“Yes.” Luce touched her forehead. There was more, so much more. “Versailles.” She began to speak more quickly. “I was condemned to marry a man I didn’t love. And your kiss released me, and my death was glorious because we would always find each other again. Forever.”

  “Together forever, whatever the weather,” Arriane chimed in, swiping damp eyes on Roland’s shirtsleeve.

  By now Luce’s throat felt so tight it was difficult to speak. But it was no longer sore. “I didn’t realize until London that your curse was so much worse than mine,” she said to Daniel. “What you had to go through, losing me—”

  “It never mattered,” Annabelle murmured, her wings buzzing so much that her feet were inches off the ground. “He would always wait for you.”

  “Chichén Itzá.” Luce closed her eyes. “I learned that an angel’s glory could be deadly to mortals.”

  “Yes,” Steven said. “But you’re still here.”

  “Keep going, Luce.” Francesca’s voice was more encouraging than it had ever been at Shoreline.

  “Ancient China.” She paused. This one’s significance was different from the others. “You showed me that our love was more important than any arbitrary war.”

  No one spoke. Daniel gave the faintest nod.

  And that was when Luce understood not just who she was—but what it all added up to. There was another lifetime from her voyage through the Announcers that Luce felt she had to mention. She took a breath.

  Don’t think of Bill, she told herself. You are not afraid.

  “When I was locked in the tomb in Egypt, I knew once and for all that I would always choose your love.”

  That was when the angels dropped to one knee, gazing up at her expectantly—all of them except Daniel. His eyes glowed the most potent shade of violet she had ever seen. He reached for her, but before his hands met hers:

  “Auugh!” Luce cried out as a sharp pain sliced through her back. Her body convulsed with a foreign, piercing sensation. Her eyes teared. Her ears rang. She thought she might be sick from the pain. But slowly, it localized, from an acute agony all over her back, into two small sections at the tops of her shoulder blades.

  Was she bleeding? She reached back, over her shoulder. The wound felt tender and raw, and also as if something were being drawn out from within her. It didn’t hurt, but it was bewildering. Panicked, she whirled her head around but she could see nothing, could only hear the sound of skin sliding and being stretched, the thrrrrrp that sounded like new muscles were being generated.

  Then came a sudden feeling of heaviness, as if weights had been strapped around her shoulders.

  And then—in her peripheral vision, vast billowing whiteness on either side of her as a collective gasp rose from the angels’ lips.

  “Oh, Lucinda,” Daniel whispered, his hand covering his mouth.

  It was this easy: She spread her wings.

  They were luminous, buoyant, impossibly light, made of the finest, most reflective empyrean matter. From tip to tip, her wingspan was maybe thirty feet, but they felt vast, endless. She felt no more pain. When her fingers curled around the base of them behind her shoulders, they were several inches thick and plush. They were silver, yet not silver, like the surface of a mirror. They were inconceivable; they were inevitable.

  They were her wings.

  They contained every ounce of strength and empowerment she had amassed over the millennia she had lived. And at the slightest whim of a thought, her wings began to beat.

  Her first thought: I can do anything now.

  Wordlessly, she and Daniel reached for one another’s hands. Their wings’ top edges arched forward in a kind of kiss, like the angels’ wings on the Qayom Malak. They were crying and laughing, and soon, they were kissing.

  “So?” he asked.

  She was stunned and amazed—and happier than she’d ever been before. It couldn’t possibly be real, she thought—unless she spoke the truth aloud, with Daniel and the rest of the fallen angels there to witness.

  “I’m Lucinda,” she said. “I’m your angel.”

  SEVENTEEN

  THE INVENTION OF LOVE

  Flying was like swimming, and Luce was good at both.

  Her feet lifted off the ground. It took no thought or preparation. Her wings beat with sudden intuition. Wind hummed against the fibers of her wings, carrying her in the gauzy pink sky. Aloft, she felt the weight of her body, especially in her feet, but overpowering that was a new, unimaginable buoyancy. She slid over low tiers of clouds, causing the slightest disruption, like a breeze passing through a chime.

