Passion for Nine: So We Beat On
NINE
SO WE BEAT ON
SO WE BEAT ON
Luce found herself balanced on a splintery wooden beam.
It creaked as it tilted slightly to the left, then creaked again as it eased very slowly to the right. The rocking was steady and ceaseless, as if the beam were at ached to a very short pendulum.
A hot wind sent her hair lashing across her face and blew her servant's bonnet o her head. The beam beneath her swayed again, and her feet slipped. She fel against the beam and barely managed to hug it to herself before she went tumbling down—
Where was she? In front of her was the endless blue of open sky. A darker blue at what must have been the horizon. She looked down. She was incredibly high up.
A waterlogged pole stretched a hundred feet beneath her, ending in a wooden deck. Oh. It was a mast. Luce was sit ing on the top yard of a very large sailboat.
A very large shipwrecked sailboat, just of the coast of a black-shored island.
The bow had been smashed violently against a cluster of razor-sharp lava rocks that had left it a pulverized mess. The mainsail was shredded: tat ered pieces of tawny canvas apping loosely in the wind. The air smel ed like the morning after a great storm, but this ship was so weathered, it looked like it had been there for years.
Every time the waves rushed up the black-sand shores, water sprayed dozens of feet up from the crevices in the rocks. The waves made the wreck—and the beam Luce clutched—sway so roughly she felt she might be sick.
How was she going to get down? How was she going to get to shore?
"Aha! Look who's landed like a bird on a perch." Bil 's voice broke over the crashing waves. He appeared at the far tip of the ship's rot ing yard, walking with his arms extended from his sides as if he were on a balance beam.
"Where are we?" Luce was too nervous to make any sudden movements.
Bil sucked in a big lungful of air. "Can't you taste it? The north coast of Tahiti!" He plopped down next to Luce, kicked out his stubby legs, stretched his short gray arms up, and clasped his hands behind his head. "Isn't it paradise?"
"I think I'm going to throw up."
"Nonsense. You just have to find your sea legs."
"How did we get—" Luce glanced around again for an Announcer. She didn't see a single shadow, just the endless blank blue of empty skies.
"I took care of the logistics for you. Think of me as your travel agent, and of yourself as on vacation!"
"We're not on vacation, Bil ."
"We're not? I thought we were taking the Grand Tour of Love." He rubbed his forehead, and inty akes showered from his scalp. "Did I misunderstand?"
"Where are Lucinda and Daniel?"
"Hang on." He hovered in the air in front of Luce. "Don't you want a lit le history?"
Luce ignored him and scooted over toward the mast. She stretched an unsteady foot to the highest of the pegs that spiked out from the mast's sides.
"Don't you at least want a hand?"
She'd been holding her breath and trying not to look down as her foot slid o the wooden peg a third time. Final y, she swal owed dryly and reached out to take the cold, rough claw Bil extended to her.
As she took Bil 's hand, he pul ed her forward, then o the mast entirely. She yelped as the wet wind bat ered her face, sending the skirt of her dress bil owing around her waist. She shut her eyes and waited to plunge through the rot en decking below. Only she didn't.
She heard a throosh and felt her body catch in the air. She opened her eyes. Bil 's stubby wings had bal ooned out and caught the wind. He was supporting her weight with just one hand, carrying her slowly to shore. It was miraculous how nimble he was, how light. Luce was surprised to find herself relaxing—somehow the sensation of flying was natural to her by now. Daniel. As the air encircled her, the ache to be with him overtook her. To hear his voice and taste his lips—Luce could think of nothing else. What she wouldn't have given to be in his arms just then!
The Daniel she'd encountered in Helston, however happy he'd been to see her, had not real y known her. Not the way her Daniel did. Where was he right now?
"Feeling bet er?" Bil asked.
"Why are we here?" Luce asked as they soared over the water. It was so clear she could see inky shadows moving underwater—giant schools of fish, swimming easily, fol owing the shoreline.
"See that palm tree?" Bil pointed forward with his free claw. "The tal est one, third from the break in the sandbar?"
Luce nodded, squinting.
"That's where your father in this life built his hut. Nicest shack on the beach!" Bil coughed. "Actual y, it's the only shack on the beach. The Brits haven't even discovered this side of the island yet. So when your pops is o shing, you and Daniel have the place mostly to yourselves."
