thrust of the blade into my heart should release me.” It was what Luce needed to hear. The dagger trembled as Dee guided it toward the tattoo on her chest. The old woman could steady Luce only so much, though; Luce knew that soon she would have to hold the blade alone.
“You’re doing fine.”
“Wait!” Luce cried as the blade pricked Dee’s flesh. A red dot of blood bloomed on her skin, just above the hem of the tunic. “What will happen to you when you die?”
Dee smiled so peacefully that Luce had no doubt it was for her benefit. “Why, dear, I shall slip into the mas- terpiece.”
“You’ll go to Heaven, won’t you?”
“Lucinda, let’s not talk of—”
“Please. I can’t send you out of this life unless I know what your next one will look like. Will I see you again?
Do you just go away like an angel?”
“Oh no, my death will be a secret life, like sleep,” Dee said. “Better than sleep, actually, because for once I shall be able to dream. In life, transeternals never dream.
I shall dream of Dr. Otto. It’s been so long since I have seen my love, Lucinda. Surely you can understand?” Luce wanted to weep. She understood. Of course she understood that much.
Trembling ever harder, she drew the knife back over the tattoo on Dee’s breast. The old woman gave her hands the softest squeeze. “Bless you, child. Bless you abundantly. Hurry up, now.” Dee looked anxiously at the sky, blinking at the moon. “In you go.” Luce grunted as she plunged the knife into the old woman’s chest. The blade ground through flesh and bone and muscle—and then it was inside her beautiful heart, up to the hilt. Luce’s and Dee’s faces were almost touching. The clouds their breath made mingled in the air.
Dee gritted her teeth and gripped Luce’s hand as she gave the blade a sharp twist to the left. Her gold eyes widened, then froze in pain or shock. Luce wanted to look away but couldn’t. She searched for the scream inside her.
“Expel the blade,” Dee whispered. “Pour my blood into the Silver Pennon.”
Wincing, Luce yanked the dagger out. She felt something deep inside Dee rip apart. The wound was a yawn- ing black cavern. Blood streamed to its surface. It was terrifying to see Dee’s gold eyes go cloudy. The lady fell in a heap on the moonlit plateau.
In the distance, the shriek of a Scale rang out. All the angels looked above.
“Luce, we need you to move quickly,” Daniel said, his forced calmness sparking more alarm in her than open panic would.
Luce still held the dagger in her hands. It was slick and red and dripping with transeternal blood. She tossed it to the ground. It landed with a tinny clank that made her furious because it sounded like a toy instead of the mighty weapon that had killed two souls Luce loved.
She wiped her bloody hands on her cloak. She gasped for air. She would have fallen to her knees if Daniel hadn’t caught her.
“I’m sorry, Luce.” He kissed her, his eyes beaming their old tenderness.
“For what?”
“That I couldn’t help you do it.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
“You did what none of us could do. You did it on your own.” Taking her by the shoulders, Daniel turned Luce toward the sight she did not want to see.
“No. Please, don’t make me—”
“Look,” Daniel said.
Dee was sitting up, cradling the Silver Pennon in her arms so that its rim pressed against her breast. Blood poured from her heart freely, surging with each powerful beat, as if it were not blood but something magical and strange from another world. Luce supposed it was. Dee’s eyes were closed but she was beaming, her face lifted, lit up by the moon. She didn’t look like she had ever been in any pain.
When the goblet was filled, Luce stepped forward, bending down to take it and place it back on the yellow arrow on the Slab. When she wrested the Silver Pennon from Dee, the old woman tried to stand. Her bloody hands pressed into the ground to prop her up. Her knees trembled as she struggled to one foot, then the other.
She slouched forward, her body convulsing slightly, as she took the black cloak in her hands. She was trying to drape it back over her shoulders, Luce realized, so that her wound would be covered. Arriane stepped forward to help her, but it didn’t matter. Fresh blood flooded through the cloak.
Dee’s gold eyes were paler, her skin almost translucent. Everything about her seemed muted and soft, as if she were already someplace else. A new sob rose in Lu-ce’s chest as Dee took a halting step toward her.
“Dee!” Luce closed the gap between them, holding out her arms to catch the dying woman. Her body felt like a shard of what she’d been before Luce had taken the dagger in her hands.
“Shhh,” Dee cooed. “I only wanted to thank you, dear. And to give you this small parting gift.” She reached her hand inside her cloak. When she withdrew it, her thumb was dark with blood. “The gift of self-knowledge.
You must remember how to dream what you already know. Now it’s time for me to sleep and for you to wake up.”
Dee’s eyes swept over Luce’s face, and it seemed like she could see everything there was to see about her —all her past and all her future. Finally, she daubed the center of Luce’s forehead with her bloody thumb.
“Enjoy it, dear.”
Then she hit the ground.
“Dee!” Luce lunged for her, but the old woman was dead.
Behind Luce, Daniel clasped her shoulders with his hands, giving her all the strength he could. It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t bring Dee back or change the fact that Luce had killed her. Nothing could.
Tears blurred Luce’s eyes. Wind swept in from the west and whistled off the curving cliffs, bringing with it another shriek of Scale. It felt like every inch of the world was in chaos, and nothing would ever settle down.
She reached up and touched the bloody thumbprint on her forehead—
White light blazed around her. Her insides seared with heat. She staggered, holding her arms out in front of her and swaying as her body filled with . . .
Light.
“Luce?” Daniel’s voice sounded far away.
Was she dying?
She felt suddenly galvanized, as if the thumbprint on her forehead were an ignition switch and Dee had launched her soul.
“Is this another timequake?” she asked, though the sky was not gray but a brilliant white. So bright she couldn’t see Daniel or any of the other angels around her on the slab.
“No.” Roland’s voice. “It’s her.”
“It’s you, Luce.” Daniel’s voice trembled.
Her feet skimmed the stone as her body rose in a splendor of weightlessness. For a moment, the world hummed with incandescent harmony.
The air before Luce seemed to sputter, turning from white to blurry gray. Then deep in the distance came the vision of Bill’s cackling face. His black wings spread wider than the sky, wider than a thousand galaxies, filling her mind, filling every crevice in the universe, engulfing Luce with infinite fury.
His voice like shards of glass dragging across bare skin.
How close was he now?
Luce’s feet slammed into the mesa floor. The light was gone.
She fell to her knees, landing next to Dee, who had come to rest on her side, one arm slung out to cradle her head, her long red hair spilling out like blood. Her eyes were closed, her face serene, so unlike the face that had been haunting Luce for the past week. She tried to stand, but she felt clumsy.
Daniel dropped to his knees at her side. Sitting next to her on the Slab, he took her in his arms. The smell of his hair and the touch of his hands soothed her. He whispered, “I’m here, Luce, it’s okay.”
