Passion

FIFTEEN THE SACRIFICE

Ŧhe Announcer spat Luce into the swelter of a summer day. Beneath her feet, the ground was parched, all cracked earth and tawny, dried-up blades of grass. The sky was barren blue, not a single cloud to promise rain. Even the wind seemed thirsty.

She stood in the center of a flat field bordered on three sides by a strange, high wall. From this distance, it looked a little like a mosaic made of giant beads. They were irregularly shaped, not spherical exactly, ranging in color from ivory to light brown. Here and there were tiny cracks between the beads, letting in light from the other side.

Besides a half dozen vultures cawing as they swooped in listless circles, no one else was around. The wind blew hotly through her hair and smelled like … she couldn’t place the smell, but it tasted metallic, almost rusty.

The heavy gown she had been wearing since the ball at Versailles was soaked with sweat. It stank of smoke and ash and perspiration every time she breathed in. It had to go. She struggled to reach the laces and buttons. She could use a hand—even a tiny stone one.

Where was Bill, anyway? He was always disappearing. Sometimes Luce got the feeling the gargoyle had an agenda of his own, and that she was being shuffled forward according to his schedule.

She wrestled with the dress, tearing at the green lace around the collar, popping hooks as she walked. Thankfully, there was no one around to see. Finally she got down on her knees and shimmied free, pulling the skirts over her head.

As she sat back on her heels in her thin cotton shift, it hit Luce how exhausted she was. How long had it been since she’d slept? She stumbled toward the shade of the wall, her feet rustling through the brittle grass, thinking maybe she could lie down for a little while and close her eyes.

Her eyelids fluttered, so sleepy.

Then they shot open. And her skin began to crawl.

Heads.

Luce finally realized what the wall was made of. The bone-colored palisades—halfway innocent-looking from afar—were interlocking racks of impaled human heads.

She stifled a scream. Suddenly she could place the odor being carried in the wind—it was the stench of rot and spilled blood, of putrefying flesh.

Along the bottom of the palisades were sun-bleached, weathered skulls, whipped white and clean by the wind and the sun. Along the top, the skulls looked fresher. That is, they were still clearly people’s heads—thick manes of black hair, skin mostly intact. But the skulls in the middle were someplace between mortal and monster: The frayed skin was peeling back, leaving dried brown blood on bone. The faces were stretched tight with what might have been terror or rage.

Luce staggered away, hoping for a breath of air that didn’t stink of rot, but not finding it.

“It’s not quite as gruesome as it looks.”

She whirled around, terrified. But it was only Bill.

“Where were you? Where are we?”

“It’s actually a great honor to get staked out like this,” he said, marching right up to the next-to-lowest row. He looked one head in the eye. “All these innocent little lambs go straight to Heaven. Just what the faithful desire.”

“Why did you leave me here with these—”

“Aw, come on. They won’t bite.” He eyed her sidelong. “What have you done with your clothes?”

Luce shrugged. “It’s hot.”

He sighed lengthily, with a put-upon world-weariness. “Now ask me where I’ve been. And this time, try to keep the judgment out of your voice.”

Her mouth twitched. There was something sketchy about Bill’s occasional disappearances. But he was standing there now, with his little claws tucked neatly behind his back, giving her an innocent smile. She sighed. “Where have you been?”

“Shopping!” Bill gleefully extended both his wings, revealing a light-brown wraparound skirt hanging off one wing tip and a short matching tunic hanging off the other. “And the coup de grâce!” he said, withdrawing from behind his back a chunky white necklace. Bone.

She took the tunic and the skirt but waved off the necklace. She’d seen enough bone. “No, thanks.”

“Do you want to blend in? Then you’ve got to wear the goods.”

Swallowing her disgust, she slipped it over her head. The polished bone pieces had been strung along some kind of fiber. The necklace was long and heavy and, Luce had to admit, sort of pretty.

“And I think this”—he gave her a painted metal band—“goes in your hair.”

“Where did you get all this stuff?” she asked.

“It’s yours. I mean, it’s not yours-Lucinda-Price, but it is yours in a larger cosmic sense. It belongs to the you that is part of this lifetime—Ix Cuat.”

“Ix who?”

“Ix Cuat. Your name in this life meant ‘Little Snake.’ ” Bill watched her face change. “It was a term of endearment in the Mayan culture. Sort of.”

“The same way getting your head impaled on a stick was an honor?”

Bill rolled his stone eyes. “Stop being so ethnocentric. That means thinking your own culture is superior to other cultures.”

“I know what it means,” she said, working the band into her dirty hair. “But I’m not being superior. I just don’t think having my head stuck on one of these racks would be so great.” There was a faint thrumming in the air, like faraway drumbeats.

“That’s exactly the sort of thing Ix Cuat would say! You always were a little bit backward!”

“What do you mean?”

“See, you—Ix Cuat—were born during the Wayeb’, which are these five odd days at the end of the Mayan year that everyone gets real superstitious about because they don’t fit into the calendar. Kind of like leap-year days. It’s not exactly lucky to be born during Wayeb’. So no one was shocked when you grew up to be an old maid.”

“Old maid?” Luce asked. “I thought I never live past seventeen … more or less.”

“Seventeen here in Chichén Itzá is ancient,” Bill said, floating from head to head, his wings humming as they fluttered. “But it’s true, you never used to live much past seventeen or thereabouts. It’s been kind of a mystery as to why in the lifetime of Lucinda Price you’ve managed to stick around so long.”

“Daniel said it was because I wasn’t baptized.” Now Luce was sure she heard drums—and that they were drawing closer. “But how can that matter? I mean, I bet Ix Ca-whatever was baptized—”

Bill flapped his hand dismissively. “Baptism is just one word for a kind of sacrament or covenant, in which your soul is more or less claimed. Just about every faith has something similar. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, even the Mayan religion that is about to go marching past”—he nodded toward the drumming, which was now so loud that Luce wondered if they should hide—“they all feature sacraments of some kind in which one expresses one’s devotion to one’s god.”

“So I’m alive in my current life in Thunderbolt because my parents didn’t have me baptized?”

“No,” Bill said, “you’re able to be killed in your current life in Thunderbolt because your parents didn’t have you baptized. You’re alive in your current life because, well … no one really knows why.”

There must have been a reason. Maybe it was the loophole Daniel had spoken about in the hospital in Milan. But even he didn’t seem to understand how Luce was able to travel through the Announcers. With every life she visited, Luce could feel herself getting closer to fitting the pieces of her past together … but she wasn’t there yet.

“Where’s the village?” she asked. “Where are the people? Where’s Daniel?” The drums grew so loud that she had to raise her voice.

“Oh,” Bill said, “they’re on the other side of the tzompantlis.”

“The what?”

“This wall of heads. Come on—you’ve got to see this!”

Through the open spaces in the racks of skulls, flashes of color danced. Bill herded Luce to the edge of the skull wall and gestured for her to look.

Beyond the wall, a whole civilization paraded past. A long line of people danced and beat their feet against a broad packed-dirt road that wound through the bone-yard. They had silky black hair and skin the color of chestnuts. They ranged in age from three to old enough to defy guessing. All of them were vibrant and beautiful and strange. Their clothes were sparse, weathered animal hides that barely covered their flesh, showing off tattoos and painted faces. It was the most remarkable body art—elaborate, colorful depictions of brightly feathered birds, suns, and geometric designs splayed across their backs and arms and chests.

In the distance, there were buildings—an orderly grid of bleached-stone structures and a cluster of smaller buildings with flat thatched roofs. Beyond that, there was jungle, but the leaves of its trees looked withered and brittle.

The crowd marched past, blind to Luce, caught up in the frenzy of their dance. “Come on!” Bill said, and shoved her out into the flow of people.

“What?” she shouted. “Go in there? With them?”

“It’ll be fun!” Bill cackled, flying ahead. “You know how to dance, don’t you?”

Cautiously at first, she and the little gargoyle joined the parade as they passed through what looked like a marketplace—a long, narrow strip of land packed with wooden casks and bowls full of goods for sale: dimply black avocados, deep red stalks of maize, dried herbs bundled with twine, and many other things Luce didn’t recognize. She turned her head this way and that to see as much as possible as she passed, but there was no way to stop. The surge of the crowd pushed her inexorably forward.