"Daniel and I … lived here … together?"
Hand in hand, Luce and Bil touched down on the shore with the soft elegance of two dancers in a pas de deux. Luce was grateful—and a lit le shocked—at how smoothly he'd been able to get her down from the mast of the ship, but as soon as she was rmly on the ground, she withdrew her hand from his grimy claw and wiped it on her apron.
It was starkly beautiful here. The crystal waters washed against the strange and lovely black-sand beaches. Groves of citrus and palm trees leaned over the coast, heavy with bright-orange fruit. Past the trees, low mountains rose up from the mists of the rain forest. Waterfal s cut leaned over the coast, heavy with bright-orange fruit. Past the trees, low mountains rose up from the mists of the rain forest. Waterfal s cut into their sides. The wind down here wasn't as erce; bet er stil , it was thick with the scent of hibiscus. It was hard to imagine get ing to spend a vacation here, let alone an entire life.
"You lived here." Bil started walking along the curved shoreline, leaving lit le claw prints in the dark sand. "Your dad, and al ten of the other natives who lived within canoeing distance, cal ed you—wel , it sounded like Lulu."
Luce had been walking quickly to keep pace, bal ing up the layered skirts of her Helston servant's clothing to keep them from dragging in the sand. She stopped and made a face.
"What?" Bil said. "I think it's cute, Lulu. Lulululululu."
"Stop it."
"Anyway, Daniel was a kind of rogue explorer. That boat back there? Your ace boyfriend stole it from George the Third's private slip." He glanced back at the shipwreck. "But it'l take Captain Bligh and his mutinous crew another couple of years to track Daniel down here, and by then … you know."
Luce swal owed. Daniel would probably be long gone by then, because Lucinda would be long dead. They'd reached a gap in the line of palm trees. A brackish river owed in swirls between the ocean and a smal inland freshwater pond. Luce edged along a few at stones to cross the water. She was sweating through her pet icoats and thought about stripping out of her sti ing dress and diving straight into the ocean.
"How much time do I have with Lulu?" she asked. "Before it happens?"
Bil held up his hands. "I thought al you wanted to see was proof that the love you share with Daniel is true."
"I do."
"For that, you won't need more than ten minutes."
They came upon a short orchid-lined path, which curved onto another pristine beach. A smal thatch-roofed hut rose on stilts near the edge of the light-blue water. Behind the hut, a palm tree shuddered.
Bil perched above her shoulder, hovering in the air. "Check her out." His stone claw pointed toward the palm. Luce watched in awe as a pair of feet emerged from the fronds high on the quaking tree trunk. Then a girl wearing lit le more than a woven skirt and an enormous oral lei tossed four shaggy brown coconuts to the beach before scampering down the knobby trunk to the ground.
Her hair was long and loose, catching in its dark strands diamonds of light from the sun. Luce knew the exact feel of it, the way it would tickle her arms as it swayed in waves past her waist. The sun had turned Lulu's skin a deep golden brown—darker than Luce had ever been, even when she spent a whole summer at her grandmother's beach house in Biloxi—and her face and arms were etched with dark geometric tat oos. She existed somewhere between ut erly unrecognizable and absolutely Luce.
"Wow," Luce whispered as Bil yanked her behind the shelter of a shrubby, purple-flowered tree. "Hey—Ow! What are you doing?"
"Escorting you to a safer vantage." Bil dragged her up again into the air, until they were rising through the canopy of leaves. Once they cleared the trees, he flew her to a high, sturdy branch and plunked her down, and she could see the whole beach.
"Lulu!"
The voice sank though Luce's skin and straight into her heart. Daniel's voice. He was cal ing to her. He wanted her. Needed her. Luce moved toward the sound. She hadn't even noticed that she'd started to rise from her seat on the high branch, as if she could just walk o the treetop and fly to him—until Bil gripped her elbow.
"Precisely why I had to drag your popa'a ass up here. He's not talking to you. He's talking to her."
"Oh." Luce sank back down heavily. "Right."