  She gazed from one wing tip to the other, examining their silver-pearl luster, in awe of all her changes. It was as if the rest of her body deferred to her wings now. They responded at the first inkling of desire with elegant strokes that generated tremendous velocity. They flattened like an airfoil to glide solely on momentum, then pulled back into a heart shape behind her shoulders as she swizzled straight into the air.

  Her first flight.

  Except … it wasn’t. What Luce knew now, as keenly as her wings knew how to fly, was that there had been a monumental before. Before Lucinda Price, before her soul had ever seen the curving Earth. For all the lives on Earth she’d witnessed in the Announcers, all the bodies she had inhabited, Luce had barely scratched the surface of who she was, who she had been. There was a history older than history during which she’d beat these wings.

  She could see the others watching her from the ground. Daniel’s face shone with tears. He had known this all along. He had waited for her. She wanted to reach him, wanted him to soar up and fly with her—but then, suddenly, she couldn’t see him anymore.

  The light gave way to the total darkness …

  Of another memory crashing through.

  She closed her eyes and surrendered to it, letting it carry her back. Somehow she knew that this was the earliest memory, the moment at the furthest reaches of her soul. Lucinda had been there from the beginning of the beginning.

  The Bible had left this part out:

  Before there was light, there were angels. One moment, darkness; the next, the warm feeling of being coaxed out of inexistence by a gentle, magnificent hand.

  God created the Heavenly host of angels—all three hundred and eighteen million of them—in a single, brilliant moment. Lucinda was there, and Daniel, and Roland and Annabelle and Cam—and millions more, all perfect, all glorious, all designed to adore their Creator.

  Their bodies were made of the same substance that composed the firmament of heaven. They were not flesh and blood, but empyreal matter, the stuff of light itself—strong, indestructible, beautiful to behold. Their shoulders, arms, and legs shimmered into being, foreshadowing the shapes mortals would take upon their own creation. The angels all discovered their wings simultaneously, each pair slightly different, reflecting the soul of its possessor.

  As early as the angels’ genesis, Lucinda’s wings were bright reflective silver, the color of starlight. They had shone in their singular glory since the dawn of the dawn of time.

  Creation occurred at the speed of God’s will, but it unfolded in Luce’s memory like a story, another of God’s earliest creations, a by-product of time. One moment there was nothing; then Heaven was replete with angels. In those days, Heaven was limitless, its ground covered by cloudsoil, a soft white substance like misty cloud that covered the angels’ feet and wing tips when they walked along the ground.

  There were endless tiers in Heaven, each level teeming with alcoves and winding paths fanning out in all directions under a honey-colored sky. The air was perfumed with nectar welling in delicate white flowers springing up in delightful groves. Their round blooms dotted all of Heaven’s nooks and crannies, looking something like ancestors of white peonies.

  Orchards of silver trees bore the most delicious fruits that had ever existed. The angels feasted and gave thanks for their first and only home. Their voices joined together in praise of their Creator, forming a blended sound that in humans’ throats would later be known as harmony.

  A meadow rolled into existence, dividing the orchard in two. And when everything else in Heaven was complete, God placed a stunning Throne at the head of the meadow. It pulsed with divine light.

  “Come before me,” God commanded, settling into the deep seat with deserved satisfaction. “Henceforth you will know me as the Throne.”

  The angels gathered on the plain of Heaven and approached the Throne in gladness. They flowed naturally into a single line, ranking themselves instantly and forevermore. By the time they neared the edge of the meadow, Lucinda remembered that she could not clearly see the Throne. It shone too brightly for angels’ eyes to withstand. She also remembered that she had once been the third angel in line—the third angel closest to God.

  One, two, three.

  Her wings stretched and thickened with the honor.

