“What are you doing?” Daniel whispered.

  “She’s—she’s—” Luce struggled against Daniel, feeling his grasp burn her waist. This woman had murdered Penn. She’d tried to kill Luce. Why didn’t anyone else want to kill her?

  Arriane and Annabelle ran to Miss Sophia and tackled her in a double hug.

  Luce blinked.

  Annabelle kissed the woman’s pale cheeks. “I haven’t seen you since the Peasants’ Revolt in Nottingham … when was that, the 1380s?”

  “Surely it hasn’t been that long,” the woman said politely, her voice lilting in the same kindly-librarian way it had early on at Sword & Cross, when she had tricked Luce into liking her. “Lovely time.”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, either,” Luce said hotly. She jerked away from Daniel and raised the fire poker again, wishing it were something more deadly. “Not since you murdered my friend—”

  “Oh dear.” The woman did not flinch. She watched Luce coming at her and tapped a slender finger to her lips. “There must be some confusion.”

  Roland stepped forward, separating Luce from Miss Sophia. “It’s just that you look like someone else.” His calm hand on her shoulder made Luce pause.

  “What do you mean?” the woman said.

  “Oh, of course!” Daniel gave Luce a sad smile. “You thought she was—we should have told you that transeternals often look alike.”

  “You mean she’s not Miss Sophia?”

  “Sophia Bliss?” The woman looked as if she’d just bitten into something sour. “That bitch is still around? I was sure someone would have put her out of her misery by now.” She wrinkled her tiny nose and shrugged at Luce. “She is my sister, so I can only display a small percentage of the rage I have accumulated over the years toward that disgusting bag.”

  Luce laughed nervously. The fire poker slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. She studied the older woman, finding similarities to Miss Sophia—a face that seemed old and young at the same time—and differences. Compared to Sophia’s black eyes, this woman’s small eyes looked almost golden, emphasized by the matching yellow shade of her cardigan.

  The scene with the fire poker had embarrassed Luce. She leaned back against the curved brick wall and sank to the ground, feeling empty, unsure whether she was relieved not to have to face Miss Sophia again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, dear,” the woman said brightly. “The day I encounter Sophia again, I’ll grab the nearest heavy object and bludgeon her myself.”

  Arriane flung out a hand to help Luce up, pulling her so hard her feet shot off the ground. “Dee’s an old friend. And a first-class party animal, might I add. Got the metabolism of a donkey. She almost brought the Crusades to a grinding halt the night she seduced Saladin.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Dee said, flapping a hand dismissively.

  “She’s the best storyteller, too,” Annabelle added. “Or she was before she dropped off the face of the earth. Where’ve you been hiding, woman?”

  The woman drew a deep breath and her golden eyes dampened. “Actually, I fell in love.”

  “Oh, Dee!” Annabelle crooned, clasping the woman’s hand. “How wonderful.”

  “Otto Z. Otto.” The woman sniffed. “May he rest …”

  “Dr. Otto,” Daniel said, stepping out of the doorway. “You knew Dr. Otto?”

  “Backwards and forwards.” The mysterious lady sniffed.

  “Oops, my manners!” Arriane said. “We must do introductions. Daniel, Roland, I don’t think you’ve ever officially met our friend Dee—”

  “What a pleasure. I am Paulina Serenity Bisenger.” The woman smiled, dabbed her damp eyes with a lace handkerchief, and extended a hand first to Daniel, then to Roland.

  “Ms. Bisenger,” Roland said, “may I ask why the girls call you Dee?”

  “Just an old nickname, love,” the woman said, offering the kind of cryptic smile that was Roland’s specialty. When she turned to Luce, her golden eyes lit up.

  “Ah, Lucinda.” Instead of holding out her hand, Dee opened her arms for a hug, but Luce felt funny about accepting it. “I apologize for the unfortunate resemblance that gave you such a fright. I must say that my sister looks like me; I do not look like her. But you and I have known each other so well over many lifetimes, so very many years, I forget that you might not remember. It was to me that you entrusted your darkest secrets—your love of Daniel, your fears for your future, your confusing feelings about Cam.” Luce flushed, but the woman didn’t notice. “And it was to you that I entrusted the very reasons for my existence, as well as the key to everything you seek. You were the one innocent I knew I could always rely upon to do what needed to be done.”

  “I—I’m sorry I don’t remember,” Luce stammered, and she was. “Are you an angel?”

  “Transeternal, dear.”

  “They’re technically mortals,” Daniel explained, “but they can live for hundreds, even thousands of years. They have long worked closely with angels.”

  “It all started with Great-Granddaddy Methuselah,” Dee said proudly. “He invented prayer. He did!”

  “How did he do that?” Luce asked.

  “Well, in the old days, when mortals wanted something, they just wished for it in a scattershot manner. Granddaddy was the first to appeal to God directly, and—here’s the genius part—he asked for a message confirming that he had been heard. God responded with an angel, and the messenger angel was born. It was Gabbe, I think, who carved out the airspace between Heaven and Earth so mortal prayers could flow more freely. Granddaddy loved Gabbe, he loved the angels, and he taught all his kin to love them, too. Oh, but that was many years ago.”

  “Why do transeternals live so long?” Luce asked.

  “Because we are enlightened. For our family history with messenger angels, and the fact that we are able to receive an angel’s glory without being overcome, as many mortals are, we were rewarded with an extended life span. We liaise between angels and other mortals, so that the world can always feel a sense of angelic guardianship. We can be killed at any time, of course, but short of assassinations and freak accidents, a transeternal will live on until the end of days. The twenty-four of us who remain are the last surviving descendants of Methuselah. We used to be exemplary people, but I’m ashamed to say we are in decline. You’ve heard of the Elders of Zhsmaelim?”

  The mention of Miss Sophia’s evil clan sent a chill through Luce’s body.

  “All transeternals,” Dee said. “The Elders began nobly. There was a time when I was involved with them myself. Of course, the good ones all defected”—she glanced at Luce and frowned—“not long after your friend Penn was murdered. Sophia has always had a cruel streak. Now it’s become ambitious.” She paused, taking out a white handkerchief to polish a corner of the silver tea cart. “Such dark things to speak of on our reunion. There is a bright spot, though: You remembered how to travel through my Patina.” Dee beamed at Luce. “Exemplary work.”

  “You made that Patina?” Arriane asked. “I had no idea you could do that!”

  Dee raised an eyebrow, the faintest smile on her lips. “A woman can’t reveal all her secrets, lest she be taken advantage of. Can she, girls?” She paused. “Well, now that we’re all friends again, what brings you to the Foundation? I was just about to sit down for my predawn jasmine tea. You really must join me, I always make too much.”

  She stepped aside to reveal the silver tray packed with a tall silver teapot, china plates of tiny crustless cucumber sandwiches, fluffy scones with golden raisins, and a crystal bowl brimming with clotted cream and cherries. Luce’s stomach flopped at the sight of the food.

  “So you’ve been expecting us,” Annabelle said, counting the teacups with her finger.

  Dee smiled, turned around, and took up wheeling the cart down the hallway again. Luce and the angels jogged to keep up as Dee’s heels clicked along, forking right into a large room made of the same pink brick. There were a bright fire in the corner, a polished oak dining table that could have seated sixty, and a huge chandelier made of a petrified tree trunk and decorated with hundreds of sparkling crystal candlesticks.

  The table was already set with fine china for far more guests than they had in their party. Dee set about filling the teacups with steaming amber-colored tea. “Very casual here, just take a seat wherever you like.”

  After a few purposeful looks from Daniel, Arriane finally stepped forward and touched Dee—who was scooping a mound of cream into a goblet and topping it with fruit—lightly on the back.

  “Actually, Dee, we can’t stay for tea. We’re in a bit of a hurry. See—”

  Daniel stepped forward. “Has the news reached you about Lucifer? He is attempting to erase the past by carrying the host of angels forward from the time of the Fall to the present.”

  “That would explain the shuddering,” Dee murmured, filling another teacup.

  “You can feel the timequakes, too?” Luce asked.

  Dee nodded. “But most mortals can’t, in case you were wondering.”

  “We’ve come because we need to track down the original location of the Fall,” Daniel said, “the place where Lucifer and the host of Heaven will appear. We have to stop him.”

  Dee looked strangely undeterred from her tea service, continuing to divvy up the cucumber sandwiches. The angels waited for her to respond. A log in the fire splintered, cracked, and tumbled from the grate.

  “And all because a boy loved a girl,” she said at last. “Quite disturbing. Really brings out the worst in all the old enemies, doesn’t it? Scale coming unhinged, Elders killing innocents. So much unpleasantness. As if all you fallen angels didn’t have enough to bother with. I say, you must be awfully tired.” She gave Luce a reassuring smile and gestured again for them to sit down.

  Roland pulled out the chair at the head of the table for Dee and sat down in the seat to her left. “Maybe you can help us.” He motioned for the others to join him. Annabelle and Arriane sat beside him, and Luce and Daniel sat across the table. Luce slid her hand over Daniel’s, twining her fingers around his.

  Dee passed the cups of tea around the table. After a clattering of china and spoons stirring sugar into tea, Luce cleared her throat. “We’re going to stop Lucifer, Dee.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Daniel grasped Luce’s fingers. “Right now we’re searching for three objects that tell the early history of the fallen. When brought together, they should reveal the original location of the Fall.”

  Dee sipped her tea. “Clever boy. Had any luck?”

  Daniel produced the leather satchel and unzipped it to reveal the gold-and-glass halo. An eternity had passed since Luce dove into the sunken church to pry it from the statue’s head.

  Dee’s forehead wrinkled. “Yes, I remember that. The angel Semihazah created it, didn’t he? Even in prehistory, he had a biting aesthetic. No written texts for him to satirize, so he made this as a sort of commentary on the silly ways mortal artists try to capture angelic glow. Amusing, isn’t it? Imagine bearing a hideous … basketball hoop on your head. Two points and all of that.”

  “Dee.” Arriane reached into the satchel and pulled out Daniel’s book, then thumbed through it until she found the notation in the margin about the desideratum. “We came to Vienna to find this”—she pointed—“the desired thing. But we’re running out of time and we don’t know what it is or where to find it.”

  “How splendid. You’ve come to the right place.”

  “I knew it!” Arriane crowed. She leaned back into her chair and slapped Annabelle, who was politely nibbling at a scone, on the back. “As soon as I saw you, I knew we’d be okay. You have the desideratum, don’t you?”

  “No, dear.” Dee shook her head.

  “Then … what?” Daniel asked.

  “I am the desideratum.” She beamed. “I’ve been waiting such a long time to be called into service.”

  TEN

  STARSHOT IN THE DUST

  “You’re the desideratum?” Luce’s cucumber sandwich fell from her fingers and bounced off her teacup, leaving a glob of mayonnaise on the lace-embroidered tablecloth.

  Dee beamed at them. There was an almost impish gleam in her golden eyes that made her look more like a teenager than a woman many hundreds of years old. As she pinned a shiny strand of red hair back into her chignon and poured everyone more tea, it was hard to fathom that this elegant, vibrant creature was also, in fact, an artifact.

  “That’s how you got the nickname Dee, isn’t it?” Luce asked.

  “Yes.” Dee looked pleased. She winked at Roland.

  “Then you know where the site of the Fall is?”

  The question brought everyone to attention. Annabelle sat straighter, elongating her long neck. Arriane did the opposite, slumping lower in her chair, elbows on the table, chin resting on clasped hands. Roland leaned forward, tucking his dreads behind one shoulder. Daniel clenched Luce’s hand. Was Dee the answer to every question they had?

  She shook her head.

  “I can help you discover where the Fall took place.” Dee set her teacup down in its saucer. “The answer is within me, but I am unable to express it in any way that I or you can understand. Not until all of the pieces are in place.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in place’?” Luce asked. “How will we know when that happens?”