On the black sand, the girl with the coconuts, Lulu, was running. And down the beach, sprinting toward her, was Daniel. He was shirtless, gorgeously tanned and muscular, wearing only cropped navy-blue trousers that were fraying at the edges. His skin glit ered with seawater, fresh from a dip in the ocean. His bare feet kicked up sand. Luce envied the water, envied the sand. Envied everything that got to touch Daniel when she was stuck up in this tree. She envied her past self the most. Running toward Lulu, Daniel looked happier and more natural than Luce could ever remember seeing him. It made her want to cry. They reached each other. Lulu threw her arms around him, and he swept her up, twirling her in the air. He set her back on her feet and showered her with kisses, kissing her fingertips and her forearms, al the way up to her shoulders, her neck, her mouth. Bil reclined against Luce's shoulder. "Wake me up when they get to the good stuf ," he said, yawning.
"Pervert!" She wanted to slug him, but she didn't want to touch him.
"I mean the tat ooing, gut er-brain. I'm into tats, okay?"
When Luce looked back at the couple on the beach, Lulu was leading Daniel to a woven mat that was spread on the sand not far from the hut. Daniel pul ed a short machete from the belt of his trousers and hacked at one of the coconuts. After a few slashes, he split o the top and handed the rest of it to Lulu. She drank deeply, milk dripping from the corners of her mouth. Daniel kissed them clean.
"There's no tat ooing, they're just—" Luce broke o when her past self disappeared into the hut. Lulu reappeared a moment later carrying a smal parcel bound in palm leaves. She unwrapped a tool that looked like a wooden comb. The bristles gleamed in the sun, as if they were needle-sharp. Daniel lay back on the mat, watching as Lulu dipped the comb into a large shal ow seashel fil ed with a black powder. Lulu gave him a quick kiss and then began.
Starting at his breastbone, she pressed the comb into his skin. She worked quickly, pressing hard and fast, and each time she moved the comb she left a smear of black pigment tat ooed on his skin. Luce could begin to make out a design: a smal checkerboard-pat erned breastplate. It was going to span his entire chest. Luce's only trip to a tat oo parlor had been once in New Hampshire with Cal ie, who wanted a tiny pink heart on her hip. It had taken less than a minute and Cal ie had bel owed the whole time. Here, though, Daniel lay silently, never making a sound, never moving his eyes o Lulu. It took a long while, and Luce felt sweat trickle down the smal of her back as she watched.
"Eh? How 'bout that?" Bil nudged her. "Did I promise to show you love or did I promise to show you love?"
"Sure, they seem like they're in love." Luce shrugged. "But—"
"But what? Do you have any idea how painful that is? Look at that guy. He makes get ing inked look like being caressed by a soft breeze."
Luce squirmed on the branch. "Is that the lesson here? Pain equals love?"
"You tel me," Bil said. "It may surprise you to hear this, but the ladies aren't exactly banging down Bil 's door."
"I mean, if I tat ooed Daniel's name on my body would that mean I loved him more than I already do?"
"It's a symbol, Luce." Bil let out a raspy sigh. "You're being too literal. Think about it this way: Daniel is the rst good-looking boy Lulu has ever seen. Until he washed ashore a few months ago, this girl's whole world was her father and a few fat natives."
"She's Miranda," Luce said, remembering the love story from The Tempest, which she'd read in her tenth-grade Shakespeare seminar.
"How very civilized of you!" Bil pursed his lips with approval. "They are like Ferdinand and Miranda: The handsome foreigner shipwrecks on her shores—"
"So, of course it was love at rst sight for Lulu," Luce murmured. This was what she was afraid of: the same thoughtless, automatic love that had bothered her in Helston.
"Right," Bil said. "She didn't have a choice but to fal for him. But what's interesting here is Daniel. You see, he didn't have to teach her to craft a woven sail, or gain her father's trust by producing a season's worth of sh to cure, or exhibit C"—Bil pointed at the lovers on the beach—"agree to tat oo his whole body according to her local custom. It would have been enough if Daniel had just shown up. Lulu would have loved him anyway."
"He's doing it because—" Luce thought aloud. "Because he wants to earn her love. Because otherwise, he would just be taking advantage of their curse. Because no mat er what kind of cycle they're bound to, his love for her is … true."
So then why wasn't Luce entirely convinced?
On the beach, Daniel sat up. He took hold of Lulu by the shoulders and began kissing her tenderly. His chest bled from the tat ooing, but neither of them seemed to notice. Their lips barely parted, their eyes never left each other.
"I want to leave now," Luce said suddenly to Bil .
"Real y?" Bil blinked, standing up on the tree branch as if she'd startled him.
"Yes, real y. I've got en what I came here for and I'm ready to move on. Right now." She tried to stand, too, but the branch swayed under her weight.
"Um, okay." Bil took her arm to steady her. "Where to?"
"I don't know, but let's hurry." The sun was sinking in the sky behind them, lengthening the lovers' shadows on the sand. "Please. I want to hold on to one good memory. I don't want to see her die."
Bil 's face was pinched up and confused, but he didn't say anything.
Luce couldn't wait any longer. She closed her eyes and let her desire cal to an Announcer. When she opened her eyes again, she could see a quiver in the shadow of a nearby passion fruit tree. She concentrated, summoning it with al her might until the Announcer began to tremble.
"Come on," she said, grit ing her teeth.
At last, the Announcer freed itself, zipping of the tree and through the air, floating directly in front of her.
"Easy now," Bil said, hovering above the branch. "Desperation and Announcer-travel do not mix wel . Like pickles and chocolate."
Luce stared at him.
"I mean: Don't get so desperate that you lose sight of what you want."
"I want to get out of here," Luce said, but she couldn't coax the shadow into a stable shape, no mat er how hard she tried. She wasn't looking at the lovers on the beach, but nonetheless she could feel the darkness gathering in the sky over the beach. It wasn't rain clouds.
"Help me, Bil ?"
He sighed, reaching for the dark mass in the air, and drew it toward him. "This is your shadow, you realize. I'm manipulating it, but it's your Announcer and your past."
Luce nodded.
"Which means you have no idea where it's taking you, and I have no liability."
She nodded again.
"Okay, then." He rubbed at a part of the Announcer until it went darker; then he caught the dark spot with a claw and yanked on it. It worked like a sort of doorknob. The stink of mildew flooded out, making Luce cough.
"Yeah, I smel it, too," Bil said. "This is an old one." He gestured her forward. "Ladies first."
PRUSSIA ? JANUARY 7, 1758
A snowflake kissed Luce's nose.
Then another, and another, and more, until a storm of urries l ed the air and the whole world turned white and cold. She exhaled a long cloud of breath into the frost.
Somehow, she'd known they would end up here, even though she wasn't exactly sure where here was. Al she knew was that the afternoon skies were dark with a furious storm, and wet snow was seeping through her black leather boots, biting at her toes and chil ing her to the bone.
She was walking into her own funeral.
She'd felt it in the instant passing through this last Announcer. An oncoming coldness, unforgiving as a sheet of ice. She found herself at the gates of a cemetery, everything blanketed by snow. Behind her was a tree-lined road, the bare branches clawing at the pewter sky. Before her was a low rise of snow-shrouded earth, tombstones and crosses jut ing out of the white like jagged, dirty teeth. A few feet behind her, someone whistled. "You sure you're ready for this?" Bil . He sounded out of breath, like he'd just caught up with her."Yes." Her lips were chat ering. She didn't turn around until Bil swooped down near her shoulders.
"Here," he said, holding out a dark mink coat. "Thought you might be cold."
"Where did you—"
"I yoinked it of a broad coming home from the market back there. Don't worry, she had enough natural padding already."
"Bil !"
"Hey, you needed it!" He shrugged. "Wear it in good health."
He draped the thick coat over Luce's shoulders, and she pul ed it closer. It was unbelievably soft and warm. A wave of gratitude rushed over her; she reached up and took his claw, not even caring that it was sticky and cold.
"Okay," Bil said, squeezing her hand. For a moment, Luce felt an odd warmth in her ngertips. But then it was gone, and Bil 's stone ngers were stone cold. He took a deep, nervous breath. "Um. Uh. Prussia, mid-eighteenth century. You live in a smal vil age on the banks of the river Handel. Very nice." He cleared his throat and hacked up a large wad of phlegm before he went on. "I should say, er, that you of the river Handel. Very nice." He cleared his throat and hacked up a large wad of phlegm before he went on. "I should say, er, that you lived. You've actual y, just—wel —"
"Bil ?" She craned her neck to look at him sit ing hunched forward on her shoulder. "It's okay," she said softly. "You don't have to explain. Let me just, you know, feel it."
"That's probably best."
As Luce walked quietly through the cemetery gates, Bil hung back. He sat cross-legged on top of a lichen-swathed shrine, picking at the grit under his claws. Luce lowered her shawl over her head to obscure more of her face. Up ahead were mourners, black-clad and somber, pressed so tightly together for warmth that they looked like a single mass of grief. Except for one person who stood behind the group and of to one side. He hung his bare blond head. No one spoke to or even looked at Daniel. Luce couldn't tel whether he was bothered by being left out or whether he preferred it. By the time she reached the back of the smal crowd, the burial was drawing to a close. A name was carved into a at gray tombstone: Lucinda Mül er. A boy, no older than twelve, with dark hair and pale skin and tears streaming down his face, helped his father—her father from this other life?—shovel the first mound of dirt over the grave.
These men must have been related to her past self. They must have loved her. There were women and children crying behind them; Lucinda Mül er must have meant something to them as wel . Maybe she'd meant everything to them. But Luce Price didn't know these people. She felt cal ous and strange to realize that they meant nothing to her, even as she saw the pain mar their faces. Daniel was the only one here who real y mat ered to her, the one she wanted to run to, the one she had to hold herself back from.
He wasn't crying. He wasn't even staring at the grave like everyone else. His hands were clasped in front of him and he was looking far away—not at the sky, but far into the distance. His eyes were violet one moment, gray the next. When the family members had cast a few shovelfuls of dirt over the casket and the plot had been scat ered with owers, the funeral-goers split apart and walked shakily back to the main road. It was over.
Only Daniel remained. As immobile as the dead.
Luce hung back, too, dodging behind a squat mausoleum a few plots away, watching to see what he would do. It was dusk. They had the graveyard to themselves. Daniel lowered himself to his knees next to Lucinda's grave. Snow thrummed down on the cemetery, coating Luce's shoulders, fat akes get ing tangled in her eyelashes, wet ing the tip of her nose. She edged around the corner of the mausoleum, her entire body tensed.
Would he lose it? Would he claw at the frozen dirt and pound on the gravestone and bawl until there were no more tears he could shed?
He couldn't feel as calm as he looked. It was impossible, a front. But Daniel barely looked at the grave. He lay down on his side in the snow and closed his eyes.
Luce stared. He was so stil and gorgeous. With his eyelids closed, he looked at absolute peace. She was half in love, half confused, and stayed that way for several minutes—until she was so frozen, she had to rub her arms and stamp her feet to warm up.
"What is he doing?" she final y whispered.
Bil appeared behind her and flit ed around her shoulders. "Looks like he's sleeping."
"But why? I didn't even know angels needed to sleep—"
"Need isn't the right word. They can sleep if they feel like it. Daniel always sleeps for days after you die." Bil tossed his head, seeming to recal something unpleasant. "Okay, not always. Most of the time. Must be pret y taxing, to lose the one thing you love. Can you blame him?"
"S-sort of," Luce stammered. "I'm the one who bursts into flames."
"And he's the one who's left alone. The age-old question: Which is worse?"
"But he doesn't even look sad. He looked bored the entire funeral. If it were me, I'd … I'd …"
"You'd what?"
Luce moved toward the grave and stopped short at the loose earth where her plot began. A cof in lay beneath this. Her cof in.
The thought sent shivers up her spine. She sank to her knees and put her palms down in the dirt. It was damp and dark and freezing cold. She buried her hands inside it, feeling frostbit en almost instantly and not caring, welcoming the burn. She'd wanted Daniel to do this, to feel for her body in the earth. To go mad with wanting her back—alive and in his arms.
But he was just sleeping, so dead asleep that he didn't even sense her kneeling right beside him. She wanted to touch him, to wake him, but she didn't even know what she'd say when he opened his eyes.
Instead, she pawed at the muddy earth, until the owers laid so neatly on it were scat ered and broken, until the beautiful mink coat was soiled and her arms and face were covered in mud. She dug and dug and tossed the earth aside, reaching deeper for her dead self. She ached for some connection.
At last her ngers hit something hard: the wooden lid of the co n. She closed her eyes and waited for the kind of ash she'd felt in Moscow, the bolt of memories that had flooded through her when she'd touched the abandoned church gate and felt Luschka's life. Nothing.
Just emptiness. Loneliness. A howling white wind.
And Daniel, asleep and unreachable.
She sat back on her heels and sobbed. She didn't know a thing about the girl who had died. She felt she never would.
"Yoo-hoo," Bil said quietly from her shoulder. "You're not in there, you know?"
"What?"
"Think about it. You're not in there. You're a fleck of ash by now if you're anything. You didn't have a body to bury, Luce."
"Because of the fire. Oh. But then why …?" she asked, then stopped herself. "My family wanted this."
"They're strict Lutherans." Bil nodded. "Every Mül er for a hundred years has a tombstone in this cemetery. So your past self does, too. There's just nothing under it. Or not quite nothing. Your favorite dress. A childhood dol . Your copy of the Bible. That sort of thing."
Luce swal owed. No wonder she felt so empty inside. "So Daniel—that's why he wasn't looking at the grave."
"He's the only one who accepts that your soul is someplace else. He stayed because this is the closest place he can go to hold on to your memory." Bil swooped down so close to Daniel that the buzz of his stony wings rustled Daniel's hair. Luce almost pushed Bil away. "He'l try to sleep until your soul is set led somewhere else. Until you've found your next incarnation."
"How long does that take?"
"Sometimes seconds, sometimes years. But he won't sleep for years. As much as he'd probably like to."
Daniel's movement on the ground made Luce jump.
He stirred in his blanket of snow. An agonized groan escaped his lips.
"What's happening?" Luce said, dropping to her knees and reaching for him.
"Don't wake him!" Bil said quickly. "His sleep is riddled with nightmares, but it's bet er for him than being awake. Until your soul is set led in a new life, Daniel's whole existence is a kind of torture."
Luce was torn between wanting to ease Daniel's pain and trying to understand that waking him up might only worsen it.
"Like I said, on occasion, he sort of has insomnia … and that's when it gets real y interesting. But you wouldn't want to see that. Nah."
"I would," she said, sit ing up. "What happens?"
Bil 's eshy cheeks twitched, as if he'd been caught at something. "Wel , uh, a lot of times, the other fal en angels are around," he said, not meeting her eyes. "They get in and they, you know, try to console him."
"I saw them in Moscow. But that's not what you're talking about. There's something you're not tel ing me. What happens when—"
"You don't want to see those lives, Luce. It's a side of him—"
"It's a side of him that loves me, isn't it? Even if it's dark or bad or disturbing, I need to see it. Otherwise I stil won't understand what he goes through."
Bil sighed. "You're looking at me like you need my permission. Your past belongs to you."
Luce was already on her feet. She glanced around the cemetery until her eyes fel on a smal shadow stretching out from the back of her tombstone. There. That's the one. Luce was startled by her certainty. That had never happened before. At rst glance this shadow had looked like any of the other shadows she had clumsily summoned in the woods at Shoreline. But this time, Luce could see something in the shadow itself. It wasn't an image depicting any speci c destination, but instead a strange silver glow that suggested that this Announcer would take her where her soul needed to go next.
It was cal ing to her.
She answered, reaching inside herself, drawing on that glow to guide the shadow up of the ground. The shard of darkness peeled itself o the white snow and took shape as it moved closer. It was deep black, colder than the snow fal ing al around her, and it swept toward Luce like a giant, dark sheet of paper. Her ngers were cracked and numb with cold as she expanded it into a larger, control ed shape. It emit ed that familiar gust of foul-smel ing wind from its core. The portal was wide and stable before Luce realized she was out of breath.
"You're get ing good at this," Bil said. There was a strange edge to his voice that Luce didn't waste time analyzing. She also didn't waste time feeling proud of herself—though somewhere she could recognize that if Miles or Shelby had been here, they'd have been doing cartwheels right now. It was by far the best summoning she'd ever done on her own. But they weren't here. Luce was on her own, so al she could do was move on to the next life, observe more of Lucinda and Daniel, drink it al in until something began to make sense. She felt around the clammy edges for a latch or a knob, just some way in. Final y, the Announcer creaked open.
Luce took a deep breath. She looked back at Bil . "Are you coming or what?"
Gravely, he hopped onto her shoulder and grabbed hold of her lapel like the reins on a horse, and the two of them stepped through. LHASA, TIBET ? APRIL 30, 1740
Luce gasped for breath.
She'd come out of the dark of the Announcer into a swirl of fast-moving fog. The air was thin and cold and every lungful stabbed at her chest. She couldn't seem to catch her breath. The fog's cool white vapor blew her hair back, rode along her open arms, soaked her garments with dew, and then was gone.
Luce saw that she was standing at the edge of the highest cli she'd ever seen. She wobbled and staggered back, dizzy when she saw her feet dislodge a pebble. It rol ed forward a few inches and over the edge, plummeting forever down. She gasped again, this time from fear of heights.
"Breathe," Bil coached her. "More people pass out up here from panicking over not get ing enough oxygen than from actual y not get ing enough oxygen."
Luce inhaled careful y. That was slightly bet er. She lowered the dirty mink on her shoulders and enjoyed the sun on her face. But she stil couldn't get used to the view.
Stretching away from the cli where she stood was a yawning val ey spot ed with what looked like farmland and ooded rice paddies. And to either side, rising into misty heights, were two towering mountains.
Far ahead, carved right into one of the steep mountainsides, was a formidable palace. Majestical y white and capped by deep-red roofs, its outer wal s were festooned with more staircases than she could count. The palace looked like something out of an ancient fairy tale.
"What is this place? Are we in China?" she asked.
"If we stood here long enough, we would be," Bil said. "But right now, it's Tibet, thanks to the Dalai Lama. That's his pad over there." He pointed at the monster palace. "Swanky, eh?"
But Luce wasn't fol owing his finger. She'd heard a laugh from somewhere nearby and had turned to seek out its source. Her laugh. The soft, happy laugh she hadn't known was hers until she'd met Daniel.
She nal y spot ed two gures a few hundred yards away along the cli . She'd have to clamber across some boulders to get closer, but it wouldn't be that dif icult. She hunched in her muddy coat and started careful y picking her way through the snow, toward the sound.
"Whoa there." Bil grabbed her by the col ar of the coat. "Do you see any place for us to take cover?"
Luce looked around the bare landscape: al rocky drop-of s and open spaces. Nothing even to serve as shelter from the wind.
"We're above the tree line, pal. And you're smal , but you ain't invisible. You're going to have to hang back here."
"But I can't see a thing—"
"Coat pocket," Bil said. "You're welcome."
She felt around in the pocket of the coat—the same coat she'd been wearing at the funeral in Prussia—and pul ed out a brand-new, very expensive-looking pair of opera glasses. She didn't bother asking Bil where or when he'd got them, she just held them up to her eyes and twisted the focus.
There.
The two of them stood facing each other, several feet apart. Her past self's black hair was knot ed in a girlish bun, and her woven linen dress was the pink of an orchid. She looked young and innocent. She was smiling at Daniel, rocking back and forth on her feet like she was nervous, watching his every move with unbounded intensity. Daniel's eyes had a teasing look in them; a bunch of round white peonies were in his arms and he was doling them out to her one by one, making her laugh harder each time. Watching closely through the opera glasses, Luce noticed that their ngers never touched. They kept a certain distance from each other. Why? It was almost startling.
In the other lives she'd spied upon, Luce had seen so much passion and hunger. But here, it was di erent. Luce's body began to buzz, eager for just one moment of physical connection between them. If she couldn't touch Daniel, at least her old self could. But they were just standing there, now walking in circles. Never get ing any closer to each other or any farther apart. Every once in a while, their laughter would carry over to Luce again.
"Wel ?" Bil kept trying to squish his lit le face next to Luce's so he could look through one of the lenses of the opera glasses. "What's the word?"
"They're just talking. They're irting kind of like they're strangers, but at the same time they also seem to know each other real y wel . I don't get it."
"So they're taking it slow. What's wrong with that?" Bil asked. "Kids today, they just want things to go fast—boom boom BOOM."
"Nothing's wrong with taking it slow, I just—" Luce broke of .
Her past self fel to her knees. She began to rock back and forth, holding her head, then her heart. A horri ed look crossed Daniel's face. He looked so sti in his white pants and tunic, like a statue of himself. He shook his head, looking at the sky, his lips mouthing the words No. No. No.
The girl's hazel eyes had gone wild and ery, like something had possessed her. A high-pitched scream echoed out across the mountains. Daniel fel to the ground and buried his face in his hands. He reached out for her, but his hand hung in the air without ever connecting with her skin. His body crumpled and quaked, and when it mat ered most, he looked away.
Luce was the only one watching as the girl became, out of nowhere, a column of fire. So fast. The acrid smoke swirled over Daniel. His eyes were closed. His face glistened—wet with tears. He looked as miserable as he had looked every other time she'd watched him watch her die. But this time, he also looked sick with shock. Something was di erent. Something was wrong.
