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Flah its branches as if they wereand dizzy froh the Patina, but even as the Scale were blown back by repercussive shock waves, the group inside Dee’s small Patina did not burn

Dee shouted, "Let’s fly!" just as a tornado of hot, fla a hundred Scale and lifting the them across the lawn

"Ready, Luce?" Daniel’s arht around Dee Smoke ricocheted off the walls on the outside of the Patina, but Luce was having a hard tih her sore, bruised neck

Then Daniel had lifted her off the ground They flew straight up Out of the corners of her eyes, Luce saw Roland’s ht, Annabelle and Arriane on the left All the angels’ wings were beating so fast and hard that they wove a pure blinding brightness, straight up out of the fire and into clear blue air

But the Patina was still open The Scale who could still fly had so tricked, trapped They tried to rise out of the blaze, but Roland sent another wave of fla the off their crinkled skin until they were skeletons ings

"Just another aze manipulated the boundaries of the Patina

Luce studied Dee, then theat the top like a cloak around a neck, sealing the Scale inside, choking them out

"All done," Dee shouted as Roland took her higher through the air

Luce looked down, beneath her and Daniel’s feet, as the ground sped away froly fire blink, then shiver, and then disappear, sed into a s hidden elsewhere The street they left belohite, andat all

The ground was s cooking in red fla back She could only look ahead toward the next relic, toward Caaps in the thin sheets of clouds, the terrain becarew colder, sharper, and the ceaseless beat of angel wings shattered the quiet at the edges of the atht, Roland’s s came into view a few feet below Luce and Daniel

He carried Dee the same way Daniel carried Luce: shoulders lined up with hers, one arm wrapped over her chest, the other around her waist Like Luce, Dee crossed her legs at the ankles, and her stiletto heels dangled precari-ously so high above the ground Roland’s darkDee’s frail, older frame made the pair look al through the clouds But the thrilled sparkle in Dee’s eyes er than she was Strands of her red hair whipped across her cheek, and her scent--cold creah which they flew

"Well, I think the coast is clear," Dee said

Luce felt the air around her warble Her body tensed in preparation for another ti Fall causing the ripple It was Dee, withdrawing the second Patina A hazy boundaryher shiver with an untraceable pleasure

Then it retracted until it was a tiny orb of light around Dee She closed her eyes and, a moment later, ab-sorbed the Patina into her skin It was mostly invisible--

and was one of the s Luce had ever seen

Dee sels carrying thes upward so that the ladies could talk

Dee cupped a hand over her mouth and called to Luce over the wind "So tell me, dear, how did you two meet?"

Luce felt Daniel’s shoulder shudder behind her with a chuckle It was a normal question to ask two people in a happy relationship; why did it make Luce miserable?

Because the ansas needlessly complicated

Because she didn’t even know the answer

She pressed a hand to the locket at her neck It bobbed against her skin as Daniel’s wings beat another strong beat "Well, ent to the same school, and I"

"Oh, Lucinda!" Dee was laughing "I was teasing I merely wondered whether you had uncovered the story behind your original "

"No, Dee," Daniel said firmly "She has not learned that yet--"

"I’ve asked, but he won’t tellas far away fro as she was fro the Adriatic Sea over which they were flying "It drives ood tiht ahead at the curved horizon "I take it you have at least tapped into some of your earlier memories?" Luce nodded

"Brilliant I’ll settle for the tale of the earliest romance you can recall Go on, dear Humor an old lady

It’ll help us pass the tirims"

A memory flashed before Luce’s eyes: the cold, daypt, the way his lips pressed against hers, their bodies against each other, as though they were the last two people in the world

But they hadn’t been alone Bill had been there, too

He’d been there waiting, watching, wanting her soul to die inside a dank Egyptian to to the present, where his red eyes could not find her "I’m tired," she said

"Rest," Daniel said softly

"No, I’ punished si to do with Lucifer, with Scale and Outcasts and whatever other sides there are I’h"

Daniel wrapped his hand over Luce’s and squeezed

Dee and Roland both looked as if they wanted to reach out and do the saed, dear," Dee said

"Since when?"