Torment

TWO SEVENTEEN DAYS

Thwap.

Luce winced and rubbed her face. Her nose stung.

Thwap. Thwap.

Now it was her cheekbones. Her eyelids drifted open and, almost immediately, she scrunched up her face in surprise. A stocky dishwater-blond girl with a grimly set mouth and major eyebrows was leaning over her. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head. She wore yoga pants and a ribbed camouflage tank top that matched her green-flecked hazel eyes. She held a Ping-Pong ball between her fingers, poised to pelt.

Luce scrambled backward in her bedsheets and shielded her face. Her heart already hurt from missing Daniel. She didn’t need any more pain. She looked down, still trying to get her bearings, and remembered the bed she had indiscriminately collapsed into the night before.

The woman in white who had appeared in Daniel’s wake had introduced herself as Francesca, one of the teachers at Shoreline. Even in her stunned stupor, Luce could tell that the woman was beautiful. She was in her mid-thirties, with blond hair brushing her shoulders, round cheekbones, and large, soft features.

Angel, Luce decided almost instantly.

Francesca asked no questions on the way to Luce’s room. She must have been expecting the late night drop-off, and she must have sensed Luce’s utter exhaustion.

Now this stranger who’d pelted Luce back into consciousness looked ready to chuck another ball. “Good,” she said in a gravelly voice. “You’re awake.”

“Who are you?” Luce asked sleepily.

“Who are you, is more like it. Other than the stranger I wake to find squatting in my room. Other than the kid disrupting my morning mantra with her weirdly personal sleep-babbling. I’m Shelby. Enchantée.”

Not an angel, Luce surmised. Just a Californian girl with a strong sense of entitlement.

Luce sat up in bed and looked around. The room was a little cramped, but it was nicely appointed, with light-colored hardwood floors; a working fireplace; a microwave; two deep, wide desks; and built-in bookshelves that doubled as a ladder to what Luce now realized was the top bunk.

She could see a private bathroom through a sliding wooden door. And—she had to blink a few times to be certain—an ocean view out the window. Not bad for a girl who had spent the past month gazing out at a rank old cemetery in a room more appropriate for a hospital than a school. But then, at least that rank cemetery and that room had meant she was with Daniel. She had barely begun getting comfortable at Sword & Cross. And now she was back to starting from scratch.

“Francesca didn’t mention anything about me having a roommate.” Luce knew instantly from the expression on Shelby’s face that this was the Wrong Thing to Say.

So she took a quick glance at Shelby’s décor instead. Luce had never trusted her own interior design instincts, or maybe she’d never had the chance to indulge them. She hadn’t stuck around Sword & Cross long enough to do much decorating, but even before that, her room at Dover had been white-walled and bare. Sterile chic, as Callie had once said.

This room, on the other hand—there was something about it that was strangely … groovy. Varieties of potted plants she’d never seen before lined the windowsill; prayer flags were strung across the ceiling. A patchwork quilt in muted colors was sliding off the top bunk, half obstructing Luce’s view of an astrology calendar taped over the mirror.

“What’d you think? They were going to clear out the dean’s quarters just because you’re Lucinda Price?”

“Um, no?” Luce shook her head. “That’s not what I meant at all. Wait, how did you know my name?”

“So you are Lucinda Price?” The girl’s green-flecked eyes seemed to fix on Luce’s ratty gray pajamas. “Lucky me.”

Luce was speechless.

“Sorry.” Shelby exhaled and adjusted her tone, parking herself on the edge of Luce’s bed. “I’m an only child. Leon—that’s my therapist—he’s trying to get me to be less harsh when I first meet people.”

“Is it working?” Luce was an only child too, but she wasn’t nasty to every stranger she came into contact with.

“What I mean is …” Shelby shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not used to sharing. Can we”—she tossed her head—“rewind?”

“That’d be nice.”

“Okay.” Shelby took a deep breath. “Frankie didn’t mention your having a roommate last night because then she would have had to either notice—or, if she had already noticed, disclose—that I wasn’t in bed when you arrived. I came in through that window”—she pointed—“around three.”

Out the window, Luce could see a wide ledge connecting to an angled portion of the roof. She pictured Shelby darting across a whole network of ledges on the roof to get back here in the middle of the night.

Shelby made a show of yawning. “See, when it comes to the Nephilim kids at Shoreline, the only thing the teachers are strict about is the pretense of discipline. Discipline itself doesn’t so much exist. Though, of course, Frankie’s not going to advertise that to the new girl. Especially not Lucinda Price.”