The Mayans followed the road as it curved down onto a wide, shallow plain. The roar of their dance faded, and they gathered quietly, murmuring to one another. They numbered in the hundreds. At the repeated pressure of Bill’s sharp claws on her shoulders, Luce lowered herself to her knees like the rest of them and followed the crowd’s gaze upward.

Behind the marketplace, one building rose higher than all the others: a stepped pyramid of the whitest stone. The two sides visible to Luce each had steep staircases running up their centers that ended at a single-story structure painted blue and red. A shiver ran through Luce, part recognition and part inexplicable fear.

She’d seen this pyramid before. In history-book pictures, the Mayan temple had fallen to ruins. But it was far from ruins now. It was magnificent.

Four men holding drums made of wood and stretched hide stood in a row on the ledge around the pyramid’s top. Their tanned faces were painted with strokes of red, yellow, and blue to look like masks. Their drums beat in unison, faster and faster until someone emerged from the doorway.

The man was taller than the drummers; beneath a towering red-and-white-feathered headdress, his entire face was painted with mazelike turquoise designs. His neck, wrists, ankles, and earlobes were adorned with the same kind of bone jewelry Bill had given Luce to wear. He was carrying something—a long stick decorated with painted feathers and shiny shards of white. At one end, something silver gleamed.

When he faced the people, the crowd fell silent, almost as if by magic.

“Who is that man?” Luce whispered to Bill. “What’s he doing?”

“That’s the tribal leader, Zotz. Pretty haggard, right? Times are tough when your people haven’t seen rain for three hundred and sixty-four days. Not that they’re counting on that stone calendar over there or anything.” He pointed at a gray slab of rock marked with hundreds of sooty black lines.

Not one drop of water for almost an entire year? Luce could almost feel the thirst coming off the crowd. “They’re dying,” she said.

“They hope not. That’s where you come in,” Bill said. “You and a few other unfortunate wretches. Daniel, too—he’s got a minor role. Chaat’s very hungry by now, so it’s really all hands on deck.”

“Chaat?”

“The rain god. The Mayans have this absurd belief that a wrathful god’s favorite food is blood. See where I’m going with this?”

“Human sacrifice,” Luce said slowly.

“Yep. This is the beginning of a long day of ’em. More skulls to add to the racks. Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Where’s Lucinda? I mean, Ix Cuat?”

Bill pointed at the temple. “She’s locked up in there, along with the other sacrificees, waiting for the ball game to be over.”

“The ball game?”

“That’s what this crowd is on their way to watch. See, the tribal leader likes to host a ball game before a big sacrifice.” Bill coughed and brushed his wings back. “It’s kind of a cross between basketball and soccer, if each team had only two players, and the ball weighed a ton, and the losers got their heads cut off and their blood fed to Chaat.”

“To the court!” Zotz bellowed from the top step of the temple. The Mayan words sounded strangely guttural and yet were still comprehensible to Luce. She wondered how they made Ix Cuat feel, locked up in the room behind Zotz.

A great cheer erupted from the crowd. As a group, the Mayans rose and broke into a run toward what looked like a large stone amphitheater at the far side of the plain. It was oblong and low—a brown dirt playing field ringed by tiered stone bleachers.

“Ah—there’s our boy!” Bill pointed at the head of the crowd as they neared the stadium.

A lean, muscular boy was running, faster than the others, his back to Luce. His hair was dark brown and shiny, his shoulders deeply tanned and painted with intersecting red-and-black bands. When he turned his head slightly to the left, Luce caught a quick glimpse of his profile. He was nothing like the Daniel she had left in her parents’ backyard. And yet—

“Daniel!” Luce said. “He looks—”

“Different and also precisely the same?” Bill asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s his soul you recognize. Regardless of how you two may look on the outside, you’ll always know each other’s souls.”

It hadn’t occurred to Luce until now how remarkable it was that she recognized Daniel in every life. Her soul found his. “That’s … beautiful.”

