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And then the laughter was gone The vision of Egypt morphed into another: A Lucinda froh flowers She wore a deerskin dress and held a dandelion over her face, picking off the petals one by one The last one wobbled in the wind and she thought, He lovescrossed before it Daniel’s face, his eyes bri a halo from the rays of the sun

He smiled

Then his face disappeared A new vision, another life: the heat of a bonfire on her skin, desire burning in her chest There were strange, loud ; friends and fa wildly around the flames She could feel the rhythms of the movements deep within her, even as thethe sky shifted from hot red to silvery softness--

A waterfall A long lush drop of icy water down a li a cloud of water lilies with her strokes Her long wet hair gathered around her shoulders as she rose above the water, then dipped below She came up on the other side of the waterfall’s torrent, in a hu as if he’d been waiting for her all his life

He dove fro her when his body struck the water He swa her to him, one arm around her back and the other cradled under her knees She laced her hands around his neck and let him kiss her She closed her eyes--

Booain Luce was back on the s Trojan plain But this time, she was trapped in one of the craters, her body pinned beneath a boulder She couldn’tspots of red and shards of so that looked like a broken mirror Her head swirled with the most intense pain she had ever felt

"Help!"

And then: Daniel hovering over her, his violet eyes roving her body in unblinking horror "What happened to you?"

Luce didn’t know the answer--didn’t knohere she was or how she had gotten there The Lucinda of her nize Daniel But she did

Suddenly, she realized that this was the very first time she and Daniel hadfor, the monized the other They were already, instantly in love

How could this be the place of their first ued dark landscape reeked of filth and death

Her past self looked beaten, bloodied--like she had been shattered into a thousand pieces

Like she had fallen frolanced at the sky Soh Heaven had been electrocuted and shock waves would ripple from it for the rest of ti nearer Dark forht tumbled froathered in a chaotic, aht, suspended and falling siravity

Had Luce been up there? She felt al: Those were the angels

This was the Fall

The o-nized Luce It was like watching all the stars fall out of the night sky

The farther they fell, the looser their aile entities becaine any of her angels, her friends, ever looking like this More lost and out of control than the most destitutetheht directly overhead It grew larger and brighter as it approached

Daniel looked up, too Luce realized he didn’t recognize the falling forh hihly that it had erased his nificent he used to be He watched the sky with raw terror in his eyes

A sels were hundreds of feet above their heads one secondthen close enough that Luce could ht The bodies did not move but see down on Luce until she screaht crashed into the field beside her

An explosion of fire and black s Over aThey would pu on it to a pulp Luce ducked and shielded her eyes and opened her ain

But the sound that came out was no screa even further back Further back than the Fall?

Luce was no longer in the field of sels

She was standing in a landscape of pure light Any terror in her voice did not belong here, could not have existed in this place, which she knew and did not know

She had a sense of where she was, but it couldn’t possibly be real

Strea, rich chord ofaround her white The crater was gone The Earth was gone Her body was--

She didn’t know She couldn’t see it She couldn’t see anything but this fantastic silver-tinged white glow The brightness unfolded like a package until Luce could roves of white trees lined either side of the field

In the distance was a rippling silver ledge Luce sensed it was important Then she saw that there were sevenso bright Luce couldn’t stand to look at it

She focused on the ledge, the third one froaze from it Why?

BecauseHer e belonged to her

Long before, she used to sit here, next towho? It seemed to matter

Her vision swirled and faded and the silver ledge dis-solved The re into shapes, into--

Faces Bodies Wings A backdrop of blue sky

This was not a memory She was back in the present, her real and final life Around her stood her teachers Francesca and Steven; her allies the Outcasts; her friends Roland, Arriane, Annabelle, and Cam And her love, Daniel She stared at each one of the her with du

The gift of self-knowledge, Dee had told her You must remember how to dream what you already know