Passion for Thirteen: Star-Crossed

THIRTEEN

STAR-CROSSED

Something crunched under Luce's feet.

She raised the hem of her black gown: A layer of discarded walnut shel s on the ground was so thick the stringy brown bits rose up over the buckles of her emerald-green high-heeled slippers.

She was at the rear of a noisy crowd of people. Almost everyone around her was dressed in muted browns or grays, the women in long gowns with ruched bodices and wide cu s at the ends of their bel sleeves. The men wore tapered pants, broad mantles draping their shoulders, and at caps made of wool. She'd never stepped out of an Announcer into such a public place before, but here she was, in the middle of a packed amphitheater. It was startling—and riotously loud.

"Look out!" Bil grabbed the neck of her velvet capelet and yanked her backward, pinning her against the wooden rail of a staircase. A heartbeat later, two grimy boys barreled past in a reckless game of tag that sent a trio of women in their path fal ing over one another. The women heaved themselves back up and shouted curses at the boys, who jeered back, barely slowing down.

"Next time," Bil shouted in her ear, cupping his stone claws around his mouth, "could you try directing your lit le stepping-through exercises into a more—I don't know—serene set ing? How am I supposed to do your costuming in the middle of this mob?"

"Sure, Bil , I'l work on that." Luce edged back just as the boys playing tag zipped by again. "Where are we?"

"You've circled the globe to find yourself in the Globe, milady." Bil sketched a lit le bow.

"The Globe Theatre?" Luce ducked as the woman in front of her discarded a gnawed-on turkey leg by tossing it over her shoulder. "You mean, like, Shakespeare?"

"Wel , he claims to be retired. You know those artist types. So moody." Bil swooped down near the ground, tugging at the hem of her dress and humming to himself.

"Othel o happened here," Luce said, taking a moment to let it al sink in. "The Tempest. Romeo and Juliet. We're practical y standing in the center of al the greatest love stories ever writ en."

"Actual y, you're standing in walnut shel s."

"Why do you have to be so glib about everything? This is amazing!"

"Sorry, I didn't realize we'd need a moment of bardolatry." His words came out lisped because of the needle clipped between his jagged teeth. "Now stand stil ."

"Ouch!" Luce yelped as he jabbed sharply into her kneecap. "What are you doing?"

"Un-Anachronizing you. These folks'l pay good money for a freak show, but they're expecting it to stay onstage." Bil worked quickly, discreetly tucking the long, draped fabric of her black gown from Versail es into a series of folds and crimps so that it was gathered along the sides. He knocked away her black wig and pul ed her hair into a frizzy pouf. Then he eyed the velvet capelet around her shoulders. He whipped o the soft fabric. At last, he hocked a giant loogie into one hand, rubbed his palms together, and welded the capelet into a high Jacobean col ar.

"That is seriously disgusting, Bil ."

"Be quiet," he snapped. "Next time give me more space to work. You think I like ‘making do'? I don't." He jerked his head at the jeering throngs. "Luckily most of them are too drunk to notice the girl stepping out of the shadows at the back of the room."

Bil was right: No one was looking at them. Everyone was squabbling as they pressed closer to the stage. It was just a platform, raised about five feet of the ground, and, standing at the back of the rowdy crowd, Luce had trouble seeing it clearly.

"Come on, now!" a boy shouted from the back. "Don't make us wait al day!"

Above the crowd were three tiers of box seats, and then nothing: the O-shaped amphitheater opened on a midday sky the pale blue of a robin's egg. Luce looked around for her past self. For Daniel.

"We're at the opening of the Globe." She thought back to Daniel's words under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. "Daniel told me we were here."

"Sure, you were here," Bil said. "About fourteen years ago. Perched on your older brother's shoulder. You came with your family to see Julius Caesar."

Bil hovered in the air a foot in front of her. It was unappetizing, but the high col ar around her neck actual y seemed to hold its shape. She almost resembled the sumptuously dressed women in the higher boxes.

"And Daniel?" she asked.

"Daniel was a player—"

"Hey!"