Bill scratched at a scab on his arm with a gnarly claw. “If you say so.”

“You said Daniel was involved in the sacrifice somehow. He’s a ballplayer, isn’t he?” Luce said, craning her neck toward the crowd just as Daniel disappeared inside the amphitheater.

“He is,” Bill said. “There’s a lovely little ceremony”—he raised a stone eyebrow—“in which the winners guide the sacrifices into their next life.”

“The winners kill the prisoners?” Luce said quietly.

They watched the crowd as it funneled into the amphitheater. Drumbeats sounded from within. The game was about to begin.

“Not kill. They’re not common murderers. Sacrifice. First they chop off the heads. Heads go back there.” Bill nodded over his shoulder at the palisade of heads. “Bodies get tossed into a skuzzy—pardon me, holy—limestone sinkhole out in the jungle.” He sniffed. “Me? I don’t see how that’s gonna bring rain, but who am I to judge?”

“Will Daniel win or lose?” Luce asked, knowing the answer before the words had even left her lips.

“I can see how the idea of Daniel decapitating you does not maybe scream out romance,” Bill said, “but really, what’s the difference between his killing you by fire and by the sword?”

“Daniel wouldn’t do that.”

Bill hovered in the air in front of Luce. “Wouldn’t he?”

There came a great roar from inside the amphitheater. Luce felt that she should run onto the field, go up to Daniel, and take him in her arms; tell him what she’d left the Globe too soon to say: that she understood now everything he went through to be with her. That his sacrifices made her even more committed to their love. “I should go to him,” she said.

But there was also Ix Cuat. Locked up in a room atop the pyramid waiting to be killed. A girl who might hold within her a valuable piece of information Luce needed to learn to break the curse.

Luce teetered in place—one foot toward the amphitheater, one toward the pyramid.

“What’s it gonna be?” Bill taunted. His smile was too big.

She took off running, away from Bill and toward the pyramid.

“Good choice!” he called, flitting quickly around to keep pace at her side.

The pyramid towered over her. The painted temple at the top—where Bill had said Ix Cuat would be—felt as distant as a star. Luce was so thirsty. Her throat ached for water; the ground scorched the soles of her feet. It felt like the entire world was burning up.

“This place is very sacred,” Bill murmured in her ear. “This temple was built on top of a previous temple, which was built on top of yet another temple, and so on, all of them oriented to mark the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. On those two days at sunset, the shadow of a serpent can be seen sliding up the steps of the northern stairs. Cool, huh?”

Luce just huffed and began climbing the stairs.

“The Mayans were geniuses. By this point in their civilization, they’ve already predicted the end of the world in 2012.” He coughed theatrically. “But that remains to be seen. Time will tell.”

As Luce neared the top, Bill swooped in close again.

“Now, listen,” he said. “This time, if and when you go three-D—”

“Shhh,” Luce said.

“No one can hear me but you!”

“Exactly. Shhh!” She took another step up the pyramid, quietly now, and stood on the ledge at the top. She pressed her body against the hot stone of the temple wall, inches away from the open doorway. Someone inside was singing.

“I’d do it now,” Bill said, “while the guards are at the ball court.”

Luce edged to the doorway and peered in.

The sunlight streaming through the open door lit up a large throne in the center of the temple. It was shaped like a jaguar and painted red, with spots of inlaid jade. To the left was a large statue of a figure reclining on its side with a hand over its stomach. Small burning lamps made of stone and filled with oil surrounded the statue and cast a flickering light. The only other things in the room were three girls bound together at the wrists by rope, huddled in the corner.

Luce gasped, and all three girls’ heads shot up. They were all pretty, with dark hair in braids, and jade piercings through their ears. The one on the left had the darkest skin. The one on the right had deep-blue swirling lines painted up and down her arms. And the one in the middle … was Luce.

Ix Cuat was small and delicate. Her feet were dirty, and her lips were chapped. Of the three terrified girls, her dark eyes were the wildest.

“What are you waiting for?” Bill called out from his seat on the statue’s head.

“Won’t they see me?” Luce whispered through a clenched jaw. The other times she’d cleaved with her past selves, they’d either been alone or Bill had helped to shield her. What would it look like to these other girls if Luce went inside Ix Cuat’s body?

“These girls have been half mad since they got selected to be sacrificed. If they cry out about any freaky business, guess how many people are going to care?” Bill made a show of counting on his fingers. “Right. Zero. No one’s even going to hear them.”

“Who are you?” one of the girls asked, her voice splintered with fear.

Luce couldn’t answer. As she stepped forward, Ix Cuat’s eyes ignited with what looked like terror. But then, to Luce’s great shock, just as she reached down, her past self reached up with her bound hands and grabbed fast and hard to Luce’s. Ix Cuat’s hands were warm, and soft, and trembling.

She started to say something. Ix Cuat had started to say—

Fly me away.

Luce heard it in her mind as the ground beneath them shuddered and everything began to flicker. She saw Ix Cuat, the girl who’d been born unlucky, whose eyes told Luce she knew nothing about the Announcers, but who had seized hold of Luce as if Luce held her deliverance. And she saw herself, from outside herself, looking tired and hungry and ragged and rough. And older somehow. And stronger.

Then the world settled again.

Bill was gone from the statue’s head, but Luce couldn’t move to search for him. Her bound wrists were raw, and marked with black sacrificial tattoos. Her ankles, she realized, had been bound, too. Not that the bindings mattered much—fear bound her soul more tightly than any rope ever could. This wasn’t like the other times Luce had gone inside her past. Ix Cuat knew exactly what was coming to her. Death. And she did not seem to welcome it as Lys had in Versailles.

On either side of Ix Cuat, her cocaptives had edged away from her, but they could move only a few inches. The girl on the left, with the dark skin—Hanhau—was crying; the other, with the painted blue body—Ghanan—was praying. They were all afraid to die.

“You are possessed!” Hanhau sobbed through her tears. “You will contaminate the offering!”

Ghanan was at a loss for words.

Luce ignored the girls and felt around Ix Cuat’s own crippling fear. Something was running through her mind: a prayer. But not a prayer of sacrificial preparation. No, Ix Cuat was praying for Daniel.

Luce knew that the thought of him made Ix Cuat’s skin flush and her heart beat faster. Ix Cuat had loved him her whole life—but only from afar. He’d grown up a few buildings away from her family’s home. Sometimes he traded avocados to her mother at the market. Ix Cuat had been trying for years to get up the courage to talk to him. The knowledge that he was at the ball court now tormented her. Ix Cuat was praying, Luce realized, that he would lose. Her one prayer was that she did not want to die at his hand.

“Bill?” Luce whispered.

The little gargoyle swooped back inside the temple. “Game’s over! The mob’s heading over to the cenote now. That’s the limestone pool where the sacrificing takes place. Zotz and the winning players are on their way up here to walk you gals over to the ceremony.”

As the din of the mob faded, Luce trembled. There were footsteps on the stairs. Any moment now, Daniel would walk through that door.

Three shadows darkened the doorway. Zotz, the leader with the red-and-white-feathered headdress, stepped inside the temple. None of the girls moved; they were all staring in horror at the long decorative spear he held. A human head was spiked atop it. The eyes were open, crossed with strain; the neck was still dripping blood.

Luce looked away and her eyes fell on another, very muscular man entering the tomb. He was carrying another painted spear with another head impaled on its top. At least this one’s eyes were closed. There was the faintest smile across the fat, dead lips.

“The losers,” Bill said, zipping close to each of the heads to examine them. “Now aren’t you glad Daniel’s team won? Mostly thanks to this guy.” He clapped the muscular man on the shoulder, though Daniel’s teammate didn’t seem to feel a thing. Then Bill was out the door again.

When Daniel walked into the temple at last, his head was hanging. His hands were empty and his chest was bare. His hair and skin were dark, and his posture was stiffer than Luce was used to. Everything from the way the muscles of his abdomen met the muscles of his chest to the way he held his hands lifelessly at his sides was different. He was still gorgeous, still the most gorgeous thing Luce had ever seen, though he looked nothing like the boy whom Luce had gotten used to.

