by Lauren Kate
The light was on in her window. Luce imagined Shelby on the orange area rug, her legs crossed in the lotus position, meditating. How could Luce go in and pretend she hadn’t just seen an angel die? Or that everything that had happened this week hadn’t left her riddled with doubts?
“Let’s keep this evening’s happenings between us, shall we?” Cam said. “And going forward, do us all a favor and stay on campus, where you won’t get into trouble.”
She pushed past him, out of the beam of the stolen truck’s headlights and into the shadows cloaking the walls of her dorm.
Cam got back into the truck, revving the engine obnoxiously. But before he pulled away, he rolled down the window and called out to Luce, “You’re welcome.”
She turned around. “For what?”
He grinned and hit the gas. “For saving your life.”
SIX
THIRTEEN DAYS
“It’s here,” a loud voice sang outside Luce’s door early the next morning. Someone was knocking. “It’s finally here!”
The knocking grew more insistent. Luce didn’t know what time it was, other than way too early for all the giggling she could hear on the other side of the door.
“Your friends,” Shelby called from the top bunk.
Luce groaned and slid out of bed. She glanced up at Shelby, who was propped up on her stomach on the top bunk, already fully dressed in jeans and a puffy red vest, doing the Saturday crossword.
“Do you ever sleep?” Luce muttered, reaching into her closet to yank on the purple tartan robe her mother had sewn for her thirteenth birthday. It still fit her—sort of.
She pressed her face against the peephole and saw the convex smiling faces of Dawn and Jasmine. They were geared up with bright scarves and fuzzy earmuffs. Jasmine raised a cup holder with four coffees as Dawn, who had a large brown paper bag in her hand, knocked again.
“Are you going to shoo them away or should I call campus security?” Shelby asked.
Ignoring her, Luce swung open the door and the two girls flooded past her into the room, talking a mile a minute.
“Finally.” Jasmine laughed, handing Luce a cup of coffee before plopping down on the unmade bottom bunk. “We have so much to discuss.”
Neither Dawn nor Jasmine had ever come over before, but Luce was enjoying the way they acted right at home. It reminded her of Penn, who’d “borrowed” the spare key to Luce’s room so she could barrel in whenever the need arose.
Luce looked down at her coffee and swallowed hard. No way could she get emotional here, now, in front of these three.
Dawn was in the bathroom, rooting through the cupboards next to the sink. “As an integral member of the planning committee, we think you should be a part of the welcome address today,” she said, looking up at Luce in disbelief. “How are you not even dressed yet? The yacht leaves in, like, under an hour.”
Luce scratched her forehead. “Remind me?”
“Ugh.” Dawn groaned dramatically. “Amy Branshaw? My lab partner? The one whose father owns the monster yacht? Is any of this ringing a bell?”
It was all coming back to her. Saturday. The yacht trip up the coast. Jasmine and Dawn had pitched the distantly educational idea to Shoreline’s events committee—aka Francesca—and had somehow gotten it approved. Luce had agreed to help, but she hadn’t done a thing. All she could think about now was Daniel’s face when she’d told him about it, instantly dismissing the idea of Luce’s having fun without him.
Now Dawn was rifling through Luce’s closet. She pulled out a long-sleeved eggplant-colored jersey dress, tossed it at Luce, and shooed her into the bathroom. “Don’t forget leggings underneath. It’s cold out on the water.”
On her way, Luce grabbed her cell phone from its charger. Last night, after Cam had dropped her off, she’d felt so terrified and alone, she’d broken Mr. Cole’s number one rule and texted Callie. If Mr. Cole knew how badly she needed to hear from a friend … he’d probably still be furious with her. Too late now.
She opened her text message folder and recalled how her fingers had been shaking when she wrote the lie-filled text:
Finally scored a cell phone! Reception’s spotty, but I’ll call when I can. Everything’s great here, but I miss you! Write soon!
No response from Callie.
Was she sick? Busy? Out of town?
Ignoring Luce for ignoring her?