When Daniel had rst told her about his punishment, he'd said there had been some lives in which a single kiss had kil ed her. Worse, in which something short of a kiss had kil ed her. A single touch.
They had not touched. Luce had been watching the whole time. He'd been so careful not to come near her. Did he think he could have her longer by holding back the warmth of his embrace? Did he think he could outwit the curse by holding her always just out of reach?
"He didn't even touch her," she murmured.
"Bummer," Bil said.
Never touching her, not once the whole time they were in love. And now he'd have to wait it al out again, not knowing whether anything would even be dif erent next time. How could hope live in the face of that kind of defeat? Nothing about this made sense.
"If he didn't touch her, then what triggered her death?" She turned to Bil , who tilted his head and looked up into the sky.
"Mountains," he said. "Pret y!"
"You know something," Luce said. "What is it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know anything," he said. "Or nothing I can tel you."
A horrible, desolate cry echoed across the val ey. The sound of Daniel's agony resounded and returned, multiplied, as though a hundred Daniels were crying out together. Luce brought the opera glasses back up to her face and saw him dash the owers in his hands to the ground.
"I have to go to him!" she said.
"Too late," Bil said. "Here it comes."
Daniel backed away from the cli edge. Luce's heart pounded for fear of what he was about to do. He certainly wasn't going to sleep. He got a running start, picking up inhuman speed by the time he reached the clif 's edge, and then launched himself into the air. Luce waited for his wings to unfurl. She waited for the soft thunder of their grand unfolding, opening wide and catching the air in awesome glory. She'd seen him take flight like this in the past, and every time, it struck her to her core: How desperately she loved him. But Daniel's wings never shot out from his back. When he reached the edge of the clif , he went over like any other boy. And he fel like any other boy, too.
Luce screamed, a loud and long and terri ed cry, until Bil clapped his dirty stone hand over her mouth. She threw him o , ran to the edge of the clif , and crawled forward.
Daniel was stil fal ing. It was a long way down. She watched his body grow smal er and smal er.
"He'l extend his wings, won't he?" she gasped. "He'l realize that he's going to fal and fal until …"
She couldn't even say it.
"No," Bil said.
"But—"
"He'l slam right into that ground a couple of thousand feet down, yes," Bil said. "He'l break every bone in his body. But don't worry, he can't kil himself. He only wishes he could." He turned to her and sighed. "Now do you believe his love?"
"Yes," Luce whispered, because al she wanted to do at that moment was plunge o the cli after him. That was how much she loved him back.
But it wouldn't do any good.
"They were being so careful." Her voice was strained. "We both saw what happened, Bil : nothing. She was so innocent. So how could she have died?"
Bil sput ered a laugh. "You think you know everything about her just because you saw the last three minutes of her life from across a mountaintop?"
"You're the one who made me use binoculars … oh!" She froze. "Wait a minute!" Something haunted her about the way her past self's eyes had seemed to change, just for a moment, right at the end. And suddenly, Luce knew: "What kil ed her this time wasn't something I could have witnessed, anyway.…"
Bil rol ed his claws, waiting for her to finish the thought.
"It was happening inside her."
He applauded slowly. "I think you might be ready now."
"Ready for what?"
"Remember what I mentioned to you in Helston? After you talked to Roland?"
"You disagreed with him … about me get ing close to my past selves?"
"You stil can't rewrite the story, Luce. You can't change the narratives. If you try to—"
"I know, it distorts the future. I don't want to change the past. I just need to know what happens—why I keep dying. I thought it was a kiss, or a touch, or something physical, but it seems more complicated than that."
Bil yanked the shadow out from behind Luce's feet like a bul ghter wielding a red cape. Its edges ickered with silver. "Are you ready to put your soul where your mouth is?" he asked. "Are you ready to go three-D?"
"I'm ready." Luce punched open the Announcer and braced herself against the briny wind inside. "Wait," she said, looking at Bil hovering at her side. "What's three-D?"
"Wave of the future, kid," he said.
Luce gave him a hard stare.
"Okay, there's an unsonorous technical term for it—cleaving—but to me, three-D sounds much more fun." Bil dove inside the dark tunnel and beckoned her with a crooked finger. "Trust me, you'l love it."
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