soh the air, followed by another tearing sound--and then the four Scale angels spun like rag dolls toward Luce, their jaws slack, their eyes open, their cloaks mutilated and ripped open to expose black hearts and black lungs twitching spasti-cally, strea pale blue blood

Daniel had told the Outcasts they could not use their starshots to kill the Scale, but he had not said the Outcasts could not hurt theels fell in a clus had been snipped Luce looked up fro to breathe, to the alcove, where Es of his starshot Luce had never heard of anyone using the butt end of a starshot as a weapon--and apparently neither had the Scale

"Is Lucinda here?" Luce heard Phil call out She looked up to see his face glowing through a crater in the roof

"Here!" Luce shouted up to hi her cloak to cinch even rihtened a little e of the table, its black boot swinging into Luce’s face, striking her flush on the nose, bringing tears of pain to her eyes Her captor ake! This realization, coupled with the sudden pain that half blinded her, caused Luce to push back more deeply under the table’s shelter When she did so, her cloak closed all the way around her throat, pinching her trachea coasped uselessly for air, writhing now that it didn’t matter if the cloak constricted anymore--

Then she remembered how she’d discovered in Venice that she could hold her breath for longer than she’d thought possible And Daniel had just told her she could will herself to overcome that limitation anytime she wanted So she did it; she just did it; she willed herself to stay alive

But that didn’t stop her captor fro pottery and the severed li

"You lookunco blood-slick teeth, and extended a black-gloved hand toward the heel froze when a starshot fletching burst through the place where, only a ht eye had been Blue blood jetted from the eered wildly around the roo from his wizened face

Pale hands appeared before her, then the sleeves of a ratty tan trench coat, followed by a shaven blond head

Phil’s face betrayed no feeling as he dropped to his knees to face her

"There you are, Lucinda Price" He gripped the collar of the binding black cloak and lifted Luce up "I had returned to the palace to check on you" He set her atop a nearby table She iht Eue had

At last she could afford to take a longer view In front of her, three shallow stairs led down to an expansive main chamber In its center, a red velvet rope sectioned off a towering statue of a lion It was reared up on two feet, teeth bared toward the sky mid-roar Its s coated the floor of the restoration wing, re lot she’d seen one suia rainstorm The Scale weren’t dead--they had not vanished into starshot dust--but so many of them were unconscious the Outcasts could barely tread without crunching their wings

Phil and E at least fifty of the Scale Their short blue wings twitched occa-sionally, but their bodies did not move

All six Outcasts--Phil, Vincent, Eirl, whose naed face--were still on their feet, brushing pieces of tissue and bone froirl, the one who’d helped nurse Daedalus back to health, grabbed a barely breathing fes treainst a marble pillar She shrieked the first four or five times her head struck the stone Then the shrieks petered out and her bulged eyes rolled back in her head

Phil struggled with the black straitjacket fastened around Luce His quick fingers el fell fro to rest between her neck and shoulder She felt hot blood trickle onto her neck She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered