Rapture

stood rapt beside Daniel as they watched Dee pace slowly up and down the platform. Finally, she picked up the halo again and carried it to the Qayom Malak. At some point, she had changed out of her hiking boots, back into her stilettos, and her heels clicked on the marble. Her unkempt hair swished down to her waist. She took a deep, luxurious breath and let it out.

With both hands, she raised the halo over her head, whispered a few words of prayer, and then, very carefully, lowered the halo directly into the circle of air carved out by the sculpture of the praying angels’ wing tips. It fit like a ring on a finger.

“I did not see that coming,” Arriane muttered to Luce.

Neither had Luce—although she was certain that the woman was engaged in something powerfully sacred.

When she spun around to face Luce and the angels, Dee looked as if she were going to say something. Instead, she sank to her knees and lay down on her back at the foot of the Qayom Malak. Daniel lurched toward her, ready to help, but she waved him away. The toes of her shoes rested on the chest of the Qayom Malak; her slender arms stretched over her head so that her fingertips grazed the Silver Pennon. Her body spanned the distance precisely.

She closed her eyes and lay still for several minutes.

Just when Luce was beginning to wonder whether Dee had fallen asleep, Dee said, “It’s a good thing I stopped growing two thousand years ago.” She stood up then, taking a hand from Roland, and dusted herself off.

“Everything is in order. When the moon hits right about there.” She pointed toward the eastern sky, just above where the rocks tapered off.

“The moon?” Cam gave Daniel a glance.

“Yes, the moon. It needs to shine through precisely here.” Dee tapped the center of the halo’s glass, where a jagged crack became more visible than it had been minutes earlier. “If I know the moon, which I do—after all these years, one does develop an intimate relationship with one’s companions—it should fall precisely where we need it to at the stroke of midnight tonight. Fitting, really, since midnight is my favorite time of day. The witching hour—”

“What happens then?” Luce asked. “At midnight, when the moon is where it needs to be?” Dee slowed her pace and cupped her hand to Luce’s cheek. “Everything, dear.”

“And what do we do in the meantime?” Daniel asked.

Dee reached into her cardigan pocket and revealed a large gold pocket watch. “A few things remain to be done.”

They followed Dee’s instructions down to the small-est detail. Each of the artifacts was swept, polished, dusted by several pairs of hands. It was well into the night before Luce was able to visualize what Dee had in mind for the ceremony.

“Two more lanterns, please,” Dee instructed. “That will make three, one for each of the relics.” It was strange the way Dee referred to the relics as if she were not one of them. Even stranger was the way she buzzed around the enclosed plateau, like a hostess preparing for a dinner party, making sure everything was just right.

The quartet of Outcasts lit the lanterns ritualistically, their shaven heads orbiting the expanse of rock like planets. The first light illuminated the Qayom Malak.

The second lantern shone on the Silver Pennon, which still sat where Dee had placed it, atop the golden arrow on the Slab, at a distance of Dee’s height exactly—a scant five feet—from the Qayom Malak. Earlier, the angels had arranged a half-moon arc of flat-topped boulders like benches on the left and right sides of the Slab so that it resembled a stage. This made the space look even more like an amphitheater as Annabelle dusted the boulders like an usher preparing seats for an imminent audience.

“What will Dee do with all this?” Luce whispered to Daniel.

Daniel’s violet eyes were heavy with something he couldn’t voice, and before Luce could beg him to try, Dee’s hands found their way to Luce’s shoulders.

“Please don these robes. I find that ceremonial costumes help to maintain focus on the task at hand. Daniel, I think this should fit you.” She pressed a heavy brown cloak into his arms. “And here’s one for graceful Arriane.” She passed it to the angel. “That leaves you, Luce.

There are smaller robes at the bottom of my chest over there. Take my lantern and help yourself.” Luce took the lantern and started to lead Daniel toward the cave where they had slept the night before, but Dee gripped Daniel’s arm.

“A word?”

Daniel nodded for Luce to go on alone, so she did, wondering what Dee didn’t want to say in front of her.

She slipped the lantern’s handle over her forearm, its light swinging as she walked toward the mouth of the cave.

She eased open the stiff lid of the chest and reached inside. A long brown robe was the only thing in it. She picked it up. It was made of heavy wool, thick as a peacoat and musty, like tobacco. When Luce held it up against her body, it looked about three feet too long.

Now she was even more curious about why Dee had sent her away. She set the lantern on the ground and clumsily pulled the robe over her head.

“Need some help?”

Cam had entered the cave as quietly as a cloud.

Standing behind her, he gathered a fold of the cloak’s material and cinched it under the garment’s woven belt.

He knotted it in place so that the hem ended at Luce’s ankles perfectly, as if the cloak had been made for her.

She turned around to face him. Lantern light flickered on his face. He stood very still, in the way that only Cam could.

Luce slid her thumb along the belt he’d knotted.

“Thanks,” she said, moving back toward the entrance of the cave.

“Luce, wait—”

She stopped. Cam looked down at the toe of his boot, kicking the edge of the chest. Luce stared at it, too. She was wondering how she hadn’t heard him come into the cave, how they’d ended up alone.

“You still don’t believe I’m on your side.”

“It doesn’t matter now, Cam.” Her throat felt impossibly tight.

“Listen.” Cam took a step toward her so that there were only inches between them. She thought he was going to grab her, but he didn’t. He didn’t even try to touch her; he just stayed very still and close. “Things used to be different. Look at me.” She did, nervously. “I may wear Lucifer’s gold on my wings now, but it wasn’t always like that. You knew me before I went that way, Lucinda, and you and I were friends.”

“Well, like you said, things change.”

Cam let out a frustrated groan. “It is impossible to apologize to a girl with such a conveniently selective memory. Allow me to venture a guess: As you awaken to your true self, you’re unpacking all sorts of sumptuous memories in which you and Daniel fell in love, and Daniel said this beautiful phrase, and Daniel turned and brooded toward silken silhouettes caressing the tender tips of stars on the horizon—”

“Why shouldn’t I? We belong to each other. Daniel is my everything. And you’re—”

“What does he say about me?” Cam’s eyes narrowed.

Luce cracked her knuckles and thought about the way, early on at Sword & Cross, Daniel’s hand had swept over hers to stop the mindless habit. His touch had been familiar from the beginning.

“He says he trusts you.”

A pause followed that Luce refused to fill. She wanted to leave. What if Daniel looked over and saw her in this dim cave with Cam? They were arguing, but Daniel wouldn’t be able to tell that from a distance. What did they look like, she and Cam? When she looked up, his eyes were clear, green, and profoundly sad.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Why does this matter right now—”