Passion (15 page)

“No.”

“Yes,” Bil said.

“You’re the one who told me to slow down in the first place.”

“Look, let me give you the Cli sNotes: You’re a bitch in this life and Daniel doesn’t care. Shocker! He courts you for a few weeks, there’s some exchanging of flowers. A big kiss and then kaboom. Okay? Not much more to see.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What? I don’t understand that Victorians are as stu y as an at ic and as boring as watching wal paper peel? Come on, if you’re going to zigzag through your past, make it count. Let’s hit some highlights.”

Luce didn’t budge. “Is there a way to make you disappear?”

“Do I have to stuf you in this Announcer like a cat in a suitcase? Let’s move!”

“I need to see that he loves me, not just some idea of me because of some curse that he’s bound to. I need to feel like there’s something stronger keeping us together. Something real.”

Bil took a seat next to Luce on the grass. Then he seemed to think bet er of it and actual y crawled onto her lap. At rst, she wanted to swat him, and the flies buzzing around his head, but when he looked up at her, his eyes appeared sincere.

“Honey, Daniel loving the real you is the last thing you should be worried about. You’re freaking soul mates. You two coined the phrase.

You don’t have to stick around here to see that. It’s in every life.”

“What?”

“You want to see true love?”

She nodded.

“Come on.” He tugged her up. The Announcer hovered in front of them and began to morph into a new shape, until it almost resembled the aps of a tent. Bil ew into the air, hooked his nger into an invisible latch, and tugged. The Announcer rearranged itself, lowering itself like a drawbridge until al Luce could see was a tunnel of darkness.

Luce glanced back toward Daniel and Lucinda, but she couldn’t see them—only outlines of them, blurs of color pressing together.

Bil made a sweeping motion with his free hand into the bel y of the Announcer. “Step right in.” And so she did.

EIGHT

EIGHT

WATCHING FROM THE WINGS

HELSTON, ENGLAND • JULY 26, 1854

Daniel’s clothes were sun-bleached and his cheek was caked with sand when he woke up on the desolate coast of Cornwal . It might have been a day, a week, a month that he’d been out there wandering alone. However much time had passed, he’d spent al of it punishing himself for his mistake.

Encountering Lucinda like that in the dressmaker’s had been so grave an error that Daniel’s soul burned every time he thought of it.

And he couldn’t stop thinking of it.

Her ful pink lips curling around the words: I think I know you. Please. Wait.

So lovely and so perilous.

Oh, why couldn’t it have been something smal ? Some brief exchange wel into their courtship? Then it might not have mat ered so much.

But a rst sighting! Lucinda Biscoe’s rst sighting had been of him, the wrong Daniel. He could have jeopardized everything. He could have distorted the future so badly that his Luce could end up dead already, altered beyond recognition—

But no: If that were so, he wouldn’t have his Luce in his memory. Time would have revised itself and he would have no regrets at al because his Luce would be dif erent.

His past self must have responded to Lucinda Biscoe in a way that covered Daniel’s mistake. He couldn’t quite remember how things had begun, only how they’d ended. But no mat er: He wouldn’t get anywhere near his past self to warn him, for fear of running into Lucinda again and doing yet more damage. Al he could do was back away and wait it out.

He was used to eternity, but this had been Hel .

Daniel lost track of time, let it drift into the sounds of the ocean washing up against the shore. For a lit le while, at least.

He could easily resume his quest by stepping into an Announcer and chasing Luce to the next life she visited. But for some reason, he stuck around Helston, waiting until Lucinda Biscoe’s life ended here.

Waking up that evening, the sky slashed by purple clouds, Daniel sensed it. Midsummer. The night she would die. He wiped the sand from his skin and felt the strange tenderness in his hidden wings. His heart throbbed with every beat.

It was time.

Lucinda’s death would not happen until after nightfal .

Daniel’s earlier self would be alone in the Constances’ parlor. He would be drawing Lucinda Biscoe one last time. His bags would sit outside the door, empty as usual save for a leather-bound pencil case, a few sketchbooks, his book about the Watchers, an extra pair of shoes.

He real y had been planning to sail the next morning. What a lie.

In the moments leading up to her deaths, Daniel rarely was honest with himself. He always lost himself in his love. Every time, he fooled himself, got drunk on her presence, and lost track of what must be.

He remembered particularly wel how it had ended in this Helston life: denying that she had to die right up until the instant he pressed her up against the ruby-velvet curtains and kissed her into oblivion.

He’d cursed his fate then; he had made an ugly scene. He could stil feel the agony, fresh as an iron’s brand across his skin. And he remembered the visitation.

Waiting out the sunset, he stood alone on the shore and let the water kiss his bare feet. He closed his eyes and spread his arms and al owed his wings to burst out from the scars on his shoulders. They bil owed behind him, bobbing in the wind and giving him a weightlessness that provided some momentary peace. He could see how bright they were in their re ection on the water, how huge and erce they made him look.

Sometimes, when Daniel was at his most inconsolable, he refused to let his wings out. It was a punishment he could administer to himself.

The deep relief, the palpable, incredible sense of freedom that unfurling his wings gave to his soul only felt false, like a drug. Tonight he al owed himself that rush.

He bent his knees to the sand and kicked of into the air.

A few feet above the surface of the water, he quickly rol ed around so that his back was to the ocean, his wings spread beneath him like a magnificent shimmering raft.