There it was again. That edge in Shelby’s voice when she said Luce’s name. Luce wanted to know what it meant. And where Shelby had been until three. And how she’d come in through the window in the dark without knocking over any of those plants. And who were the Nephilim kids?

Luce had sudden vivid flashbacks to the mental jungle gym Arriane had taken her through when they’d first met. Her Shoreline roommate’s tough exterior was a lot like Arriane’s, and Luce remembered a similar how-will-I-ever-be-friends-with-you feeling her first day at Sword & Cross.

But though Arriane had seemed intimidating and even a little dangerous, there had been something charmingly off-kilter about her from the start. Luce’s new roommate, on the other hand, just seemed annoying.

Shelby popped off the bed and lumbered into the bathroom to brush her teeth. After digging through her duffel bag to find her toothbrush, Luce followed her in and gestured sheepishly at the toothpaste.

“I forgot to pack mine.”

“No doubt the dazzle of your celebrity blinded you to the small necessities of life,” Shelby replied, but she picked up the tube and extended it toward Luce.

They brushed in silence for about ten seconds until Luce couldn’t take it anymore. She spat out a mouthful of froth. “Shelby?”

With her head in the belly of the porcelain sink, Shelby spat and said, “What?”

Instead of asking any of the questions that had been running through her head a minute before, Luce surprised herself and asked, “What was I saying in my sleep?”

This morning was the first in at least a month of vivid, complicated, Daniel-ridden dreams on which Luce had woken up unable to remember a single thing from her sleep.

Nothing. Not one brush of an angel wing. Not one kiss of his lips.

She stared at Shelby’s gruff face in the mirror. Luce needed the girl to help jog her memory. She must have been dreaming about Daniel. If she hadn’t been … what could it mean?

“Beats me,” Shelby said finally. “You were all muffled and incoherent. Next time, try enunciating.” She left the bathroom and slipped on a pair of orange flip-flops. “It’s breakfast time. You coming or what?”

Luce scurried out of the bathroom. “What do I wear?” She was still in her pajamas. Francesca hadn’t said anything last night about a dress code. But then, she’d also failed to mention the roommate situation.

Shelby shrugged. “What am I, the fashion police? Whatever takes the least amount of time. I’m hungry.”

Luce hustled into a pair of skinny jeans and a black wraparound sweater. She would have liked to spend a few more minutes on her first-day-of-school look, but she just grabbed her backpack and followed Shelby out the door.

The dormitory hallway was different in the daylight. Everywhere she looked were bright, oversized windows with ocean views, or built-in bookshelves crammed full of thick, colorful hardcover books. The floors, the walls, the recessed ceilings and steep, curving staircases were all made from the same maple wood used to build the furniture inside Luce’s room. It should have given the whole place a warm log cabin feel, except that the school’s layout was as intricate and bizarre as Sword & Cross’s dorm had been boring and straightforward. Every few steps, the hallway seemed to split off into small tributary hallways, with spiral staircases leading further into the dimly lit maze.

Two flights of stairs and what looked like one secret door later, Luce and Shelby stepped through a set of double-paned French windows and into the daylight. The sun was incredibly bright, but the air was cool enough that Luce was glad she’d worn a sweater. It smelled like the ocean, but not really like home. Less briny, more chalky than the East Coast shore.

“Breakfast is served on the terrace.” Shelby gestured at a broad green expanse of land. This lawn was bordered on three sides by thick blue hydrangea bushes, and on the fourth by the steep, straight drop into the sea. It was hard for Luce to believe how very beautiful the school’s setting was. She couldn’t imagine being able to stay inside long enough to make it through a class.

As they approached the terrace, Luce saw another building, a long, rectangular structure with wooden shingles and cheery yellow-trimmed windowpanes. A large hand-carved sign hung over the entrance: “MESS HALL,” it read in quotes, like it was trying to be ironic. It was certainly the nicest mess Luce had ever seen.

The terrace was filled with whitewashed iron lawn furniture and about a hundred of the most laid-back-looking students Luce had ever seen. Most of them had their shoes kicked off, their feet propped up on the tables as they dined on elaborate breakfast dishes. Eggs Benedict, fruit-topped Belgian waffles, wedges of rich-looking, flaky spinach-flecked quiche. Kids were reading the paper, gabbing on cell phones, playing croquet on the lawn. Luce knew from rich kids at Dover, but East Coast rich kids were pinched and snotty, not sun-kissed and carefree. The whole scene looked more like the first day of summer than a Tuesday in early November. It was all so pleasant, it was almost hard to begrudge the self-satisfied looks on these kids’ faces. Almost.

Luce tried to imagine Arriane here, what she would think of Shelby or this oceanside dining, how she probably wouldn’t know what to make fun of first. Luce wished she could turn to Arriane now. It would be good to be able to laugh.

Looking around, she accidentally caught the eyes of a couple of students. A pretty girl with olive skin, a polka-dot dress, and a green scarf tied in her glossy black hair. A sandy-haired guy with broad shoulders tackling an enormous stack of pancakes.

Luce’s instinct was to turn her head away as soon as she made eye contact—always the safest bet at Sword & Cross. But … neither one of these kids glared at her. The biggest surprise about Shoreline was not the crystal sunshine or the cushy breakfast terrace or the buckets-of-money aura hovering over everyone. It was that the students here were smiling.

Well, most of them were smiling. When Shelby and Luce reached an unoccupied table, Shelby picked up a small placard and flung it to the ground. Luce leaned sideways to see the word RESERVED written on it just as a kid their age in a full-on black-tie waiter suit approached them with a silver tray.

“Um, this table is re—” he began to say, his voice cracking inopportunely.

“Coffee, black,” Shelby said, then abruptly asked Luce, “What do you want?”

“Uh, same,” Luce said, uncomfortable at being waited on. “Maybe a little milk.”

“Scholarship kids. Gotta slave to get by.” Shelby rolled her eyes at Luce as the waiter darted away to get their coffees. She picked up the San Francisco Chronicle from the middle of the table and unfolded the front page with a yawn.

It was right around then that Luce had had enough.

“Hey.” She shoved Shelby’s arm down so she could see her face behind the paper. Shelby’s heavy eyebrows rose in surprise. “I used to be a scholarship kid,” Luce told her. “Not at my last school, but the school before that—”

Shelby shrugged off Luce’s hand. “Should I be impressed by that part of your résumé, too?”

Luce was just about to ask what it was Shelby had heard about her when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

Francesca, the teacher who’d met Luce at the door last night, was smiling down at her. She was tall, with an imperious bearing, and was put together with a style that came across as effortless. Francesca’s soft blond hair was cleanly flipped to one side. Her lips were glossy pink. She wore a cool fitted black sheath dress with a blue belt and matching peep-toe stilettos. It was the kind of outfit that would make anyone feel dowdy by comparison. Luce wished she’d at least put on mascara. And maybe not worn her mud-crusted Converses.

“Oh, good, you two connected.” Francesca smiled. “I knew you’d become fast friends!”

Shelby was silent but rustled her paper. Luce just cleared her throat.

“I think you’ll find Shoreline a very simple adjustment, Luce. It’s designed that way. Most of our gifted students just ease right in.” Gifted? “Of course, you can come to me with any questions. Or just lean on Shelby.”

For the first time all morning, Shelby laughed. Her laugh was a gruff, gravelly thing, the kind of chortle Luce would have expected from an old man, a lifetime smoker, not a teenage yoga enthusiast.

Luce could feel her face pinching up into a scowl. The last thing she wanted was to “ease right in” to Shoreline. She didn’t belong with a lot of spoiled gifted kids on a cliff overlooking the ocean. She belonged with real people, people with soul instead of squash rackets, who knew what life was like. She belonged with Daniel. She still had no idea what she was doing here, other than hiding out very temporarily while Daniel took care of his … war. After that, he was going to take her back home. Or something.

“Well, I’ll see you both in class. Enjoy breakfast!” Francesca called over her shoulder as she glided away. “Try the quiche!” She waved her hand, signaling to the waiter to bring each girl a plate.

When she was gone, Shelby took a big slurp of her coffee and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Um, Shelby—”

“Ever heard of eating in peace?”

Luce banged her coffee cup back into its saucer and waited impatiently for the nervous waiter to put down their quiches and disappear again. Part of her wanted to find another table. There were happy buzzes of conversation going on all around her. And if she couldn’t join one of them, even sitting alone would be better than this. But she was confused by what Francesca had said. Why pitch Shelby as some great roommate when it was clear the girl was a total hater? Luce milled a bite of quiche around in her mouth, knowing she wouldn’t be able to eat until she spoke up.

“Okay, I know I’m new here, and for some reason that annoys you. I guess you had a single room before me, I don’t know.”

Shelby lowered the paper just below her eyes. She raised one giant eyebrow.

“But I’m not that bad. So what if I have a few questions? Forgive me for not coming into school knowing what the hell the Nephermans are—”

“Nephilim.”

“Whatever. I don’t care. I have no interest in making you my enemy—which means some of this,” Luce said, gesturing at the space between the two of them, “is coming from you. So what’s your problem, anyway?”

The side of Shelby’s mouth twitched. She folded and set down the paper and leaned back in her chair.

“You should care about the Nephilim. We’re going to be your classmates.” She flung out her hand, waving it at the terrace. “Look out at the pretty, privileged student body of the Shoreline School. Half of these dopes you’ll never see again, except as the object of our practical jokes.”

“Our?”

“Yes, you’re in the ‘honors program’ with the Nephilim. But don’t worry; in case you’re not too bright”—Luce snorted—“the gifted track here is mostly a coverup, a place to stow away the Nephs without anyone getting too suspicious. In fact, the only person who’s ever gotten suspicious is Beaker Brady.”

“Who’s Beaker Brady?” Luce asked, leaning in so she didn’t have to shout over the rough static of the waves crashing on the shore below.

“That grade-A nerdo two tables over.” Shelby nodded at a chubby kid dressed in plaid who’d just spilled yogurt all over a massive textbook. “His parents loathe the fact that he’s never been accepted into the honors classes. Every semester, they wage a campaign. He brings in Mensa scores, results from science fairs, famous Nobelists he’s impressed, the whole shebang. And every semester, Francesca has to make up some bunk unpassable test to keep him out.” She snorted. “Like, ‘Hey, Beaker, solve this Rubik’s cube in under thirty seconds.’ ” Shelby clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Except the nimrod passed that one.”

“But if it’s a cover-up,” Luce asked, feeling sort of bad for Beaker, “what’s it a cover-up for?”

“People like me. I’m a Nephilim. N-E-P-H-I-L-I-M. That means anything with angel in its DNA. Mortals, immortals, transeternals. We try not to discriminate.”

“Shouldn’t the singular be, you know, nephil, like cherub from cherubim and seraph from seraphim?”

Shelby scowled. “Seriously? Would you want to be called a nephil? It sounds like a bag you carry your shame in. No, thanks. Nephilim it is, no matter how many of us you’re talking about.”

So Shelby was a sort of angel. Strange. She didn’t look or act the part. She wasn’t gorgeous like Daniel, Cam, or Francesca. Didn’t possess the magnetism of someone like Roland or Arriane. She just seemed kind of coarse and cranky.

“So it’s like angel prep school,” Luce said. “But for what? Do you go on to angel college after this?”

“It depends on what the world needs. A lot of kids take a year off and do Nephilim Corps. You get to travel, have a fling with a foreigner, et cetera. But that’s in times of, you know, relative peace. Right now, well …”

“Right now what?”

“Whatever.” Shelby looked like she was biting the word. “It just depends on who you are. Everyone here has, you know, varying degrees of power,” she went on, seeming to read Luce’s mind. “A sliding scale depending on your family tree. But in your case—”

This Luce knew. “I’m just here because of Daniel.”

Shelby tossed her napkin on her empty plate and stood up. “That’s a real impressive way to pitch yourself, Luce. The girl whose big-shot boyfriend pulled some strings.”

Was that what everyone thought about her here? Was that … the truth?

Shelby reached over and stole the last bite of quiche off Luce’s plate. “If you want a Lucinda Price fan club, I’m sure you can find that here. Just leave me out of it, okay?”

“What are you talking about?” Luce stood up. Maybe she and Shelby needed to rewind again. “I don’t want a fan club—”

“See, I told you,” she heard a high but pretty voice say.

Suddenly, the girl with the green scarf was standing before her, grinning and nudging another girl forward. Luce glanced past them, but Shelby was already far away—and probably not worth catching up to. Up close, the green-scarf girl looked kind of like a young Salma Hayek, with full lips and an even fuller chest. The other girl, with her pale coloring, hazel eyes, and short black hair, looked kind of like Luce.

“Wait, so you’re really Lucinda Price?” the pale girl asked. She had very small white teeth and was using them to hold a couple of sequin-tipped bobby pins while she twisted a few dark tendrils into little knots. “As in Luce-and-Daniel? As in the girl who just came from that awful school in Alabama—”

“Georgia.” Luce sort of nodded.

“Same thing. Ohmigod, what was Cam like? I saw him once at this death metal concert … of course, I was too nervous to introduce myself. Not that you’d be interested in Cam, because obviously—Daniel!” She trilled a laugh. “I’m Dawn, b-t-dubs. This is Jasmine.”