  Dee walked over to the fireplace and used a poker to return the fallen log to its place inside. “You will know. We will all know.”

  “But you at least know where the third artifact is?” Roland passed around a plate of sliced lemons after dropping one into his tea.

  “Indeed I do.”

  “Our friends,” Roland said, “Cam, Gabbe, and Molly, have gone to Avalon to search for it. If you could help them locate—”

  “You know as well as I that the angels must locate each artifact on their own, Sir Sparks.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” He leaned back in his chair, eyeing Dee. “Please, call me Roland.”

  “And I thought you’d ask. Roland.” She smiled. “I’m glad you did. It makes me feel as if you trust me to help you defeat Lucifer.” She tilted her head at Luce. “Trust is important, don’t you think, Lucinda?”

  Luce looked around the table at the fallen angels she’d first met at Sword & Cross, epochs earlier. “I do.”

  She had once had a very different kind of conversation with Miss Sophia, who had described trust as a careless pursuit, a good way to get oneself killed. It was eerie how much the two resembled each other in body, while the words produced by their dissimilar souls differed so completely.

  Dee reached for the halo in the center of the table. “May I?”

  Daniel handed over the piece, which Luce knew from personal experience was very heavy. In Dee’s hands, it seemed to weigh nothing.

  Her slender arms were barely long enough to wrap around its gold circumference, but Dee cradled the halo like a child. Her reflection peered back dimly in the glass.

  “Another reunion,” she said softly, to herself. When Dee looked up, Luce couldn’t tell whether she was content or sad. “It will be wonderful when the third artifact is in your possession.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” Arriane said, pouring something from a fat silver flask into her tea.

  “That’s great-granddaddy’s route!” Dee said with a smile.

  Everyone laughed, a little nervously.

  “Speaking of the third artifact”—Dee looked down at a thin gold watch buried among her tangle of pearl bracelets—“did someone mention you all were rather in a hurry to move on?”

  There was a clamor of teacups jostling back into their saucers, chairs being pushed back, and wings whooshing open around the table. Suddenly, the massive dining hall seemed smaller and brighter and Luce felt the familiar tingle run through her body when she saw Daniel’s broad wings unfurled.

  Dee caught her eye. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

  Instead of blushing at being caught staring at Daniel, Luce just smiled, for Dee was on their side. “Every time.”

  “Where to, Cap’n?” Arriane asked Daniel, tucking scones into the pockets of her overalls.

  “Back to Mount Sinai, right?” Luce said. “Isn’t that where we agreed Cam and the others are supposed to meet us?”

  Daniel glanced toward the door. His forehead wrinkled in agitation. “Actually, I didn’t want to mention this until we’d found the second artifact, but …”

  “Come on, Grigori,” Roland said. “Let’s have it.”

  “Before we left the warehouse,” Daniel said, “Phil told me that he received a message from one of the Outcasts who he’d sent to Avignon. Cam’s group was intercepted—”

  “Scale?” Dee asked. “Still harboring fantasies of their importance in the cosmic balance?”

  “We can’t be sure,” Daniel said, “though it does seem likely. We will set a course for the Pont Saint Bénézet in Avignon.” He glanced at Annabelle, whose face turned a shade of scarlet.

  “What?” she cried. “Why there?”

  “My marginalia in The Book of the Watchers suggest it is the approximate location of the third artifact. It should have been Cam, Gabbe, and Molly’s first stop.”

  Annabelle looked away and didn’t say anything else. The mood turned serious as the group filed out of the dining room. Luce felt tense with worry for Cam and Molly, imagining them bound up in black Scale cloaks like Arriane and Annabelle.

  Angel wings rustled along the narrow brick walls as they walked back down the endless hallway. When they reached the curved wooden doorway leading back outside, Dee swung open an iron circle covering the peephole and peered out.

  “Hmmm.” She let the peephole swing shut.

  “What is it?” Luce asked, but by then, Dee had already opened up the door and was gesturing for everyone to leave the peculiar brown house, whose soul was so much richer than its exterior suggested.