  In the air over the Throne, eight ledges made of rippled silver hung in an arch, like a canopy sheltering the Throne. God called the first eight angels in the line to fill these seats and become the Throne’s Archangels. Lucinda took her place on the third seat from the left. It fit her body precisely, having been created just for her. This was where she belonged. Adoration poured from her soul, flowing to God.

  It was perfect.

  It did not last.

  God had more plans for the universe. Another memory filled Lucinda, causing her to shiver.

  God left the angels.

  All was joyful in the Meadow, and then the Throne became empty. God walked past the thresholds of Heaven, went away to create the stars and the Earth and the moon.

  Man and woman hovered near the brink of existence.

  Heaven dimmed when God left it. Lucinda felt cold and useless. It was then, she remembered, that the angels began to see one another differently, to notice the variations in color among their wings. Some began to gossip that God had wearied of them and their harmonizing songs of praise. Some said that humans would soon take the angels’ place.

  Lucinda remembered reclining in her silver seat next to the Throne. She remembered noticing how simple and dull it looked without God’s animating presence. She tried to adore her Creator from afar, but she couldn’t replace her loneliness. Adoration in God’s presence was what she had been designed for and all she felt now was a hole. What could she do?

  She looked down from her chair and saw an angel roaming the cloudsoil. He looked lethargic, melancholy. He seemed to feel her gaze on him and looked up. When their eyes met, he smiled. She remembered how beautiful he’d been before God had gone away.…

  They did not think. They reached for one another. Their souls entwined.

  Daniel, Luce thought. But she couldn’t be sure. The Meadow had been dim and her memory was foggy.…

  Was this the moment of their first connection?

  Flash.

  The Meadow was bright white again. Time had passed; God had returned. The Throne blazed with sublime glory. Lucinda no longer sat upon her rippling silver chair beside the Throne. She was crammed into the Meadow with the full host of angels, being asked to choose something.

  The Roll Call. Lucinda had been there, too. Of course she had. She felt hot and nervous without knowing why. Her body flushed the way it used to when she was inside a past self and on the brink of dying. She could not still her trembling wings.

  She had chosen—

  Her stomach dropped. The air felt thin. She was … falling. Luce blinked and saw the sun clipping the mountains and she knew that she was back in the present, back in Troy. And falling from the sky, twenty feet … forty. Her arms flailed, as if she were a mere girl again, as if she couldn’t fly.

  She spread her wings, but it was too late.

  She landed with a soft thump in Daniel’s arms. Her friends surrounded her on the grassy plain. Everything was just as it had been before: flat-topped cedar trees around a muddy, fallow farm; abandoned hut in the middle of barren expanse; purple hills; butterflies. Faces of fallen angels watching over her, filled with concern.

  “Are you all right?” Daniel asked.

  Her heart was still racing. Why couldn’t she remember what had happened at the Roll Call? Maybe it wouldn’t help them stop Lucifer, but Luce desperately wanted to know.

  “I came so close,” she said. “I almost understood what happened.”

  Daniel set her softly on the ground and kissed her. “You will get there, Luce. I know you will.”

  It was dusk on the eighth day of their journey. As the sun slipped over the Dardanelles, casting gold light on the sloping fallow fields, Luce wished there was a way to draw it backward.

  What if one day wasn’t enough time?

  Luce hunched and unhunched her shoulders. She wasn’t used to the weight of her wings, light as rose petals in the sky, but heavy as lead curtains when her feet were on the ground.

  When her wings first unfurled, they’d torn through her T-shirt and the khaki army jacket. The clothes lay on the grass in shreds, strange proof. Annabelle had quickly emerged from the hut with an extra T-shirt. It was electric blue with a silk-screened image of Marlene Dietrich on the chest, subtle wing slits tailored into the back.

  “Instead of thinking of all that you don’t yet remember,” Francesca said, “recognize what you have come to know.”

  “Well.” Luce paced the meadow, feeling the new sensation of her wings bobbing behind her. “I know that the curse prevented me from knowing my true nature as an angel, caused me to die whenever I began to approach a memory of my past. That’s why none of you could tell me who I was.”