But then he glanced up, and his eyes glowed exactly the same shade of violet that they always did.

“Oh,” she said softly, thrashing against her bindings, desperate to escape the story they were stuck in during this lifetime—the skulls and the drought and the sacrifice—and hold on to him for all eternity.

Daniel shook his head slightly. His eyes pulsed at her, glowing. His gaze soothed her. Like he was telling her not to worry.

Zotz motioned with his free hand for the three girls to stand, then gave a swift nod, and everyone filed out through the northern door of the temple. Hanhau first, with Zotz at her side, Luce right behind her, and Ghanan bringing up the rear. The rope between them was just long enough for each girl to hold both wrists together at her side. Daniel came up and walked beside her, and the other victor walked beside Ghanan.

For the briefest instant, Daniel’s fingertips grazed her bound wrists. Ix Cuat tingled at the touch.

Just outside the temple door, the four drummers were waiting on the ledge. They fell in line behind the processional and, as the party descended the pyramid’s steep steps, played the same hectic beats Luce had heard when she’d first arrived in this life. Luce focused on walking, feeling as if she were riding a tide instead of choosing to put one foot in front of the other, down the pyramid, and then, at the base of the steps, along the wide, dusty path that led to her death.

The drums were all she could hear, until Daniel leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to save you.”

Something deep inside Ix Cuat soared. This was the first time he had ever spoken to her in this life.

“How?” she whispered back, leaning toward him, aching for him to free her and fly her far, far away.

“Don’t worry.” His fingertips found hers again, brushing them softly. “I promise, I’ll take care of you.”

Tears stung her eyes. The ground was still searing the soles of her feet, and she was still marching to the place where Ix Cuat was supposed to die, but for the first time since arriving in this life, Luce was not afraid.

The path led through a line of trees and into the jungle. The drummers paused. Chanting filled her ears, the chants of the crowd deeper in the jungle, at the cenote. A song that Ix Cuat had grown up singing, a prayer for rain. The other two girls sang along softly, their voices quaking.

Luce thought of the words Ix Cuat had seemed to say as Luce entered her body: Fly me away, she’d shouted inside her head. Fly me away.

All at once, they stopped walking.

Deep in the dried-out, thirsty jungle, the path before them opened up. A huge water-filled crater in the limestone spanned a hundred feet in front of Luce. Around it were the bright, eager eyes of the Mayan people. Hundreds. They’d stopped chanting. The moment they’d been waiting for was here.

The cenote was a limestone pit, mossy and deep and filled with bright-green water. Ix Cuat had been there before—she’d seen twelve other human sacrifices just like this one. Below that still water were the decomposing remains of a hundred other bodies, a hundred souls who were supposed to have gone straight to Heaven—only, at that moment, Luce knew that Ix Cuat wasn’t sure she believed in any of it.

Ix Cuat’s family stood near the rim of the cenote. Her mother, her father, her two younger sisters, both holding babies in their arms. They believed—in the ritual, in the sacrifice that would take their daughter away and break their hearts. They loved her, but they thought she was unlucky. They thought this was the best way for her to redeem herself.

A gap-toothed man with long gold earrings guided Ix Cuat and the other two girls to stand before Zotz, who had taken a prominent place near the edge of the limestone pool. He gazed down into the deep water. Then he closed his eyes and began a new chant. The community and the drummers joined in.

Now the gap-toothed man stood between Luce and Ghanan and brought down his ax on the rope tying them together. Luce felt a jerk forward and the rope was severed. Her wrists were still bound, but she was now connected only to Hanhau on her right. Ghanan was on her own, marched forward directly in front of Zotz.

The girl rocked back and forth, chanting under her breath. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck.

When Zotz began to say words of prayer to the rain god, Daniel leaned toward Luce. “Don’t look.”

So Luce fastened her gaze on Daniel, and he on her. All around the cenote, the crowd drew in their breaths. Daniel’s teammate grunted and brought the ax down heavily on the girl’s neck. Luce heard the blade slice cleanly though, then the soft thump of Ghanan’s head landing in the dirt.

The roar of the crowd rose up again: shouts of thanks to Ghanan, prayers for her soul in Heaven, vigorous wishes for rain.

How could people really think that killing an innocent girl would solve their problems? This was where Bill would usually pop in. But Luce didn’t see him anywhere. He had a way of disappearing when Daniel came around.

Luce didn’t want to see what had become of Ghanan’s head. Then she heard a deep, reverberating splash and knew that the girl’s body had reached its final resting place.

The gap-toothed man approached. This time he severed Ix Cuat’s bond to Hanhau. Luce trembled as he marched her before the tribal leader. The rocks were sharp beneath her feet. She peered over the limestone rim into the cenote. She thought she might be sick, but then Daniel appeared at her side and she felt better. He nodded for her to look at Zotz.

The tribal leader beamed at her, showing two topazes set into his front teeth. He intoned a prayer that Chaat would accept her and bring the community many months of nourishing rainfall.

No, Luce thought. It was all wrong. Fly me away! she cried out to Daniel in her head. He turned toward her, almost as if he’d heard.

The gap-toothed man cleaned Ghanan’s blood off the ax with a scrap of animal hide. With great pomp he handed the blade to Daniel, who turned to stand face to face with Luce. Daniel looked weary, as if dragged down by the weight of the ax. His lips were pursed and white, and his violet gaze never left hers.

The crowd was silent, holding their breaths. Hot wind rustled in the trees as the ax gleamed in the sun. Luce could feel that the end was coming, but why? Why had her soul dragged her here? What insight about her past, or the curse, could she possibly gain from having her head cut off?

Then Daniel dropped the ax to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Luce asked.

Daniel didn’t answer. He rolled back his shoulders, turned his face toward the sky, and flung out his arms. Zotz stepped forward to interfere, but when he touched Daniel’s shoulder, he screamed and recoiled as if he’d been burned.

And then—

Daniel’s white wings unfurled from his shoulders. As they extended fully from his sides, huge and shockingly bright against the parched brown landscape, they sent twenty Mayans hurtling backward.

Shouts rang out around the cenote:

“What is he?”

“The boy is winged!”

“He is a god! Sent to us by Chaat!”

Luce thrashed against the ropes binding her wrists and her ankles. She needed to run to Daniel. She tried to move toward him, until—

Until she couldn’t move anymore.

Daniel’s wings were so bright they were almost unbearable. Only, now it wasn’t just Daniel’s wings that were glowing. It was … all of him. His entire body shone. As if he’d swallowed the sun.

Music filled the air. No, not music, but a single harmonious chord. Deafening and unending, glorious and frightening.

Luce had heard it before … somewhere. In the cemetery at Sword & Cross, the last night she’d been there, the night Daniel had fought Cam, and Luce hadn’t been allowed to watch. The night Miss Sophia had dragged her away and Penn had died and nothing had ever been the same. It had begun with that very same chord, and it was coming out of Daniel. He was lit up so brightly, his body actually hummed.

She swayed where she stood, unable to take her eyes away. An intense wave of heat stroked her skin.

Behind Luce, someone cried out. The cry was followed by another, and then another, and then a whole chorus of voices crying out.

Something was burning. It was acrid and choking and turned her stomach instantly. Then, in the corner of her vision, there was an explosion of flame, right where Zotz had been standing a moment before. The boom knocked her backward, and she turned away from the burning brightness of Daniel, coughing on the black ash and bitter smoke.

Hanhau was gone, the ground where she’d stood scorched black. The gap-toothed man was hiding his face, trying hard not to look at Daniel’s radiance. But it was irresistible. Luce watched as the man peeked between his fingers and burst into a pillar of flame.

All around the cenote, the Mayans stared at Daniel. And one by one, his brilliance set them ablaze. Soon a bright ring of fire lit up the jungle, lit up everyone but Luce.

“Ix Cuat!” Daniel reached for her.

His glow made Luce scream out in pain, but even as she felt as if she were on the verge of asphyxiation, the words tumbled from her mouth. “You’re glorious.”

“Don’t look at me,” he pleaded. “When a mortal sees an angel’s true essence, then—you can see what happened to the others. I can’t let you leave me again so soon. Always so soon—”

“I’m still here,” Luce insisted.

