“Come on.” He tugged her up. The Announcer hovered in front of them and began to morph into a new shape, until it almost resembled the flaps of a tent. Bill flew into the air, hooked his finger into an invisible latch, and tugged. The Announcer rearranged itself, lowering itself like a drawbridge until all Luce could see was a tunnel of darkness.
Luce glanced back toward Daniel and Lucinda, but she couldn’t see them—only outlines of them, blurs of color pressing together.
Bill made a sweeping motion with his free hand into the belly of the Announcer. “Step right in.”
And so she did.
EIGHT
WATCHING FROM THE WINGS
Daniel’s clothes were sun-bleached and his cheek was caked with sand when he woke up on the desolate coast of Cornwall. It might have been a day, a week, a month that he’d been out there wandering alone. However much time had passed, he’d spent all of it punishing himself for his mistake.
Encountering Lucinda like that in the dressmaker’s had been so grave an error that Daniel’s soul burned every time he thought of it.
And he couldn’t stop thinking of it.
Her full pink lips curling around the words:
So lovely and so perilous.
Oh, why couldn’t it have been something small? Some brief exchange well into their courtship? Then it might not have mattered so much. But a first sighting! Lucinda Biscoe’s first sighting had been of
But no: If that were so, he wouldn’t have his Luce in his memory. Time would have revised itself and he would have no regrets at all because his Luce would be different.
His past self must have responded to Lucinda Biscoe in a way that covered Daniel’s mistake. He couldn’t quite remember how things had begun, only how they’d ended. But no matter: He wouldn’t get anywhere near his past self to warn him, for fear of running into Lucinda again and doing yet more damage. All he could do was back away and wait it out.
He was used to eternity, but this had been Hell.
Daniel lost track of time, let it drift into the sounds of the ocean washing up against the shore. For a little while, at least.
He could easily resume his quest by stepping into an Announcer and chasing Luce to the next life she visited. But for some reason, he stuck around Helston, waiting until Lucinda Biscoe’s life ended here.
Waking up that evening, the sky slashed by purple clouds, Daniel sensed it. Midsummer. The night she would die. He wiped the sand from his skin and felt the strange tenderness in his hidden wings. His heart throbbed with every beat.
It was time.
Lucinda’s death would not happen until after nightfall.
Daniel’s earlier self would be alone in the Constances’ parlor. He would be drawing Lucinda Biscoe one last time. His bags would sit outside the door, empty as usual save for a leather-bound pencil case, a few sketchbooks, his book about the Watchers, an extra pair of shoes. He really had been planning to sail the next morning. What a lie.
In the moments leading up to her deaths, Daniel rarely was honest with himself. He always lost himself in his love. Every time, he fooled himself, got drunk on her presence, and lost track of what must be.
He remembered particularly well how it had ended in this Helston life: denying that she had to die right up until the instant he pressed her up against the ruby-velvet curtains and kissed her into oblivion.
He’d cursed his fate then; he had made an ugly scene. He could still feel the agony, fresh as an iron’s brand across his skin. And he remembered the visitation.
Waiting out the sunset, he stood alone on the shore and let the water kiss his bare feet. He closed his eyes and spread his arms and allowed his wings to burst out from the scars on his shoulders. They billowed behind him, bobbing in the wind and giving him a weightlessness that provided some momentary peace. He could see how bright they were in their reflection on the water, how huge and fierce they made him look.
Sometimes, when Daniel was at his most inconsolable, he refused to let his wings out. It was a punishment he could administer to himself. The deep relief, the palpable, incredible sense of freedom that unfurling his wings gave to his soul only felt false, like a drug. Tonight he allowed himself that rush.
He bent his knees to the sand and kicked off into the air.
A few feet above the surface of the water, he quickly rolled around so that his back was to the ocean, his wings spread beneath him like a magnificent shimmering raft.
He skimmed the surface, stretching out his muscles with each long beat of his wings, sliding along the waves until the water changed from turquoise to icy blue. Then he plunged down under the surface. His wings were warm where the ocean was cool, creating a small wake of violet to encircle him.
Daniel loved to swim. The chill of the water, the unpredictable beat of the current, the synchronicity of the ocean with the moon. It was one of a few earthly pleasures he truly understood. Most of all, he loved to swim with Lucinda.
With every stroke of his wings, Daniel imagined Lucinda there with him, sliding gracefully through the water as she had so many times before, basking in the warm shimmery glow.
When the moon was bright in the dark sky and Daniel was somewhere off the coast of Reykjavik, he shot out of the water. Straight up, beating his wings with a ferocity that shook off the cold.
The wind whipped at his sides, drying him in seconds as he sailed higher and higher into the air. He burst through thick gray banks of clouds, then turned back and began to coast under starry Heaven’s expanse.
His wings beat freely, deeply, strong with love and terror and thoughts of her, rippling the water underneath him so that it shimmered like diamonds. He picked up tremendous speed as he flew back over the Faroe Islands and across the Irish Sea. He sailed down along St. George’s Channel and, finally, back to Helston.
How against his nature to watch the girl he loved show up just to die!
But Daniel had to see beyond this moment and this pain. He had to look toward all the Lucindas who would come after this one sacrifice—and the one whom he pursued, the final Luce, who would end this cursed cycle.
Lucinda’s death tonight was the only way the two of them could win, the only way they’d ever have a chance.
By the time he reached the Constance estate, the house was dark and the air was hot and still.
He tucked his wings up close to his body, slowing his descent along the south side of the property. There was the white roof of the gazebo, an aerial view of the gardens. There was the moonlit pebbled path she should have walked along just moments ago, sneaking out of her father’s house next door after everyone else was asleep. Her nightgown covered by a long black cloak, her modesty forgotten in her haste to find him.
And there—the light in the parlor, the single candelabra that had drawn her to him. The curtains were parted slightly. Enough for Daniel to look in without risk of being seen.
He reached the parlor window on the second floor of the great house and let his wings beat lightly, hovering outside like a spy.
Was she even there? He inhaled slowly, let his wings fill with air, and pressed his face against the glass.
Just Daniel sketching furiously on his pad in the corner. His past self looked exhausted and forlorn. He could remember the feeling exactly—watching the black tick of the clock on the wall, waiting every moment for her to burst through the door. He’d been so stunned when she sneaked up on him, silently, almost from behind the curtain.
He was stunned anew when she did so now.
Her beauty was beyond his most unrealistic expectations that night. Every night. Cheeks flushed with the love
