“Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “Why does this matter right now—”

  His eyes shot open, wild and excited. “Everything matters right now. This is the showtime for which all other shows have been warm-ups. And in order for you to do what you need to do, you can’t see me as the enemy. You have no idea what you’ve gotten into.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Luce.” It was Dee’s voice. She and Daniel were standing at the mouth of the cave. Dee was the only one smiling. “We’re ready for you!”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  Luce was suddenly frightened. “What do I have to do?”

  “Why don’t you come and see?”

  Dee’s hand was extended but Luce found it difficult to move. She glanced at Cam but he was looking at Daniel. Daniel was still looking at her, his eyes burning the hungry way they did when he was about to sweep her into his arms and kiss her deeply. But he didn’t move and that turned the ten feet of space between them into two thousand miles.

  “Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

  “You’re about to do something wonderful,” Dee said, still holding out her hand. “Let us not waste time we do not have.”

  Luce took her hand and it felt so cold that it scared her. She studied Dee, who looked paler, more fragile, older than she had at the library in Vienna. But somehow, underneath her withered skin and prominent bones, something still shone bright and effervescent from within her.

  “Do I look all right, dear? You’re staring.”

  “Of course,” Luce said. “It’s just—”

  “My soul? It’s glowing, isn’t it?”

  Luce nodded.

  “Good.”

  Cam and Daniel did not speak as they brushed past each other, Cam striding into the suddenly windy wilderness outside, Daniel circling behind Luce to carry the lantern.

  “Dee?” Luce turned to the woman, whose freezing hand she was trying to warm with her own. “I don’t want to go out there. I’m afraid and I don’t know why.”

  “That is as it should be. But this cup cannot pass you.”

  “Can someone please tell me what is going on?”

  “Yes,” Dee said, giving Luce’s hand a firm but supportive forward tug. “Just as soon as we’re outside.”

  As they rounded the arrowhead-shaped boulder that partly shielded the entrance to the small cave, the cold wind bore into them unforgivingly. Luce staggered back, shielding her face from the sudden spray of sand with her free hand. Dee and Daniel made her press on past the head of the trail they’d climbed the night before, where they were most exposed to the wind.

  Luce found that the peaks around the rest of the mesa formed barriers to the swirling, gritty gusts, allowing her to hear and see again. Though she could hear the daily dust storm howl beyond the plateau, everything within its curved rock walls seemed suddenly too quiet and too clear.

  Two lanterns glowed on the marble Slab—one before the Qayom Malak, one behind the Silver Pennon. Both lights attracted swirls of gnats that bounced off the small glass panes, strangely calming Luce. At least she was still in a world where light attracted bugs. She was still in a world she knew.

  The lantern illuminated the two golden angels bowing toward each other in prayer. Its light touched the edges of the heavy, cracked glass halo, which Dee had returned to its rightful place, cradled by the angels’ wings.

  On the cliffs towering over the plateau, four Outcasts perched on ledges, each pale warrior watching a different cardinal direction. The Outcasts’ wings, tucked to their sides, were barely visible, but the edges of Daniel’s lantern light revealed the starshots in each of their silver bows, as if they expected the Scale’s arrival at any moment.

  The four fallen angels Luce knew best occupied the stone seats around the ceremonially placed relics. Arriane and Annabelle sat on one side, backs straight, their wings concealed. On the other side sat Cam and Roland—with one empty seat between them.

  Was it for Luce or Daniel?

  “Good, everyone’s here except the moon.” Dee looked up at the eastern sky. “Five more minutes. Daniel, will you take a seat?”

  Daniel handed Dee the lantern and walked across the marble slab. He stood before the Qayom Malak. Luce wanted to go to him, but before she could even lean in his direction, Dee’s grip tightened around her hand. “Stay with me, honey.”

  Daniel sat down between Roland and Cam and turned his expressionless gaze to Luce.

  “Allow me to explain.” Dee’s calm, clear voice echoed off the red-rock walls, and all the angels straightened in attention. “As I told you earlier, we require the moon to make an appearance, and now, in a moment, she will visit us above this peak. She will grin down through the lens of the Halo. We are fortunate the sky is clear tonight, with nothing to obscure the shadows of her lovely craters as they join with the cracks in the Halo’s glass.

  “Together, these elements will project the outlines of continents and lines of countries, which, in concert with the carvings on the Slab, will comprise the Map of the Simulacrum Terra Prima. Right here.” She pointed to an empty space on the marble step, where she’d lain earlier, measuring the distance between the Qayom Malak and the Silver Pennon. “You will see a representation of the way the world was when you angels fell to Earth. Yes”—she inhaled—“just another moment. There.”

  The crown of the moon rose above the rocky crag that jutted out behind the Qayom Malak. And even though the moon was pale white and waning, at the moment, it shone as brilliantly as dawn. The angels, the Outcasts, Luce, and Dee stood quietly for several minutes, watching the moon climb, watching it cast a little light and then a little more through the translucent surface of the halo. The marble slab beyond it was blank, then clouded; then, all at once, the projection was clear and focused and real. It projected lines, intersections—continents—borders, lands, and seas.

  It looked half complete. Some lines trailed off into nothing; some boundaries never closed. But it was clearly a map of the Earth, Luce thought, as it would have looked when Daniel fell for her. It stirred something in the deepest recesses of her memory. It looked familiar.

  “Do you see the yellow stone at the center there?” Dee asked.

  Luce squinted to see a tile of the same slightly darker yellow stone as the one where the goblet had been placed. “That is us, right here in the middle of everything.”

  “Like an arrow saying, ‘You Are Here,’ ” Luce said.

  “That’s right, dear.” Dee turned to Luce. “And now, my Lucinda, have you figured out your role in this ceremony yet?”

  Luce squirmed. What did they want from her? This was their story, not hers. After all this commotion, she was just another girl, swept up in the promise of love. Daniel had found her on Earth after his fall from grace; someone should ask him what was going on. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “I’ll give you a hint,” Dee said. “Do you see the spot where angels fell marked on this map?”

  Luce sighed, eager to get to the point. “No.”

  “It was ordained many millennia ago that this location on this map could only be revealed in blood. The blood that courses through our veins knows far more than we do. Look closely. See the grooves along the marble? They are the lines to close the boundaries of the angelico-prelapsarian Earth. They shall become clear once the blood is shed and poured. The blood will pool in one vitally important place. The knowledge, my dear, is in the blood.”

  “The site of the Fall,” one of the angels said reverently. It was Arriane or Annabelle, Luce couldn’t tell which.

  “Somewhat like a treasure map in an adventure story, the impact point—that’s the site of the Fall—will be marked with a five-pointed star of blood. Now …”

  Dee was talking but Luce could no longer hear what she was saying. So this was what it was going to take to stop Lucifer. This was what Cam meant she had to do. This was why Daniel wouldn’t look at her. Her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. When she opened her mouth, her voice sounded like she was speaking underwater. “You need”—she swallowed in pain—“my blood.”

  Dee choked on her laugh and pressed a cold hand to Luce’s hot cheek. “Good heavens, no, child! You keep yours. I’m going to give you mine.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. As I am passing out of this world, you will fill the Silver Pennon with my blood. You will pour it into this depression just east of the golden arrow marker”—she indicated a dent at the left of the goblet, then fanned her hands out dramatically toward the map—“and watch it follow the grooves here and there and here and there until you find the star. Then you will know where to meet Lucifer and thwart his plan.”

  Luce cracked her knuckles. How could Dee speak about her own death so casually? “Why would you do this?”

  “Why, it’s what I was created for. Angels were made to adore and I have a purpose, too.” Then, from the deep pocket of her brown cloak, Dee withdrew a long silver dagger.

  “But that’s—”

  The dagger Miss Sophia had used to kill Penn. The one she’d had in Jerusalem when she bound up the fallen angels.

  “Yes. I picked this up in Golgotha,” Dee said, admiring the craftsmanship of the blade. It shone as if freshly sharpened. “Dark history, this knife. It’s time it was put to some good use, dear.” She held out the knife, its blade flat on her open palm, its hilt pointing toward Luce. “It would mean a lot to me if you would be the one to spill my blood, dear. Not only because you are dear to me, but also because it must be you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You must kill me, Lucinda.”

  FIFTEEN

  THE GIFT

  “I can’t!”

  “You can,” Dee said. “And you will. No one else can do it.”

  “Why?”

  Dee looked over her shoulder in Daniel’s direction. He was still seated, looking at Luce, but he didn’t seem to see her. None of the angels rose to help her.

  Dee spoke in a whisper. “If you are, as you say you are, fully resolved to break your curse—”

  “You know I am.”

  “Then you must use my blood to break it.”

  No. How could her curse be bound up in someone else’s blood? Dee had brought them up here to the Qayom Malak to reveal the site of the angels’ Fall. That was her role as the desideratum. It didn’t have anything to do with Luce’s curse.

  Did it?

  Break the curse. Of course Luce wanted to; it was all she wanted.

  Could she break it, right here, right now? How would she live with herself if she killed Dee? Luce looked to the old woman, who took her by the hands.

  “Don’t you want to know the truth of your original life?”

  “Of course I do. But why would killing you reveal my past?”

  “It will reveal all kinds of things.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh dear.” Dee sighed, looking past Luce at the others. “These angels have done well to keep you safe—but they have also protected you into complacency. The time has come for you to awaken, Lucinda, and to awaken, you must act.”

  Luce turned away. The look in Dee’s golden eyes was too pleading, too intense. “I’ve seen enough death.”

  A single angel rose in the darkness from the circle they’d formed around the Qayom Malak. “If she can’t do it, she can’t do it.”

  “Shut up, Cam,” Arriane said. “Sit down.”

  Cam stepped forward, approaching Luce. His narrow frame cast its shadow across the Slab. “We’ve taken it this far. You can’t say we haven’t given it every kind of shot.” He turned to face the others. “But maybe she just can’t. There is only so much you can ask a person to do. She wouldn’t be the first filly anybody lost a fortune on. So what if she happens to be the last?”

  His tone did not match his words, and neither did his eyes, which said with desperate sincerity, You can do this. You have to.

  Luce weighed the dagger in her hand. She’d seen its blade slice the life out of Penn. She had felt it sting her flesh when Sophia tried to murder her in the chapel at Sword & Cross. The only reason Luce wasn’t dead now was that Daniel had crashed through the roseate window to save her. The only reason she bore no scar was Gabbe’s healing touch. They’d saved her life for this moment. So that she could take another’s.

  Dee perceived how far away fear had carried Luce. She motioned for Cam to sit down. “Perhaps it would be better, dear, if you didn’t think of this as taking my life. You would be giving me the greatest gift, Lucinda. Can’t you see that I’m ready to move on?” She pressed her lips together in a smile. “I know it’s hard to understand, but there comes a time in a mortal body’s journey when it seeks to die in the most advantageous way it can. They used to call it a ‘good death.’ It is time for me to go, and if you give me the gift of this very good death, I promise you won’t regret it.”

  With tears stinging her eyes, Luce looked past Dee. “Dan—”

  “I can’t help you, Luce.” Daniel spoke before she’d even finished saying his name. “You must do this alone.”

  Roland rose from his seat and examined the map. He looked east at the moon. “If it were done when it is done, then it would be well it were done quickly.”

  “There isn’t much time,” Dee interpreted, resting a frail hand on Luce’s shoulder.

  Luce’s hands were shaking, sweating on the heavy silver hilt of the dagger, making it difficult to hold. Behind Dee she could see the Slab with its half-drawn map, and beyond the map, the Qayom Malak, in which the glass halo was secured. The Silver Pennon sat at Dee’s feet.

  Luce had been through a sacrifice before: in Chichén Itzá, when she’d cleaved to her past self Ix Cuat. The ritual made no sense to Luce. Why did something dear have to die so other dear things could live? Didn’t whoever made these rules think they deserved an explanation? It was like Abraham’s being asked to sacrifice Isaac. Had God created love to make pain feel even worse?

  “Will you do this for me?” Dee asked.

  Break the curse.

  “Will you do it for yourself?”

  Luce held the knife between her open palms. “What do I do?”

  “I’ll guide you through it.” Dee’s left hand closed around Luce’s right, which closed around the dagger. The hilt was slick with the sweat on her palms.

  With her right hand free, Dee unbound her cloak and slipped it off, standing before Luce in a long white tunic. Her upper chest was bare, revealing her arrowhead tattoo.

  Luce whimpered at the sight of it.

  “Please don’t worry, dear. I’m a special breed, and this moment has always been my destiny. One quick 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 masterpiece.”

  “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 breaths 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 yawning 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.