"That's what they cal the actors." Bil rol ed his eyes. "He was just starting out then. To everyone else in the audience, his debut was ut erly forget able. But to lit le three-year-old Lucinda"—Bil shrugged—"it put the re in you. You've been quote-unquote dying to get onstage ever since. Tonight's your night."

"I'm an actor?"

No. Her friend Cal ie was the actor, not her. During Luce's last semester at the Dover School, Cal ie had begged Luce to try out with her for Our Town. The two of them had rehearsed for weeks before the audition. Luce got one line, but Cal ie had brought the house down with her portrayal of Emily Webb. Luce had watched from the wings, proud of and awed by her friend. Cal ie would have sold o her life's possessions to stand in the old Globe Theatre for one minute, let alone to get up on the stage. But then Luce remembered Cal ie's blood-drained face when she'd seen the angels bat le the Outcasts. What had happened to Cal ie after Luce had left? Where were the Outcasts now? How would Luce ever explain to Cal ie, or her parents, what had happened—if, that is, Luce ever returned to her backyard and that life?

Because Luce knew now that she wouldn't go back to that life until she'd gured out how to stop it from ending. Until she'd unraveled this curse that forced her and Daniel to live out the same star-crossed lovers' tale again and again. curse that forced her and Daniel to live out the same star-crossed lovers' tale again and again. She must be here in this theater for a reason. Her soul had drawn her here; why?

She pushed through the crowd, moving along the side of the amphitheater until she could see the stage. The wooden planks had been covered with a thick, hemplike mat ing made to look like rough grass. Two ful -sized cannons stood like guards near either wing, and a row of pot ed orange trees lined the back wal . Not far from Luce, a rickety wooden ladder led to a curtained space: the tiring-room—she remembered from the acting class she'd taken with Cal ie—where the actors got into their costumes and prepared for their scenes.

"Wait!" Bil cal ed as she hurried up the ladder.

Behind the curtain, the room was smal and cramped and dimly lit. Luce passed stacks of manuscripts and open wardrobes ful of costumes, ogling a massive lion's-head mask and rows of hanging gold and velvet cloaks. Then she froze: Several actors were standing around in various stages of undress—boys with half-but oned gowns, men lacing up brown leather boots. Thankful y, the actors were busily powdering their faces and frantical y rehearsing lines, so that the room was fil ed with short shouted-out fragments of the play. Before any of the actors could look up and see her, Bil ew to Luce's side and pushed her into one of the wardrobes. Clothes closed around her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Let me remind you that you're an actor in a time when there are no actresses." Bil frowned. "You don't belong back here as a woman. Not that that stopped you. Your past self took some pret y grand risks to get herself a role in Al Is True."

"Al Is True?" Luce repeated. She'd been hoping she would at least recognize the title. No such luck. She peeked out of the wardrobe into the room.

"You know it as Henry the Eighth," Bil said, yanking her back by the col ar. "But pay at ention: Would you like to venture a guess as to why your past self would lie and disguise herself to land a role—"

"Daniel."

He'd just come into the tiring-room. The door to the yard outside was stil open behind him; the sun was at his back. Daniel walked alone, reading a handwrit en script, hardly noticing the other players around him. He looked di erent than he had in any of her other lives. His blond hair was long and a bit wavy, gathered with a black band at the nape of his neck. He had a beard, neatly trimmed, just a bit darker in color than the hair on his head.

Luce felt an urge to touch it. To caress his face and run her ngers through his hair and trace the back of his neck and touch every part of him. His white shirt gaped open, showing the clean line of muscles on his chest. His black pants were baggy, gathered into knee-high black boots.