“Hi,” Luce said slowly. This was new. “Um …”

“Don’t mind her, she just drank, like, eleven coffees.” Jasmine spoke about three times more slowly than Dawn did. “What she means is we’re excited to meet you. We always say how you and Daniel are, like, the greatest love story. Ever.”

“Seriously?” Luce cracked her knuckles.

“Are you kidding?” Dawn asked, though Luce kept expecting them to be the ones working up to some kind of joke. “All that dying again and again? Okay, does it make you want him even more? I bet it does! And ohhh, when that fire that burns you up”—she closed her eyes, put a hand over her stomach, then brushed it up her body, clasping a fist over her heart. “My mom used to tell me the story when I was a little girl.”

Luce was shocked. She glanced around the busy terrace, wondering whether anyone could overhear them. Speaking of burning up, her cheeks must be beet red right now.

An iron bell rang from the roof of the mess hall to signal the end of breakfast, and Luce was glad to see that everyone else had other things to focus on. Like getting to class.

“Your mom used to tell you what story?” Luce asked slowly. “About me and Daniel?”

“Just some of the highlights,” Dawn said, opening her eyes. “Does it feel like a hot flash? Like a menopause kind of thing, not that you would know—”

Jasmine smacked Dawn on the arm. “Did you just compare Luce’s unbridled passion to a hot flash?”

“Sorry.” Dawn giggled. “I’m just fascinated. It sounds so totally romantic and awesome. I’m envious—in a good way!”

“Envious that I die every time I try to get with the guy of my dreams?” Luce hunched up her shoulders. “It’s actually kind of a buzz kill.”

“Tell that to the girl whose only kiss to date was with Ira Frank of the Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” Jasmine gestured teasingly at Dawn.

When Luce didn’t laugh, Dawn and Jasmine filled in with a placating giggle, as if they thought she was just being modest. Luce had never been on the receiving end of one of those giggles before.

“What exactly did your mom say?” Luce asked.

“Oh, just the usual stuff: The war broke out, shit hit the fan, and when they drew a line in the clouds, Daniel was all ‘Nothing can tear us apart,’ and that pissed everyone off. ’Course it’s my favorite part of the story. So now your love has to suffer this eternal punishment where you still desperately want each other but you can’t, like, you know—”

“But in some lives they can.” Jasmine corrected Dawn, then winked impishly at Luce, who almost couldn’t move from the shock of hearing all of this.

“No way!” Dawn flung out a hand dismissively. “The whole point is that she bursts into flames when she—” Seeing Luce’s horrified expression, Dawn winced. “Sorry. Not what you want to hear.”

Jasmine cleared her throat and leaned in. “My older sister was telling me this one story from your past that I swear would—”

“Oooh!” Dawn linked her arm through Luce’s, as if this knowledge—knowledge that Luce had no access to—made her a more desirable friend. This was maddening. Luce was fiercely embarrassed. And, okay, a little excited. And absolutely unsure whether any of it was true. One thing was sure: Luce was suddenly kind of … famous. But it felt strange. Like she was one of those unnamed bimbos next to the It-boy movie star in a paparazzi photo.

“You guys!” Jasmine was pointing exaggeratedly down at the clock on her phone. “We’re so super-late! We’ve got to book it to class.”

Luce grimaced, quickly grabbing her backpack. She had no idea what class she had first, or where to find it, or how to take Jasmine and Dawn’s enthusiasm. She hadn’t seen such extended, eager smiles since—well, maybe ever.

“Do either of you know how I figure out where my first class is? I don’t think I got a schedule.”

“Duh,” Dawn said. “Follow us. We’re all together. All the time! It’s so fun.”

The two girls walked with Luce, one on either side, and took her on a winding tour between the tables of other kids finishing their breakfasts. Despite being “so super-late,” both Jasmine and Dawn practically sauntered across the freshly cut grass.

Luce thought about asking these girls what was up with Shelby, but she didn’t want to start off looking like a gossip. Besides, the girls seemed nice and everything, but it wasn’t like Luce needed to make any new best friends. She had to keep reminding herself: This was only temporary.

Temporary, but still stunningly beautiful. The three of them walked along the hydrangea path, which curved around the mess hall. Dawn was chattering about something, but Luce couldn’t take her eyes off the bluffs’ dramatic edge, how abruptly the terrain dropped hundreds of feet to the glittering ocean. The waves rolled toward the small stretch of tawny beach at the foot of the cliff almost as casually as the Shoreline student body rolled toward class.

“Here we are,” Jasmine said.