“You’re still—” He was crying. “Can you see me? The true me?”

“I can see you.”

And for just a fraction of a second, she could. Her vision cleared. His glow was still radiant but not so blinding. She could see his soul. It was white-hot and immaculate, and it looked—there was no other way to say it—like Daniel. And it felt like coming home. A rush of unparalleled joy spread through Luce. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a bell of recognition chimed. She’d seen him like this before.

Hadn’t she?

As her mind strained to draw upon the past she couldn’t quite touch, the light of him began to overwhelm her.

“No!” she cried, feeling the fire sear her heart and her body shake free of something.

“Well?” Bill’s scratchy voice grated on her eardrums.

She lay against a cold stone slab. Back in one of the Announcer caves, trapped in a frigid in-between place where it was hard to hold on to anything outside. Desperately, she tried to picture what Daniel had looked like out there—the glory of his undisguised soul—but she couldn’t. It was already slipping away from her. Had it really even happened?

Luce closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what he’d looked like. There were no words for it. It was just an incredible, joyous connection.

“I saw him.”

“Who, Daniel? Yeah, I saw him, too. He was the guy who dropped the ax when it was his turn to do the chopping. Big mistake. Huge.”

“No, I really saw him. As he truly is.” Her voice shook. “He was so beautiful.”

“Oh, that.” Bill tossed his head, annoyed.

“I recognized him. I think I’ve seen him before.”

“Doubt it.” Bill coughed. “That was the first and last time you’ll be able to see him like that. You saw him, and then you died. That’s what happens when mortal flesh looks upon an angel’s unbridled glory. Instant death. Burned away by the angel’s beauty.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.”

“You saw what happened to everyone else. Poof. Gone.” Bill plopped down beside her and patted her knee. “Why do you think the Mayans started doing sacrifices by fire after that? A neighboring tribe discovered the charred remains and had to explain it somehow.”

“Yes, they burst into flames right away. But I lasted longer—”

“A couple of extra seconds? When you were turned away? Congratulations.”

“You’re wrong. And I know I’ve seen that before.”

“You’ve seen his wings before, maybe. But Daniel shedding his human guise and showing you his true form as an angel? Kills you every time.”

“No.” Luce shook her head. “You’re saying he can never show me who he really is?”

Bill shrugged. “Not without vaporizing you and everyone around you. Why do you think Daniel’s so cautious about kissing you all the time? His glory shines pretty damn bright when you two get hot and heavy.”

Luce felt like she could barely hold herself up. “That’s why I sometimes die when we kiss?”

“How ’bout a round of applause for the girl, folks?” Bill said snarkily.

“But what about all those other times, when I die before we kiss, before—”

“Before you even have a chance to see how toxic your relationship might become?”

“Shut up.”

“Honestly, how many times do you have to see the same story line before you realize nothing is ever going to change?”

“Something has changed,” Luce said. “That’s why I’m on this journey, that’s why I’m still alive. If I could just see him again—all of him—I know I could handle it.”

“You don’t get it.” Bill’s voice was rising. “You’re talking about this whole thing in very mortal terms.” As he grew more agitated, spit flew from his lips. “This is the big time, and you clearly cannot handle it.”

“Why are you so angry all of a sudden?”

“Because! Because.” He paced the ledge, gnashing his teeth. “Listen to me: Daniel slipped up this once, he showed himself, but he never does that again. Never. He learned his lesson. Now you’ve learned one, too: Mortal flesh cannot gaze upon an angel’s true form without dying.”

Luce turned away from him, growing angrier herself. Maybe Daniel changed after this lifetime in Chichén Itzá, maybe he’d become more cautious in the future. But what about the past?

She approached the limit of the ledge inside the Announcer, looking up into the vast, gaping blackness that tunneled above into her dark unknown.

Bill hovered over her, circling her head as if he were trying to get inside it. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re only going to end up disappointed.” He drew close to her ear and whispered. “Or worse.”

There was nothing he could say to stop her. If there was an earlier Daniel who still dropped his guard, then Luce was going to find him.