As he drew nearer, her heart began to pound. The roar of the crowd in the pit fel away. The stink of dried sweat from the costumes in the wardrobe disappeared. There was just the sound of her breathing and his footsteps moving toward her. She stepped out of the wardrobe. At the sight of her, Daniel's thunderstorm-gray eyes glowed violet. He smiled in surprise. She couldn't hold it in any longer. She rushed toward him, forget ing Bil , forget ing the actors, forget ing the past self, who could be anywhere, steps away, the girl this Daniel real y belonged to. She forgot everything but her need to be held by him. He slid his arms easily around her waist, guiding her quickly to the other side of the bulky wardrobe, where they were hidden from the other actors. Her hands found the back of his neck. A warm rush rippled through her. She closed her eyes and felt his lips come down on hers, featherlight—almost too light. She waited to feel the hunger in his kiss. She waited. And waited. Luce inched higher, arching her neck so that he would kiss her harder, more deeply. She needed his kiss to remind her why she was doing this, losing herself in the past and seeing herself dying again and again: because of him, because of the two of them together. Because of their love.

Touching him again reminded her of Versail es. She wanted to thank him for saving her from marrying the king. And to beg him never to hurt himself again as he'd done in Tibet. She wanted to ask what he'd dreamed about when he'd slept for days after she'd died in Prussia. She wanted to hear what he'd said to Luschka right before she died that awful night in Moscow. She wanted to pour out her love, and break down and cry, and let him know that every second of every lifetime she'd been through, she had missed him with al her heart. But there was no way to communicate any of that to this Daniel. None of that had even happened yet to this Daniel. Besides, he took her for the Lucinda of this era, the girl who didn't know any of the things that Luce had come to know. There were no words to tel him. Her kiss was the only way she could show him that she understood.

But Daniel wouldn't kiss her the way she wanted. The closer she pressed to him, the farther back he leaned. Final y he pushed her away completely. He held on only to her hands, as if the rest of her were dangerous.

"Lady." He kissed the very tips of her fingers, making her shiver. "Would I be too bold to say your love makes you unmannerly?"

"Unmannerly?" Luce blushed.

Daniel took her back into his arms, slowly, a bit nervously. "Good Lucinda, you must not nd yourself in this place dressed as you are." His eyes kept returning to her dress. "What clothes are these? Where is your costume?" He reached into a wardrobe and icked through the clothes pegs.

Quickly, Daniel began to unlace his boots, tossing them on the oor with two thuds. Luce tried not to gape when he dropped his trousers. He wore short gray pantaloons underneath that left very lit le to the imagination.

Her cheeks burned as Daniel briskly unbut oned his white shirt. He yanked it o , exposing the ful beauty of his chest. Luce sucked in her breath. The only things missing were his unfurled wings. Daniel was so impeccably gorgeous—and he seemed to have no idea of the e ect he was having on her by standing there in his underwear.

She gulped, fanning herself. "Is it hot in here?"

"Put these on until I can fetch your costume," he said, tossing the clothes at her. "Hurry, before someone sees you." He dashed to the wardrobe in the corner and ri ed through it, pul ing out a rich green-and-gold robe, another white shirt, and a pair of cropped green pants. He hurried into the new clothes—his costume, Luce guessed—as she picked up his discarded street clothes. Luce remembered that it had taken the servant girl in Versail es a half hour to squeeze her into this dress. There were strings and ties and laces in al sorts of private places. There was no way she was going to be able to get out of it with any sort of dignity.

"There was, um, a costume change." Luce gripped the black fabric of her skirt. "I thought this would look nice for my character."

Luce heard footsteps behind her, but before she could turn, Daniel's hand pul ed her deep into the wardrobe next to him. It was cramped and dark and wonderful to be so close. He pul ed the door shut as far as it would go and stood before her, looking like a king with the green-and-gold robe wrapped around him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Where did you get this? Is our Anne Boleyn suddenly from Mars?" He chuckled. "I always thought she hailed from Wiltshire."

Wiltshire."

Luce's mind raced to catch up. She was playing Anne Boleyn? She'd never read this play, but Daniel's costume suggested he was playing the king, Henry VI I.

"Mr. Shakespeare—ah, Wil —thought it would look good—"

"Oh, Wil did?" Daniel smirked, not believing her at al but seeming not to care. It was strange to feel that she could do or say almost anything and Daniel would stil find it charming. "You're a lit le bit mad, aren't you, Lucinda?"