Luce glanced in the mirror. She looked and felt like crap. But she’d agreed to help Dawn and Jasmine, so she tugged on the jersey dress and twisted her blond hair back with a few bobby pins.
By the time Luce came out of the bathroom, Shelby was helping herself to the breakfast the girls had brought with them in the paper bag. It did look really good—cherry Danishes and apple fritters and muffins and cinnamon rolls and three different kinds of juice. Jasmine handed her an oversized bran muffin and a tub of cream cheese.
“Brain food.”
“What’s all this?” Miles stuck his head in through the slightly ajar door. Luce couldn’t see his eyes under his tugged-down baseball cap, but his brown hair was flipping up on the sides and his giant dimples showed when he smiled. Dawn went into an instant fit of giggles, for no other reason than that Miles was cute and Dawn was Dawn.
But Miles didn’t seem to notice. He was almost more relaxed and casual around a group of very girly girls than Luce was herself. Maybe he had a whole bunch of sisters or something. He wasn’t like some of the other kids at Shoreline, whose coolness seemed to be a front. Miles was genuine, the real thing.
“Don’t you have any friends your own gender?” Shelby asked, pretending to be more annoyed than she really was. Now that she knew her roommate a little better, Luce was starting to find Shelby’s abrasive humor almost charming.
“ ’Course.” Miles stepped into the room totally unfazed. “It’s just, my guy friends don’t usually show up with breakfast.” He slid a huge cinnamon roll out of the bag and took a giant bite. “You look pretty, Luce,” he said with his mouth full.
Luce blushed and Dawn stopped giggling and Shelby coughed into her sleeve: “Awkward!”
At the first sound of the loudspeaker in the hallway, Luce jumped. The other kids looked at her like she was nuts, but Luce was still used to Sword & Cross’s punishing PA pronouncements. Instead, Francesca’s amber voice poured into the room:
“Good morning, Shoreline. If you’re joining us on today’s yachting trip, the bus to the marina leaves in ten minutes. Let’s convene at the south entrance for a head count. And don’t forget to dress warmly!”
Miles grabbed another pastry for the road. Shelby pulled on a pair of polka-dot galoshes. Jasmine tightened the band of her pink earmuffs and shrugged at Luce. “So much for planning! We’ll have to wing the welcome address.”
“Sit by us on the bus,” Dawn instructed. “We’ll totally map it out on the way to Noyo Point.”
Noyo Point. Luce had to force herself to swallow a mouthful of bran muffin. The Outcast girl’s dead expression even when she was alive; the awful ride home with Cam—the memory brought goose bumps to Luce’s skin. It didn’t help that Cam had rubbed it in about saving her life. Right after he told her not to leave campus again.
Such a weird thing to say. Almost like he and Daniel were in cahoots.
Stalling, Luce sat on the edge of her bed. “So we’re all going?”
She’d never broken a promise to Daniel before. Even though she’d never really promised not to go on the yacht. The restriction felt so harsh and out of line, her instinct was to blow it off. But if she agreed to play by Daniel’s rules, maybe she wouldn’t have to face someone else’s getting killed. Though that was probably just her paranoia rearing up again. That note had deliberately lured her off campus. A school yacht trip was something else entirely. It wasn’t as though the Outcasts were piloting the boat.
“Of course we’re all going.” Miles grabbed Luce’s hand, pulling her to her feet and toward the door. “Why wouldn’t we?”
This was the moment of choice: Luce could stay safely on campus the way Daniel (and Cam) had told her. Like a prisoner. Or she could walk out this door and prove to herself that her life was her own.
Half an hour later, Luce was staring, along with half of Shoreline’s student body, at a shining white 130-foot Austal luxury yacht.
The air up at Shoreline had been clearer, but down on the water at the marina adjacent to the docks, there was still a thin felt of fog left over from the day before. When Francesca descended from the bus, she muttered, “Enough is enough,” and raised her palms in the air.