  “You had to walk that lonesome valley by yourself,” Cam said.

  “And the reason it took you until this lifetime was also part of your curse,” Daniel said.

  “This time I was raised without one specific religion, without a single set of rules determining my destiny, which allows me to”—Luce paused, thinking back to the Roll Call—“choose for myself.”

  “Not everyone has that luxury.” Phil spoke up from the line of Outcasts.

  “That’s why the Outcasts wanted me?” she asked, knowing suddenly it was true. “But haven’t I already chosen Daniel? I couldn’t remember before, but when Dee gave me her gift of knowledge, it seemed like”—she reached for Daniel—“the choice was always already there inside of me.”

  “You know who you are now, Luce,” Daniel said. “You know what matters to you. Nothing should be beyond your grasp.”

  Daniel’s words seeped into her. This was what she was now—it was what she always had been.

  Her gaze moved to where the Outcasts stood at a distance from the group. Luce didn’t know how much they could have seen of her transformation, whether their blind eyes could perceive a soul’s metamorphosis. She watched for a sign in Olianna, the female Outcast who’d guarded Luce on the rooftop in Vienna. But as she stared at Olianna, she realized Olianna had also … changed.

  “I remember you,” Luce said, walking closer to the thin blond girl with the cavernous white eyes. She knew her, from Heaven. “Olianna, you were one of the Twelve Angels of the Zodiac. You ruled over Leo.”

  Olianna took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you, Phresia. You were a Luminary.” Luce closed her eyes, remembering. “Weren’t you one of the Four who emanated from Divine Will? I remember your wings. They were”—she halted, feeling her expression darken at the sight of the drab brown wings the girl bore now—“exceptional.”

  Phresia straightened her slumped shoulders, raised her pale gaunt face. “No one has truly seen me in ages.”

  Vincent, the youngest-looking of the Outcasts, stepped forward. “And me, Lucinda Price? Do you remember me?”

  Luce reached out and touched the boy’s shoulder, remembering how deathly sick he’d looked after the Scale had tortured him. Then she remembered something deeper than that. “You are Vincent, Angel of the North Wind.”

  Vincent’s blind eyes clouded, as if his soul wanted to cry but his body refused.

  “Phil,” Luce said, gazing finally at the Outcast she’d feared so much when he came for her in her parents’ backyard. His lips were taut and white, nervous. “One of Monday’s Angels, weren’t you? Instilled with the Powers of the Moon.”

  “Thank you, Lucinda Price.” Phil bowed haltingly, but graciously. “The Outcasts confess, we were wrong to try to take you away from your soul mate and your obligations. But we knew, as you have just proven, that you alone could see us for who we used to be. And that you alone could restore us to our glory.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can see you.”

  “The Outcasts can see you, too,” Phil said. “You are radiant.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Daniel.

  She turned to him. His blond hair and violet eyes, the strong cut of his shoulders, the full lips that had brought her back to life a thousand times. They had loved each other even longer than Luce had realized. Their love had been strong since the early days of Heaven. Their relationship spanned the entire story of existence. She knew where she’d first met Daniel on Earth—right here, on the singed fields of Troy while the angels were falling—but there was an earlier story. A different beginning to their love.

  When? How had it happened?

  She searched for the answer in his eyes—but she knew she wouldn’t find it there. She had to look back in her own soul. She closed her eyes.

  The memories came easier now, as if her spreading wings had sent a web of fissures breaking through the wall between the girl Lucinda and the angel she had been before. Whatever separated her from her past was fragile now, as thin and brittle as an eggshell.

  Flash.

  Back on the Meadow, astride her silver ledge, aching for God to return. Luce was looking down at the fair-haired angel, the one she’d already remembered reaching for. She remembered his slow, sad steps on the cloudsoil. The crown of his head before he looked up. Heaven was quiet then. Luce and the angel were alone for a rare moment, away from the harmony of others.