"I—wel —"

He brushed her cheek with the back of his finger. "I adore you."

"I adore you, too." The words tumbled from her mouth, feeling so real and so true after the last few stammering lies. It was like let ing out a long-held breath. "I've been thinking, thinking a lot, and I wanted to tel you that—that—"

"Yes?"

"The truth is that what I feel for you is … deeper than adoration." She pressed her hands over his heart. "I trust you. I trust your love. I know now how strong it is, and how beautiful." Luce knew that she couldn't come right out and say what she real y meant—she was supposed to be a di erent version of herself, and the other times, when Daniel had gured out who she was, where she'd come from, he'd clammed up immediately and told her to leave. But maybe if she chose her words careful y, Daniel would understand. "It may seem like sometimes I—I forget what you mean to me and what I mean to you, but deep down … I know. I know because we are meant to be together. I love you, Daniel."

Daniel looked shocked. "You—you love me?"

"Of course." Luce almost laughed at how obvious it was—but then she remembered: She had no idea which moment from her past she'd walked into. Maybe in this lifetime they'd only exchanged coy glances.

Daniel's chest rose and fel violently and his lower lip began to quiver. "I want you to come away with me," he said quickly. There was a desperate edge to his voice.

Luce wanted to cry out Yes!, but something held her back. It was so easy to get lost in Daniel when his body was pressed so close to hers and she could feel the heat coming o his skin and the beating of his heart through his shirt. She felt she could tel him anything now—from how glorious it had felt to die in his arms in Versail es to how devastated she was now that she knew the scope of his su ering. But she held back: The girl he thought she was in this lifetime wouldn't talk about those things, wouldn't know about them. Neither would Daniel. So when she final y opened her mouth, her voice faltered.

Daniel put a finger over her lips. "Wait. Don't protest yet. Let me ask you properly. By and by, my love."

He peeked out the cracked wardrobe door, toward the curtain. A cheer came from the stage. The audience roared with laughter and applause. Luce hadn't even realized the play had begun.

"That's my entrance. I'l see you soon." He kissed her forehead, then dashed out and onto the stage. Luce wanted to run after him, but two figures came and stood just beyond the wardrobe door. The door squeaked open and Bil flut ered inside. "You're get ing good at this," he said, flopping onto a sack of old wigs.

"Where have you been hiding?"

"Who, me? Nowhere. What would I have to hide from?" he asked. "That lit le costume-change sham was a wee stroke of genius," he said, raising his tiny hand for a high five.

It was always a bit of a buzz kil to be reminded that Bil was a fly on the wal during every interaction with Daniel.

"You're real y going to leave me hanging like this?" Bil slowly withdrew his hand.

Luce ignored him. Something felt heavy and raw in her chest. She kept hearing the desperation in Daniel's voice when he'd asked her to run away with him. What had that meant?

"I'm dying tonight. Aren't I, Bil ?"

"Wel …" Bil cast his eyes down. "Yes."

Luce swal owed hard. "Where's Lucinda? I need to get inside her again so I can understand this lifetime." She pushed at the wardrobe door, but Bil took hold of the sash on her gown and pul ed her back.

"Look kid, going three-D can't be your go-to move. Think of it as a special-occasion skil ." He pursed his lips. "What is it you think you're going to learn here?"

"What she needs to escape from, of course," Luce said. "What is Daniel saving her from? Is she engaged to someone else? Living with a cruel uncle? Out of favor with the king?"

"Uh-oh." Bil scratched the top of his head. It made a grating sound, like nails on a chalkboard. "I must have made a pedagogical boo-boo somewhere. You think there's a reason for your death every time?"

"There's not?" She could feel her face fal .

"I mean, your deaths aren't meaningless, exactly.…"

"But when I died inside Lys, I felt everything—she believed that burning up freed her. She was happy because marrying that king would have meant her life was a lie. And Daniel could save her by kil ing her."

"Oh, honey, is that what you think? That your deaths are an out for bad marriages or something?"

She squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of sudden tears. "It has to be something like that. It has to be. Otherwise it's just pointless."

"It's not pointless," Bil said. "You do die for a reason. Just not so simple a reason. You can't expect to understand it al at once."

She grunted in frustration and banged her fist against the side of the wardrobe.

"I can see what you're al jacked up about," Bil said nal y. "You went three-D and you think you unlocked the secret of your universe. But it's not always that neat and easy. Expect chaos. Embrace chaos. You should stil try to learn as much as you can from every life you visit. Maybe in the end, it'l al add up to something. Maybe you'l end up with Daniel … or maybe you'l decide there's more to life than—"

A rustling startled them. Luce peeked around the wardrobe door.

A man, around fty, with a salt-and-pepper goatee and a smal potbel y, stood just behind an actor in a dress. They were whispering. When the girl turned her head a lit le, the stage lights lit up her pro le. Luce froze at the sight: a delicate nose and smal lips made up with pink powder. A dark brown wig with just a few strands of long black hair showing underneath. A gorgeous golden gown. It was Lucinda, ful y costumed as Anne Boleyn and about to go onstage.

Luce edged out of the wardrobe. She felt nervous and tongue-tied but also oddly empowered: If what Bil had told her was true, there wasn't a lot of time left.

"Bil ?" she whispered. "I need you to do that thing where you press Pause so I can—"

"Shhhh!" Bil 's hiss had a nality that said Luce was on her own. She would just have to wait until this man left so she could get Lucinda alone.

Unexpectedly, Lucinda moved toward the wardrobe where Luce was hiding. Lucinda reached inside. Her hand moved toward the golden cloak right next to Luce's shoulder. Luce held her breath, reached up, clasped her fingers with Lucinda's. Lucinda gasped and threw the door wide, staring deep into Luce's eyes, teetering on the edge of some inexplicable understanding. The oor beneath them seemed to tilt. Luce grew dizzy, closing her eyes and feeling as if her soul had dropped out of her body. She saw herself from the outside: her strange dress that Bil had altered on the y, the raw fear in her eyes. The hand in hers was soft, so soft she could barely feel it.

She blinked and Lucinda blinked and then Luce didn't feel any hand at al . When she looked down, her hand was empty. She'd become the girl she'd been holding on to. Quickly, she grabbed the cloak and set led it over her shoulders. The only other person in the tiring-room was the man who'd been whispering to Lucinda. Luce knew then that he was Wil iam Shakespeare. Wil iam Shakespeare. She knew him. They were, the three of them—Lucinda, Daniel, and Shakespeare—friends. There had been a summer afternoon when Daniel had taken Lucinda to visit Shakespeare at his home in Stratford. Toward sunset, they'd sat in the library, and while Daniel worked on his sketches at the window, Wil had asked her question after question—al the while taking furious notes—about when she'd first met Daniel, how she felt about him, whether she thought she could one day fal in love. Aside from Daniel, Shakespeare was the only one who knew the secret of Lucinda's identity—her gender—and the love the players shared o stage. In exchange for his discretion, Lucinda was keeping the secret that Shakespeare was present that night at the Globe. Everyone else in the company assumed that he was in Stratford, that he'd handed over the reins of the theater to Master Fletcher. Instead, Wil appeared incognito to see the play's opening night.

When she returned to his side, Shakespeare gazed deep into Lucinda's eyes. "You've changed."

"I—no, I'm stil "—she felt the soft brocade around her shoulders. "Yes, I found the cloak."

"The cloak, is it?" He smiled at her, winked. "It suits you."

Then Shakespeare put his hand on Lucinda's shoulder, the way he always did when he was giving directorial instructions: "Hear this: Everyone here already knows your story. They'l see you in this scene, and you won't say or do very much. But Anne Boleyn is a rising star in the court. Every one of them has a stake in your destiny." He swal owed. "As wel : Don't forget to hit the mark at the end of your line. You need to be downstage left for the start of the dance."

Luce could feel her lines in the play run across her mind. The words would be there when she needed them, when she stepped onstage in front of al these people. She was ready.