Very casually, as if she were pushing aside curtains from a window, she literally parted the fog with her fingers, opening up a rich plane of clear sky directly over the gleaming boat.
It was done so subtly, none of the non-Nephilim students or teachers could tell that anything other than nature was at work. But Luce gaped, not sure she had just seen what she thought she had seen until Dawn started clapping very quietly.
“Stunning, as usual.”
Francesca smiled slightly. “Yes, that’s better, isn’t it?”
Luce was beginning to notice all the small touches that could have been the work of an angel. The chartered coach ride had been so much smoother than the public bus she’d taken in the rain the day before. The storefronts seemed refreshed, as if the whole town had gotten a new coat of paint.
The students lined up to board the yacht, which was dazzling in the way very expensive things were. Its sleek profile curved like a seashell, and each of its three levels had its own broad white deck. From where they entered on the foredeck, Luce could see through the enormous windows into three plushly furnished cabins. In the warm, still sunshine down at the marina, Luce’s worries about Cam and the Outcasts seemed ridiculous. She was surprised to feel them melt away.
She followed Miles into the cabin on the second level of the yacht. The walls were a sedate taupe, with long black-and-white banquettes hugging the curved walls. A half dozen students had already thrown themselves down on the upholstered benches and were picking at the huge array of food that covered the coffee tables.
At the bar, Miles popped open a can of Coke, split it between two plastic glasses, and handed one to Luce. “So the demon says to the angel: ‘Sue me? Where do you think you’re going to have to go to find a lawyer?’ ” He nudged her. “Get it? ’Cause lawyers are supposed to all …”
A punch line. Her mind had been elsewhere and she’d missed the fact that Miles had even been telling a joke. She forced herself to crack up, laughing loudly, even slapping the top of the bar. Miles looked relieved, if not a little suspicious of her overblown reaction.
“Wow,” Luce said, feeling crummy as she scaled back her fake laughter. “That was a good one.”
To their left, Lilith, the tall redheaded triplet Luce had met on the first day of school, stopped the bite of tuna tartare on its way into her mouth. “What kind of lame half-breed joke is that?” She was scowling mostly at Luce, her glossy lips set in a snarl. “You actually think that’s funny? Have you ever even been to the underworld? It’s no laughing matter. We expect that from Miles, but I would have thought you had better taste.”
Luce was taken aback. “I didn’t realize it was a question of taste,” she said. “In that case, I’m definitely sticking with Miles.”
“Shhhh.” Francesca’s manicured hands were suddenly on both Luce’s and Lilith’s shoulders. “Whatever this is about, remember: You’re on a ship with seventy-three non-Nephilim students. The word of the day is discretion.”
That was still one of the weirdest parts about Shoreline as far as Luce was concerned. All the time they spent with the regular kids at the school, pretending they weren’t doing whatever it was they were actually doing inside the Nephilim lodge. Luce still wanted to talk to Francesca about the Announcers, to bring up what she had done earlier that week in the woods.
Francesca glided away and Shelby shoved up next to Luce and Miles. “Exactly how discreet do you think I need to be while giving seventy-three non-Nephilim swirlies in the cabin toilets?”
“You’re bad.” Luce laughed, then did a double take when Shelby held out her plate of antipasti. “Look who’s sharing,” Luce said. “And you call yourself an only child.”
Shelby jerked the plate back after Luce had helped herself to one olive. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it or anything.”
When the engine revved beneath their feet, the whole boatful of students cheered. Luce preferred moments like this at Shoreline, when she really couldn’t tell who was Nephilim and who wasn’t. A line of girls braved the cold outside, laughing as their hair tumbled in the wind. Some of the guys from her history class were getting a game of poker together in one corner of the main cabin. That table was where Luce would have expected to find Roland, but he was conspicuously absent.
Near the bar, Jasmine was taking pictures of the whole scene while Dawn motioned to Luce, miming with a pen and paper in the air that they still had to write out their speech. Luce was heading over to join them when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Steven through the windows.
