“The big one,” he said simply, raising his chin. “But they’re just showing off right now. We still have time.”
Behind them a tiny cough made Luce jump. Daniel bowed in greeting to Miss Sophia, who was standing in the shadow of the mausoleum. Her hair had come loose from its pins and looked wild and unruly, like her eyes. Then someone else stepped forward from behind Miss Sophia. Penn. Her hands were stuffed into the pockets of her jacket. Her face was still red, and her hairline was damp with sweat. She shrugged at Luce as if to say I don’t know what the heck is going on, but I couldn’t just abandon you. Despite herself, Luce smiled.
Miss Sophia stepped forward and raised the book. “Our Lucinda has been doing her research.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw. “You’ve been reading that old thing? Never should have written it.” He sounded almost bashful—but Luce slid one more piece of their puzzle into place.
“You wrote that,” she said. “And sketched in the margins. And pasted in that photograph of us.”
“You found the photograph,” Daniel said, smiling, holding her closer as if the mention of the picture brought back a rush of memories. “Of course.”
“It took me a while to understand, but when I saw how happy we were, something opened up inside me. And I knew.”
She wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled his face to hers, not even caring that Miss Sophia and Penn were right there. When Daniel’s lips touched hers, the whole dark, horrid cemetery disappeared—the worn graves, too, and the pockets of shadows rooting around in the trees; even the moon and the stars above.
The first time she’d seen the Helston picture, it had scared her. The idea of all those past versions of herself existing—it was just too much to take in. But now, in Daniel’s arms, she could feel all of them somehow working together, a vast consortium of Luces who’d loved the same Daniel over and over and over again. So much love—it spilled out of her heart and her soul, pouring off her body and filling the space between them.
And she at last heard what he had said when they were looking at the shadows: that she had done nothing wrong. That there was no reason to feel guilty. Could it be true? Was she innocent of Trevor’s death, of Todd’s, as she’d always believed? The moment she asked herself, she knew that Daniel had told her the truth. And she felt like she was waking from a long bad dream. She no longer felt like the girl with the shorn hair and the baggy black clothes, no longer the eternal screw-up, afraid of the putrid cemetery, and stuck in reform school for good reason.
“Daniel,” she said, gently pushing his shoulders back so she could look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you were an angel? Why all that talk about being damned?”
Daniel eyed her nervously.
“I’m not mad.” She reassured him. “Only wondering.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It’s all wrapped up together. Until now, I didn’t even know that you could discover it on your own. If I told you too quickly or at the wrong time, you’d be gone again and I would have to wait. I’ve already had to wait so long.”
“How long?” Luce asked.
“Not so long that I’ve forgotten that you’re worth everything. Every sacrifice. Every pain.” Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked over at Penn and Miss Sophia.
Penn was seated with her back against a mossy black tombstone. Her knees were curled up to her chin and she was chewing avidly on her fingernails. Miss Sophia had her hands on her hips. She looked like she had something to say.
Daniel stepped back, and Luce felt a rush of cool air waft between them. “I’m still afraid that any minute you could—”
“Daniel—” Miss Sophia called reprovingly.
He waved her off. “Our being together, it’s not as simple as you’re going to want it to be.”
“Of course not,” Luce said. “I mean, you’re an angel, but now that I know it—”
“Lucinda Price.” This time it was Luce who was the object of Miss Sophia’s anger. “What he has to tell you, you do not want to know,” she warned. “And Daniel, you have no right. It will kill her—”
Luce shook her head, confused by Miss Sophia’s request. “I think I could survive a little truth.”
“It is not a little truth,” Miss Sophia said, stepping forward to position herself between them. “And you will not survive it. As you have not survived it in the thousands of years since the Fall.”
“Daniel, what is she talking about?” Luce reached around Miss Sophia for his wrist, but the librarian fended her off. “I can handle it,” Luce said, feeling a dry pit of nerves in her stomach. “I don’t want any more secrets. I love him.”
It was the first time she had ever said the words aloud to anyone. Her only regret was that she’d directed the most important three words she knew at Miss Sophia instead of at Daniel. She turned to him. His eyes were shining. “I do,” she said. “I love you.”
Clap.
Clap. Clap.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Slow, loud applause sounded from behind them in the trees. Daniel broke away and turned toward the woods, his posture stiffening, as Luce felt the old fear flood in, felt herself rooted by terror about what he was seeing in the shadows, frightened of what he saw before she did.
“Oh, bravo. Bravo! Really, I am touched to my very soul—and not much touches me there these days, sad to say.”
Cam stepped into the clearing. His eyes were rimmed with a thick, shimmering gold shadow, and it shone on his face in the moonlight, making him look like a wildcat.
“That is so incredibly sweet,” he said. “And he just loves you, too—don’t you, lover boy? Don’t you, Daniel?”
“Cam,” Daniel warned. “Do not do this.”
“Do what?” Cam asked, raising his left arm in the air. He snapped his fingers once and a small flame, the size of a lit match, ignited in the air over his hand. “You mean that?”
The echo of his finger snap seemed to linger, to reflect off the tombs in the cemetery, to grow louder and multiply as it bounced back and forth. At first Luce thought the sound was more applause, as if a demonic auditorium full of darkness were clapping derisively at Luce and Daniel’s love, the way Cam had done. But then she remembered the thundering wingbeats she’d heard earlier. She held her breath as the sound took the form of those thousand bits of flitting darkness. The swarm of locust-shaped shadows that had vanished into the forest reared up overhead once again.
Their drumming was so loud, Luce had to cover her ears. On the ground, Penn was crouched with her head between her knees. But Daniel and Miss Sophia stoically watched the sky as the cacophony grew and changed. It began to sound more like very loud sprinklers going off … or like the hiss of a thousand snakes.
“Or this?” Cam asked, shrugging as the hideous, formless darkness settled around him.
The insects each began to grow and unfold, becoming larger than any insect could ever be, dripping like glue and growing into black segmented bodies. Then, as if they were learning how to use their shadow limbs as they formed, they slowly hoisted themselves onto their numerous legs and came forward, like mantises grown to human height.