The audience roared and applauded again. A rush of actors exited the stage and l ed the space around her. Shakespeare had already slipped away. She could see Daniel on the opposite wing of the stage. He towered over the other actors, regal and impossibly gorgeous. It was her cue to walk onstage. This was the start of the party scene at Lord Wolsey's estate, where the king—Daniel—would perform an elaborate masque before taking Anne Boleyn's hand for the rst time. They were supposed to dance and fal heavily in love. It was supposed to be the very beginning of a romance that changed everything.

The beginning.

But for Daniel, it wasn't the beginning at al .

For Lucinda, however, and for the character she was playing—it was love at rst sight. Laying eyes on Daniel had felt like the rst real thing ever to happen to Lucinda, just as it had felt for Luce at Sword & Cross. Her whole world had suddenly meant something in a way it never had before.

Luce could not believe how many people were crowded into the Globe. They were practical y on top of the actors, pressed so close to the stage in the pit that at least twenty spectators had their elbows propped up on the stage itself. She could smel them. She could hear them breathing.

And yet, somehow, Luce felt calm, even energized—as if instead of panicking under al this at ention, Lucinda was coming to life. It was a party scene. Luce was surrounded by Anne Boleyn's ladies-in-waiting; she almost laughed at how comical her "ladies" looked around her. These teen boys' Adam's apples bobbed obviously under the glare of the stage lanterns. Sweat formed rings under the arms of their padded dresses. Across the stage, Daniel and his court stood watching her unabashedly, his love plain on his face. She played her part e ortlessly, sneaking just enough admiring glances at Daniel to pique both his and the audience's interest. She even improvised a move—

pul ing her hair away from her long, pale neck—that gave a foreboding hint of what everyone knew awaited the real Anne Boleyn. Two players drew close, flanking Luce. They were the noblemen of the play, Lord Sands and Lord Wolsey.

"Ladies, you are not merry. Gentleman, whose fault is this?" Lord Wolsey's voice boomed. He was the host of the party—and the vil ain—and the actor playing him had incredible stage presence.

Then he turned and swept his gaze around to look at Luce. She froze.

Lord Wolsey was being played by Cam.

There was no space for Luce to shout, curse, or ee. She was a professional actor now, so she stayed col ected, and turned to Wolsey's companion, Lord Sands, who delivered his lines with a laugh.

"The red wine first must rise in their fair cheeks, my lord," he said.

When it was Lucinda's turn to deliver her line, her body trembled, and she sneaked a peek at Daniel. His violet eyes smoothed over the roughness she felt. He believed in her.

"You are a merry gamester, my lord Sands," Luce felt herself say loudly, in a perfectly pitched teasing tone. Then Daniel stepped forward and a trumpet sounded, fol owed by a drum. The dance was beginning. He took her hand. When he spoke, he spoke to her, not to the audience, as the other players did.

"The fairest hand I ever touched," Daniel said. "O Beauty, til now I never knew thee." As if the lines had been writ en for the two of them. They began to dance, and Daniel locked eyes with her the whole time. His eyes were crystal clear and violet, and the way they never strayed from hers chipped away at Luce's heart. She knew he'd loved her always, but until this moment, dancing with him on the stage in front of al these people, she had never real y thought about what it meant.

It meant that when she saw him for the rst time in every life, Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fal in love with him from scratch. He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time.

Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream. It was the purest form of love there was, purer even than the love Luce returned. His love owed without breaking, without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across al eternity. How powerful y strong must it be by now? Hundreds of lifetimes of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too al eternity. How powerful y strong must it be by now? Hundreds of lifetimes of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend.

He loved her that much, and yet in every lifetime, over and over again, he had to wait for her to catch up. Al this time, they had been dancing with the rest of the troupe, bounding in and out of the wings at breaks in the music, coming back onstage for more gal antry, for longer sets with more ornate steps, until the whole company was dancing. At the close of the scene, even though it wasn't in the script, even though Cam was standing right there watching, Luce held fast to Daniel's hand and pul ed him to her, up against the pot ed orange trees. He looked at her like she was crazy and tried to tug her to the mark dictated by her stage directions. "What are you doing?" he murmured.