An impressive two-story A-frame cabin stood alone at the end of the path. It had been built in the middle of a shady pocket of redwoods, so its steep, triangular roof and the vast open lawn in front of it were covered with a blanket of fallen needles. There was a nice grassy patch with some picnic tables, but the main attraction was the cabin itself: More than half of it looked like it was made of glass, all wide, tinted windows and open sliding doors. Like something Frank Lloyd Wright could have designed. Several students lounged on a huge second-story deck that faced the ocean, and several more kids were mounting the twin staircases that wound up from the path.

“Welcome to the Nephi-lodge,” Jasmine said.

“This is where you guys have class?” Luce’s mouth was agape. It looked more like a vacation home than a school building.

Next to her, Dawn squealed and squeezed Luce’s wrist.

“Good morning, Steven!” Dawn called across the lawn, waving to an older man who was standing at the foot of the stairs. He had a thin face, stylish rectangular glasses, and a thick head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair. “I just absolutely love it when he wears the three-piece suit,” she whispered.

“Morning, girls.” The man smiled at them and waved. He looked at Luce long enough to make her veer toward nervousness, but the smile stayed on his face. “See you in a few,” he called, and started up the stairs.

“Steven Filmore,” Jasmine whispered, filling Luce in as they trailed behind him up the stairs. “Aka S.F., aka the Silver Fox. He’s one of our teachers, and yes, Dawn is truly, madly, deeply in love with him. Even though he’s spoken for. She is shameless.”

“But I love Francesca, too.” Dawn swatted Jasmine, then turned to Luce, her dark eyes smiling. “I defy you not to develop a couples crush on them.”

“Wait.” Luce paused. “The Silver Fox and Francesca are our teachers? And you call them by their first names? And they’re together? Who teaches what?”

“We call the whole morning block humanities,” Jasmine said, “though angelics would be more appropriate. Frankie and Steven teach it jointly. Part of the deal here, sort of yin and yang. You know, so none of the students get … swayed.”

Luce bit her lip. They’d reached the top of the stairs and were standing in a crowd of students on the deck. Everyone else was starting to amble through the sliding glass doors. “What do you mean, ‘swayed’?”

“They’re both fallen, of course, but have picked different sides. She’s an angel, and he’s more of a demon.” Dawn spoke nonchalantly, as if she were talking about the difference between frozen yogurt flavors. Seeing Luce’s eyes bulge, she added, “It’s not like they can get married or anything—though that would be the hottest wedding ever. They just sort of … live in sin.”

“A demon is teaching our humanities class?” Luce asked. “And that’s okay?”

Dawn and Jasmine looked at each other and chuckled. “Very okay,” Dawn said. “You’ll come around to Steven. Come on, we gotta go.”

Following the flow of other kids, Luce entered the classroom. It was broad and had three shallow risers, with desks on them, that led down to a couple of long tables. Most of the light came in through skylights. The natural lighting and high ceilings made the room seem even bigger than it was. An ocean breeze blew in through the open doors and kept the air comfortable and fresh. It could not have been more different from Sword & Cross. Luce thought she could almost have liked Shoreline, if it hadn’t been for the fact that her whole reason for being here—the most important person in her life—was missing. She wondered if Daniel was thinking about her. Did he miss her the way she missed him?

Luce chose a desk close to the windows, between Jasmine and a cute boy-next-door kind of guy who was wearing cutoffs, a Dodgers cap, and a navy sweatshirt. A few girls stood clustered near the door to the bathroom. One of them had curly hair and boxy purple glasses. When Luce saw the girl’s profile, she nearly bolted from her seat.

Penn.

But when the girl turned toward Luce, her face was a little squarer and her clothes were a little tighter and her laugh was a little louder and Luce almost felt like her heart was wilting. Of course it wasn’t Penn. It never would be, ever again.

Luce could feel the other kids glancing at her—some of them outright stared. The only one who didn’t was Shelby, who gave Luce an acknowledging nod.

It wasn’t a huge class, just twenty desks arranged on the risers, facing the two long mahogany tables at the front. There were two dry-erase white boards behind the tables. Two bookshelves on either side. Two trash cans. Two desk lamps. Two laptops, one on each table. And the two teachers, Steven and Francesca, huddled near the front of the room, whispering.

In a move Luce wasn’t expecting, they turned and stared at her too, then glided to the tables. Francesca sat on top of one, with one leg tucked beneath her and one of her high heels skimming the wood floor. Steven leaned against the other table, opened a heavy maroon leather portfolio, and rested his pen between his lips. For an older man, he was good-looking, sure, but Luce almost wished he weren’t. He reminded her of Cam, and of how deceptive a demon’s charm could be.

