Page 26 (2/2)

"Since before I’ve never heard you talk like that

Have you, Daniel?"

Daniel was quiet for aof the angels’ wings against thin air, he said, "No But I’lad she can now"

"And why not? It’s a trans-dih But this is a girl with tenac-ity, a girl with irl who once told h she was cursed--your words, dear--by snarls and tangles, a net for briars, because that hair was a part of her, indelibly tied to her soul"

Luce squinted at the old wo about?"

Dee tilted her head at Luce and pursed her pluolden eyes and fine red hair, at the delicate way she hummed as they flew

And it hit her

"I remember you!"

"Lovely," Dee said, "I remember you, too!"

"Didn’t I live in a hut on an open plain?" Dee nodded

"And we did talk aboutafter so on a hunt

was it a fox?"

"You were quite the tomboy Braver than some of the men on the prairie, actually"

"And you," Luce said, "you spent hours picking them out of uratively speaking

You used to say the devil cursed you with such thick hair

A trifle dramatic, but you were only sixteen--and not far off from the truth, as only sixteen-year-olds can be"

"You said a curse is only a curse if I allowed myself to be cursed by it You saidI had it in my power to free s"

Dee winked

"Then you told ht But you wouldn’t"

"No" Luce closed her eyes as the coolher skin She was suddenly inexplicably sad "I wouldn’t I wasn’t ready to"

"Well," Dee said "I certainly like how you’ve styled your hair since you’ve come to your senses!"

"Look" Daniel pointed to where the cloud floor fell away like a cliff "We’re here"

They descended into Avignon The sky above the toas clear, no clouds to interrupt their view The sun cast shadows of the angels’ wings onto the ss bordered by verdant pastures of farh land

They banked left and flew over a horse stable, breathing in the dank stench of hay and manure They swooped low over a cathedral s in the town Tourists sipped coffees in a cheerful café The town glowed golden in theso quickly ers They had been searching for the relics for four and a half days

Half the time was up before Lucifer’s Fall would be upon the" Daniel pointed to a bridge on the outskirts that did not extend fully across the shih the town It was as if half the bridge had crumbled into the water "Pont Saint Bénézet"

"What happened to it?" Luce asked

Daniel glanced over his shoulder "Re here? She inspired the boy who built that bridge in the Middle Ages in the time when the popes lived here and not in Ro across the Rhône one day when she didn’t think anyone could see her He built the bridge to follow her to the other side"

"When did it collapse?"

"Slowly, over time, one arch would fall into the river

Then another Arriane says the boy--his naels, but not for architecture

Annabelle loved hinon as his muse until he died He never non society The town thought he was crazy" Luce tried not to compare her relationship with Daniel to what Annabelle had had with Bénézet, but it was hard not to What kind of a relationship could an angel and a mortal really have? Once all this was over, if they beat Luciferthen what? Would she and Daniel go back to Georgia and be like any other couple, going out for ice cream on Fridays after a movie? Or would the whole town think she was crazy, like Bénézet?

Was it all just hopeless? What would become of thee’s arches?

The idea of sharing a norel as crazy She sensed that every h the sky And yet she loved him more each day