He had doubted her before, backstage when she'd tried to speak freely about her feelings. She had to make him believe her. Especial y if Lucinda died tonight, understanding the depth of her love would mean everything to him. It would help him to carry on, to keep loving her for hundreds more years, through al the pain and hardship she'd witnessed, right up to the present. Luce knew that it wasn't in the script, but she couldn't stop herself: She grabbed Daniel and she kissed him. She expected him to stop her, but instead he swooped her into his arms and kissed her back. Hard and passionately, responding with such intensity that she felt the way she did when they were flying, though she knew her feet were planted on the ground. For a moment, the audience was silent. Then they began to hol er and jeer. Someone threw a shoe at Daniel, but he ignored it. His kisses told Luce that he believed her, that he understood the depth of her love, but she wanted to be absolutely sure.

"I wil always love you, Daniel." Only, that didn't seem quite right—or not quite enough. She had to make him understand, and damn the consequences—if she changed history, so be it. "I'l always choose you." Yes, that was the word. "Every single lifetime, I'l choose you. Just as you have always chosen me. Forever."

His lips parted. Did he believe her? Did he already know? It was a choice, a long-standing, deep-seated choice that reached beyond anything else Luce was capable of. Something powerful was behind it. Something beautiful and—

Shadows began to swirl in the rigging overhead. Heat quaked through her body, making her convulse, desperate for the ery release she knew was coming.

Daniel's eyes flashed with pain. "No," he whispered. "Please don't go yet."

Somehow, it always took both of them by surprise.

As her past self's body erupted into ames, there was a sound of cannon re, but Luce couldn't be sure. Her eyes went blurry with brightness and she was cast far up and out of Lucinda's body, into the air, into darkness.

"No!" she cried as the wal s of the Announcer closed around her. Too late.

"What's the problem now?" Bil asked.

"I wasn't ready. I know Lucinda had to die, but I—I was just—" She'd been on the brink of understanding something about the choice she'd made to love Daniel. And now everything about those last moments with Daniel had gone up in flames along with her past self.

"Wel , there's not much more to see," Bil said. "Just the usual routine of a building catching fire—smoke, wal s of flame, people screaming and stampeding toward the exits, trampling the less fortunate underfoot—you get the picture. The Globe burned to the ground."

"What?" she said, feeling sick. "I started the re at the Globe?" Surely burning down the most famous theater in English history would have repercussions across time.

"Oh, don't get al self-important. It was going to happen anyway. If you hadn't burst into ames, the cannon onstage would have mis red and taken the whole place out."

"This is so much bigger than me and Daniel. Al those people—"

"Look, Mother Teresa, no one died that night … besides you. No one else even got hurt. Remember that drunk leering at you from the third row? His pants catch on fire. That's the worst of it. Feel bet er?"

"Not real y. Not at al ."

"How about this: You're not here to add to your mountain of guilt. Or to change the past. There's a script, and you have your entrances and your exits."

"I wasn't ready for my exit."

"Why not? Henry the Eighth sucks, anyway."

"I wanted to give Daniel hope. I wanted him to know that I would always choose him, always love him. But Lucinda died before I could be sure he understood." She closed her eyes. "His half of our curse is so much worse than mine."

"That's good, Luce!"

"What do you mean? That's horrible!"

"I mean that lit le gem—that ‘Wah, Daniel's agony is in nitely more horrible than mine'—that's what you learned here. The more you understand, the closer you'l get to knowing the root of the curse, and the more likely it is that you'l eventual y nd your way out of it. Right?"

"I—I don't know."

"I do. Now come on, you've got bigger roles to play."

Daniel's side of the curse was worse. Luce could see that now very clearly. But what did it mean? She didn't feel any closer to being able to break it. The answer eluded her. But she knew Bil was right about one thing: She could do nothing more in this lifetime. Al she could do was keep going back.