She waited for the rest of the class to take out textbooks she didn’t have, to plunge into some reading assignment she’d be behind on, so she could surrender to feeling overwhelmed and just daydream about Daniel.

But none of that happened. And most of the kids were still sneaking glances at her.

“By now you must all have noticed that we’re welcoming a new student.” Francesca’s voice was low and honey-thick, like a jazz singer’s.

Steven smiled, showing a flash of brilliant white teeth. “Tell us, Luce, how are you liking Shoreline so far?”

The color drained from Luce’s face as the other students’ desks made scraping sounds on the floor. They were actually turning in their seats to focus on her.

She could feel her heart race and her palms grow damp. She shrank in her seat, wishing she were just a normal kid at a normal school back home in normal Thunderbolt, Georgia. At times over the past few days, she’d wished she’d never seen a shadow, never gotten into the kind of trouble that left her dear friends dead, or got her involved with Cam, or made it impossible for Daniel to be near her. But there was where her anxious, tumbling mind always came to a full stop: How to be normal and still have Daniel? Who was so very far from normal. It was impossible. So here she was, sucking it up.

“I guess I’m still getting used to Shoreline.” Her voice wobbled, betraying her, echoing off the sloped ceiling. “But it seems all right so far.”

Steven laughed. “Well, Francesca and I thought to help you get used to it, we’d change gears from our usual Tuesday-morning student presentations—”

From across the room, Shelby hooted, “Yes!” and Luce noticed that she had a stack of notecards on her desk and a big poster at her feet that read APPARITIONS AIN’T SO BAD. So Luce had just gotten her out of a presentation. That had to be worth something in roommate points.

“What Steven means,” Francesca chimed in, “is that we’re going to play a game, as an icebreaker.” She slid down from her table and walked around the room, heels clicking as she distributed a sheet of paper to each student.

Luce expected the chorus of groans that those words usually evoked from a classroom of teens. But these kids all seemed so agreeable and well-adjusted. They were actually just going to go with the flow.

When she laid the sheet on Luce’s desk, Francesca said, “This should give you an idea of who some of your classmates are, and what goals we work toward in this class.”

Luce looked down at the paper. Lines had been drawn on the page, dividing it into twenty boxes. Each box contained a phrase. It was a game she’d played before, once at summer camp in western Georgia as a little kid, and again a couple of times in her classes at Dover. The object was to go around the room and match a different student with each phrase. Mostly, she was relieved; there were definitely more embarrassing icebreakers out there. But when she looked more closely at the phrases—expecting normal things like “Has a pet turtle” or “Wants to go skydiving someday”—she was a little unnerved to see things like “Speaks more than eighteen languages” and “Has visited the outerworld.”

It was about to be painfully obvious that Luce was the only non-Nephilim in the class. She thought back to the nervous waiter who had brought her and Shelby their breakfast. Maybe Luce would be more comfortable among the scholarship kids. Beaker Brady didn’t even know he’d dodged a bullet.

“If no one has questions,” Steven said from the front of the room, “you’re welcome to begin.”

“Go outside, enjoy yourselves,” Francesca added. “Take all the time you need.”

Luce followed the rest of the students onto the deck. As they walked toward the railing, Jasmine leaned over Luce’s shoulder, pointing a green-lacquered fingernail at one of the boxes. “I have a relative who’s a full-blooded cherub,” she said. “Crazy old Uncle Carlos.”

Luce nodded, like she knew what that meant, and jotted in Jasmine’s name.

“Ooh, and I can levitate,” Dawn chirped, pointing to the top left corner of Luce’s page. “Not, like, a hundred percent of the time, but usually after I’ve had my coffee.”

“Wow.” Luce tried not to stare—it didn’t seem like Dawn was making a joke. She could levitate?

Trying not to show that she was feeling more and more inadequate, Luce searched the page for something, anything she knew anything about.

Has experience summoning the Announcers.

The shadows. Daniel had told her the proper name for them that last night at Sword & Cross. Though she’d never actually “summoned” them—they’d always just shown up—Luce did have some experience.

“You can write me in there.” She pointed to the bottom left corner of the paper. Both Jasmine and Dawn looked up at her, a little awed but not disbelieving, before moving on to fill in the rest of their sheets. Luce’s heart slowed down a little. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.

