Passion

Dani shrugged away. “I think about her and only her. I count the seconds until she’ll be with me again. I choose her, as she chooses me.”

“How lonely.”

“It’s not lonely,” Dani barked. “It’s love. The love you want for yourself, too—”

“I meant: I’m lonely. And far less noble than you are. Any day. I fear a change is coming on.”

“No.” Now Dani moved toward Cam. “You wouldn’t.”

Cam reared away and spat. “Not all of us are lucky enough to be bound to our lover by a curse.”

Daniel remembered this empty insult: It had made him furious. But still, he shouldn’t have said what came next:

“Go, then. You won’t be missed.”

He regretted it instantly, but it was too late.

Cam rolled back his shoulders and threw out his arms. When his wings bloomed at his sides, they sent a burst of hot wind rippling across the grass where Daniel, Shelby, and Miles were hiding. The three of them peered up. His wings were massive and glowing and—

“Wait a minute,” Shelby whispered. “They’re not gold!”

Miles blinked. “How can they not be gold?”

Of course the Nephilim would be confused. The division of wing color was as clear as night and day: gold for demons, silver or white for everyone else. And the Cam they knew was a demon. Daniel was in no mood to explain to Shelby why Cam’s wings were pure, bright white, as radiant as diamonds, glistening like sun-kissed snow.

This long-ago Cam had not crossed over yet. He was merely on the brink.

That day Lilith lost Cam as a lover, and Daniel lost him as a brother. From this day on, they would be enemies. Could Daniel have stopped him? What if he hadn’t spun away from Cam and unfurled his own wings like a shield—the way he watched Dani do now?

He should have. He burned to burst forth from the bushes and stop Cam now. How much could be different!

Cam’s and Dani’s wings did not yet have the tortured magnetic pull toward each other. All that repelled them in this moment was a stubborn difference of opinion, a philosophical sibling rivalry.

Both angels rose from the ground at the same time, each facing a different direction. So when Dani soared east across the sky and Cam soared west, the three Anachronisms hiding in the grass were the only ones to see the gleam of gold bite into Cam’s wings. Like a sparkling lightning bolt.

SEVENTEEN WRITTEN IN BONE

YIN, CHINA • QING MING (APPROXIMATELY APRIL 4, 1046 BCE)

At the far end of the Announcer’s tunnel was an engulfing brightness. It kissed her skin like a summer morning at her parents’ house in Georgia.

Luce plunged toward it.

Unbridled glory. That was what Bill had called the burning light of Daniel’s true soul. Merely looking upon Daniel’s pure angelic self had made an entire community of people at the Mayan sacrifice spontaneously combust—including Ix Cuat, Luce’s past self.

But there had been a moment.

A moment of pure wonder just before she died, when Luce had felt closer to Daniel than she ever had before. She didn’t care what Bill said: She recognized the glow of Daniel’s soul. She had to see it again. Maybe there was some way she could live through it. She had to at least try.

She burst out of the Announcer into the cold emptiness of a colossal bedroom.

The chamber was at least ten times bigger than any room Luce had ever seen, and everything about it was lavish. The floors were crafted of smoothest marble and covered by enormous rugs made of whole animal skins, one of which had an intact tiger’s head. Four timber pillars held up a finely thatched gabled ceiling. The walls were made of woven bamboo. Near the open window was an enormous canopy bed with sheets of green-gold silk.

A tiny telescope rested on the window’s ledge. Luce picked it up, parting the gold silk curtain to peer outside. The telescope was heavy and cold when she held it up to her eye.

She was in the center of a great walled city, looking down from a second story. A maze of stone roadways connected crammed, ancient-looking wattle-and-daub structures. The air was warm and smelled softly of cherry blossoms. A pair of orioles crossed the blue sky.

Luce turned to Bill. “Where are we?” This place seemed as foreign as the world of the Mayans, and just as far back in time.

He shrugged and opened his mouth to speak, but then—

“Shhh,” Luce whispered.

Sniffling.

Someone was crying soft, hushed tears. Luce turned toward the noise. There, through an archway on the far side of the room, she heard the sound again.

Luce moved toward the archway, sliding along the stone floor in her bare feet. The sobbing echoed, beckoning her. A narrow walkway opened up into another cavernous chamber. This one was windowless, with low ceilings, dimly lit by the glow of a dozen small bronze lamps.

She could make out a large stone basin, and a small lacquered table stocked with black pottery vials of aromatic oils that gave the whole room a warm and spicy smell. A gigantic carved jade wardrobe stood in the corner of the room. Thin green dragons etched into its face sneered at Luce, as if they knew everything she didn’t.

And in the center of the chamber, a dead man lay sprawled on the floor.

Before Luce could see anything more, she was blinded by a bright light moving toward her. It was the same glow she’d sensed from the other side of the Announcer.

“What is that light?” she asked Bill.

“That … er, you see that?” Bill sounded surprised. “That’s your soul. Yet another way for you to recognize your past lives when they appear physically different from you.” He paused. “You’ve never noticed it before?”

“This is the first time, I think.”

“Huh,” Bill said. “That’s a good sign. You’re making progress.”

Luce felt heavy and exhausted all of a sudden. “I thought it was going to be Daniel.”

Bill cleared his throat like he was going to say something, but he didn’t. The glow burned brightly for another heartbeat, then snapped out so suddenly she couldn’t see for a moment, until her eyes adjusted.

“What are you doing here?” a voice asked roughly.

Where the light had been, in the center of the room, was a thin, pretty Chinese girl about seventeen—too young and too elegant to be standing over a dead man’s body.

Dark hair hung to her waist, contrasting with her floor-length white silk robe. Dainty as she was, she seemed the kind of girl who didn’t shy away from a fight.

“So, that’s you,” Bill’s voice said in Luce’s ear. “Your name is Lu Xin and you lived outside the capital city of Yin. We’re at the close of the Shang dynasty, something like a thousand BCE, in case you want to make a note for your scrapbook.”

Luce probably seemed crazy to Lu Xin, barging in here wearing a singed animal hide and a necklace made out of bone, her hair a wild and tangled snarl. How long had it been since she’d looked in a mirror? Had a bath? Plus, she was talking to an invisible gargoyle.

But then again, Lu Xin was standing vigil over a dead guy, giving Luce don’t-mess-with-me eyes, so she seemed a little crazy herself.

Oh boy. Luce hadn’t noticed the jade knife with the turquoise-studded handle, or the small pond of blood in the middle of the marble floor.