Page 42 (1/2)

Heaven dimmed when God left it Lucinda felt cold and useless It was then, she rean to see one another differently, to notice the varia-tions in color aossip that God had wearied of thes of praise Soels’ place

Lucinda re in her silver seat next to the Throne She re how si presence

She tried to adore her Creator from afar, but she couldn’t replace her loneliness Adoration in God’s presence hat she had been designed for and all she felt noas a hole What could she do?

She looked down fro the cloudsoil He looked lethargic, aze on him and looked up When their eyes met, he sone away

They did not think They reached for one another

Their souls entwined

Daniel, Luce thought But she couldn’t be sure The Meadow had been diy

Was this the moment of their first connection?

Flash

The Meadoas bright white again Time had passed; God had returned The Throne blazed with sub-li silver chair beside the Throne She was cra asked to choose so

The Roll Call Lucinda had been there, too Of course she had She felt hot and nervous without knohy

Her body flushed the way it used to when she was inside a past self and on the brink of dying She could not still her tres

She had chosen--

Her sto Luce blinked and saw the sun clipping the mountains and she knew that she was back in the present, back in Troy And falling from the sky, twenty feetforty

Her arain, as if she couldn’t fly

She spread her wings, but it was too late

She landed with a soft thurassy plain Everything was just as it had been before: flat-topped cedar trees around a muddy, fallow farm; abandoned hut in the middle of barren expanse; purple hills; butterflies Faces of fallen angels watching over her, filled with concern

"Are you all right?" Daniel asked

Her heart was still racing Why couldn’t she remember what had happened at the Roll Call? Maybe it wouldn’t help them stop Lucifer, but Luce desperately wanted to know

"I came so close," she said "I almost understood what happened"

Daniel set her softly on the ground and kissed her

"You will get there, Luce I know you will" It was dusk on the eighth day of their journey As the sun slipped over the Dardanelles, casting gold light on the sloping fallow fields, Luce wished there was a way to draw it backward

What if one day wasn’t enough time?

Luce hunched and unhunched her shoulders She wasn’t used to the weight of her wings, light as rose petals in the sky, but heavy as lead curtains when her feet were on the ground

When her wings first unfurled, they’d torn through her T-shirt and the khaki are proof Annabelle had quickly eed from the hut with an extra T-shirt It was electric blue with a silk-screened i slits tailored into the back

"Instead of thinking of all that you don’t yet renize what you have come to know"

"Well" Luce paced thebehind her "I know that the curse prevented el, caused an to approach a memory of my past That’s why none of you could tell me who I was"

"You had to walk that lonesome valley by yourself," Cam said

"And the reason it took you until this lifetime was also part of your curse," Daniel said

"This tile set of rules deter back to the Roll Call--"choose for myself"

"Not everyone has that luxury" Phil spoke up from the line of Outcasts

"That’s why the Outcasts wantedsuddenly it was true "But haven’t I already chosen Daniel? I couldn’t ree, it seemed like"--she reached for Daniel--"the choice was always already there inside of me"

"You knoho you are now, Luce," Daniel said

"You knohat rasp"

Daniel’s words seeped into her This hat she was now--it hat she always had been

Her gaze roup Luce didn’t kno much they could have seen of her transformation, whether their blind eyes could perceive a soul’s n in Olianna, the feuarded Luce on the rooftop in Vienna But as she stared at Olianna, she realized Olianna had alsochanged

"I reirl with the cavernous white eyes She knew her, froels of the Zodiac You ruled over Leo" Olianna took a deep shuddering breath and nodded

"Yes"