In the next few minutes she met Lilith, a prim redhead who was one of three Nephilim triplets (“You can tell us apart by our vestigial tails,” she explained. “Mine’s curly”); Oliver, a deep-voiced, squat boy who had visited the outerworld on summer vacation last year (“So totally overrated I can’t even begin to tell you”); and Jack, who felt like he was on the cusp of being able to read minds and thought it would be all right if Luce wrote him down for that. (“I sense that you’re okay with that, am I right?” He made a gun out of his fingers and clicked his tongue.) She had three boxes left when Shelby tugged the paper out of her hands.

“I can do both of these,” she said, pointing at two of the boxes. “Which one do you want me for?”

Speaks more than eighteen languages or Has glimpsed a past life.

“Wait a minute,” Luce whispered. “You’ve … you can glimpse past lives?”

Shelby waggled her eyebrows at Luce and dashed her signature into the box, adding her name in the “eighteen languages” box for good measure. Luce stared at the paper, thinking about all her own past lives and how frustratingly off-limits they were to her. She had underestimated Shelby.

But her roommate was already gone. Standing in Shelby’s place was the boy she’d sat next to inside the classroom. He was a good half foot taller than Luce, with a bright, friendly smile, a splash of freckles on his nose, and clear blue eyes. Something about him, even the way he was chewing on his pen, looked … sturdy. Luce realized this was a strange word to describe someone she’d never spoken to, but she couldn’t help it.

“Oh, thank God.” He laughed, smacking his forehead. “The one thing I can do is the one thing you have left.”

“ ‘Can reflect a mirror image of self or others’?” Luce read slowly.

He tossed his head from side to side and wrote his name in the box. Miles Fisher. “Real impressive to someone like you, I’m sure.”

“Um. Yeah.” Luce turned away. Someone like her, who didn’t even know what that meant.

“Wait, hey, where are you going?” He tugged her sleeve. “Uh-oh. You didn’t catch the self-effacing joke?” When she shook her head, Miles’s face fell. “I just meant, compared to everyone else in the class, I’m barely hanging on. The only person I’ve ever been able to reflect other than myself was my mom. Freaked my dad out for about ten seconds, but then it faded.”

“Wait.” Luce blinked at Miles. “You made a mirror image of your mother?”

“By accident. They say it’s easy to do with the people you, like, love.” He blushed, the faintest rosy pink across his cheekbones. “Now you’re going to think I’m some kind of mama’s boy. I just mean ‘easy’ is about where my powers end. Whereas you—you’re the famous Lucinda Price.” He waved his hands in a very masculine version of spirit fingers.

“I wish everyone would stop saying that,” she snapped. Then, feeling rude, she sighed and leaned against the deck’s railing to look out at the water. It was just so hard to process all these hints that other people here knew more about her than she knew about herself. She didn’t mean to take it out on this guy. “I’m sorry, it’s just, I thought I was the only one barely hanging on. What’s your story?”

“Oh, I’m what they call ‘diluted,’ ” he said, making exaggerated air quotes. “Mom has angel in her blood a few generations back, but all my other relatives are mortal. My powers are embarrassingly low-grade. But I’m here because my parents endowed the school with, um, this deck you’re standing on.”

“Whoa.”

“It’s really not impressive. My family’s obsessed with me being at Shoreline. You should hear the pressure I get at home to date a ‘nice Nephilim girl for once.’ ” Luce laughed—one of the first real laughs she’d had in days. Miles rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “So, I saw you having breakfast with Shelby this morning. She your roommate?”

Luce nodded. “Speaking of nice Nephilim girls,” she joked.

“Well, I know she’s kind of, um …” Miles hissed and made a clawing motion with one hand, causing Luce to crack up again. “Anyway, I’m not the star student here or anything, but I’ve been around a while, and half the time I still think this place is pretty crazy. So if you ever want to have a very normal breakfast or something—”

Luce found herself bobbing her head. Normal. Music to her mortal ears.

“Like … tomorrow?” Miles asked.

“That sounds great.”

Miles grinned and waved goodbye, and Luce realized that all the other students had already gone back inside. Alone for the first time all morning, she looked down at the sheet of paper in her hand, unsure how to feel about the other kids at Shoreline. She missed Daniel, who could have decoded a lot of this for her if only he hadn’t been—where was he, anyway? She didn’t even know.

Too far away.

She pressed a finger to her lips, remembering his last kiss. The incredible embrace of his wings. She felt so cold without him, even in the California sunshine. But she was here because of him, accepted into this class of angels or whatever they were—complete with her bizarre new reputation—all thanks to him. In a weird way, it felt good to be connected to Daniel so inextricably.

Until he came for her, it was all she had to hold on to.