He was by himself, leaning against the railing in a long black trench coat, a fedora capping his salt-and-pepper hair. It still made her nervous to think of him as a demon, especially because she genuinely liked him—or at least, what she knew of him. His relationship with Francesca confused her even more. They were such a unit: It reminded her of what Cam had said the night before about him and Daniel not being all that different. The comparison was still nagging at her as she slid open the tinted-glass door and stepped out on the deck.
All she could see on the westward side of the yacht was the endless blue on blue of ocean and clear sky. The water was calm, but a brisk wind tore around the sides of the boat. Luce had to hold on to the railing, squinting in the bright sunlight, shielding her eyes with her hand as she approached Steven. She didn’t see Francesca anywhere.
“Hello, Luce.” He smiled at her and took off his hat when she reached the railing. His face was tan for November. “How is everything?”
“That’s a big question,” she said.
“Have you felt overwhelmed this week? Our demonstration with the Announcer didn’t upset you too much? You know”—he lowered his voice—“we’ve never taught that before.”
“Upset me? No. I loved it,” Luce said quickly. “I mean—it was difficult to watch. But also fascinating. I’ve been wanting to talk about it with someone. …” With Steven’s eyes on her, she remembered the conversation she’d overheard her two teachers having with Roland. How it had been Steven, not Francesca, who’d been more open to including Announcers in the curriculum. “I want to learn all about them.”
“All about them?” Steven tilted his head, catching the full sun on his already golden skin. “That could take a while. There are trillions of Announcers, one for almost every moment in history. The field is endless. Most of us don’t even know where to begin.”
“Is that why you haven’t taught them before?”
“It’s controversial,” Steven said. “There are angels who don’t believe the Announcers have any value. Or that the bad things they often herald outweigh the good. They call advocates like me historical pack rats, too obsessed with the past to pay attention to the sins of the present.”
“But that’s like saying … the past doesn’t have any value.”
If that were true, it would mean that all of Luce’s former lives didn’t add up to anything, that her history with Daniel was also worthless. So all she’d have to go on was what she knew of Daniel in this lifetime. And was that really enough?
No. It wasn’t.
She had to believe there was more to what she felt for Daniel: a valuable, locked-away history that added up to something bigger than a few nights of blissful kissing and a few more nights of arguing. Because if the past had no value, that was really all they had.
“Judging from the look on your face,” Steven said, “it
seems like I’ve got another one on my side.”
“I hope you’re not filling Luce’s head with any of your devilish filth.” Francesca appeared behind them. Her hands were on her hips and a scowl was on her face. Until she started laughing, Luce had no idea she was teasing.
“We were talking about the shadows—I mean, the Announcers,” Luce said. “Steven just told me he thinks there are trillions of them.”
“Steven also thinks he doesn’t need to call a plumber when the toilet overflows.” Francesca smiled warmly, but there was an undercurrent in her voice that made Luce feel embarrassed, like she’d spoken too boldly. “You want to bear witness to more gruesome scenes like the one we examined in class the other day?”
“No, that’s not what I meant—”
“There’s a reason why certain things are best left in the hands of experts.” Francesca looked at Steven. “I’m afraid that, like a broken toilet, the Announcers as a window on the past are just one of those things.”
“Of course we understand why you in particular might be interested in them,” Steven said, drawing Luce’s full attention.
So Steven got it. Her past lives.
“But you must understand,” Francesca added, “that glimpsing shadows is highly risky without the proper training. If you are interested, there are universities, rigorous academic programs, even, that I would be happy to talk to you about down the road. But for now, Luce, you must forgive our mistake for showing it prematurely to a high school class, and then you must leave it at that.”
Luce felt strange and exposed. Both of them were watching her.
Leaning over the railing a little, she could see some of her friends on the ship’s main deck below. Miles had a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes and was trying to point something out to Shelby, who ignored him behind her giant Ray-Bans. At the stern, Dawn and Jasmine were seated on a ledge with Amy Branshaw. They were bent over a manila folder, making hurried notes.