He skimmed the surface, stretching out his muscles with each long beat of his wings, sliding along the waves until the water changed from turquoise to icy blue. Then he plunged down under the surface. His wings were warm where the ocean was cool, creating a smal wake of violet to encircle him.

Daniel loved to swim. The chil of the water, the unpredictable beat of the current, the synchronicity of the ocean with the moon. It was one of a few earthly pleasures he truly understood. Most of al , he loved to swim with Lucinda.

With every stroke of his wings, Daniel imagined Lucinda there with him, sliding graceful y through the water as she had so many times before, basking in the warm shimmery glow.

When the moon was bright in the dark sky and Daniel was somewhere o the coast of Reykjavik, he shot out of the water. Straight up, beating his wings with a ferocity that shook of the cold.

The wind whipped at his sides, drying him in seconds as he sailed higher and higher into the air. He burst through thick gray banks of clouds, then turned back and began to coast under starry Heaven’s expanse.

His wings beat freely, deeply, strong with love and terror and thoughts of her, rippling the water underneath him so that it shimmered like diamonds. He picked up tremendous speed as he ew back over the Faroe Islands and across the Irish Sea. He sailed down along St. George’s Channel and, final y, back to Helston.

How against his nature to watch the girl he loved show up just to die!

But Daniel had to see beyond this moment and this pain. He had to look toward al the Lucindas who would come after this one sacri ce

—and the one whom he pursued, the final Luce, who would end this cursed cycle.

Lucinda’s death tonight was the only way the two of them could win, the only way they’d ever have a chance.

Lucinda’s death tonight was the only way the two of them could win, the only way they’d ever have a chance.

By the time he reached the Constance estate, the house was dark and the air was hot and stil .

He tucked his wings up close to his body, slowing his descent along the south side of the property. There was the white roof of the gazebo, an aerial view of the gardens. There was the moonlit pebbled path she should have walked along just moments ago, sneaking out of her father’s house next door after everyone else was asleep. Her nightgown covered by a long black cloak, her modesty forgot en in her haste to find him.

And there—the light in the parlor, the single candelabra that had drawn her to him. The curtains were parted slightly. Enough for Daniel to look in without risk of being seen.

He reached the parlor window on the second floor of the great house and let his wings beat lightly, hovering outside like a spy.

Was she even there? He inhaled slowly, let his wings fil with air, and pressed his face against the glass.

Just Daniel sketching furiously on his pad in the corner. His past self looked exhausted and forlorn. He could remember the feeling exactly

—watching the black tick of the clock on the wal , waiting every moment for her to burst through the door. He’d been so stunned when she sneaked up on him, silently, almost from behind the curtain.

He was stunned anew when she did so now.

Her beauty was beyond his most unrealistic expectations that night. Every night. Cheeks ushed with the love she felt but didn’t understand. Her black hair fal ing from its long, lustrous braid. The wonderful sheerness of her nightgown, like gossamer oating over al that perfect skin.

Just then his past self rose and spun around. When he saw the gorgeous sight before him, the pain was obvious on his face.

If there had been something Daniel could have done to reach out and help his past self get through this, he would have done it. But al he could do was read his lips.

What are you doing here?

Luce drew closer and the color rose in her cheeks. The two of them moved together like magnets—pul ed by a force greater than themselves one moment, then repel ed with almost the same vigor the next.

Daniel hovered outside, in pain.

He couldn’t watch. He had to watch.

The way they reached for each other was tentative right up until the moment his skin connected with hers. Then they became instantly, hungrily passionate. They weren’t even kissing, just talking. When their lips were almost touching, their souls almost touching, a burning, pure, white-hot aura formed around them that neither was aware of.

It was something Daniel had never witnessed from the outside.

Was this what his Luce was after? Visual proof of how true their love was? For Daniel, their love was as much a part of him as his wings.

But for Luce, it must be dif erent. She didn’t have access to the splendor of their love. Only its fiery end.

Every moment would be an ut er revelation.

He laid his cheek against the glass, sighing. Inside, his past self was caving in, losing the resolve that had been a charade from the beginning, anyway. His bags were packed, but it was Lucinda who had to go.

Now his past self took her in his arms; even through the window, Daniel could smel the rich, sweet scent of her skin. He envied himself, kissing her neck, running his hands across her back. His desire was so intense it could have shat ered that window if he hadn’t wil ed himself to hold back.

Oh, draw it out, he wil ed his past self. Make it last a lit le longer. One more kiss. One more sweet touch before the room quakes and the Announcers begin to tremble in their shadows.

The glass warmed against his cheek. It was happening.

He wanted to close his eyes but could not. Lucinda writhed in his past self’s arms. Her face contorted with pain. She looked up, and her eyes widened at the sight of the shadows dancing on the ceiling. The half-born realization of something was already too much for her.

She screamed.

And erupted into a glowing tower of flames.

Inside the room, Daniel’s earlier self was blown back against the wal . He fel and lay huddled, like nothing more than the outline of a man. He buried his face in the carpet and shook.

Outside, Daniel watched with an awe he’d never managed before as the re climbed the air and the wal s. It hissed like a sauce simmering in a pan—and then it vanished, leaving no trace of her.

Miraculous. Every single inch of Daniel’s body was tingling. If it hadn’t wrecked his past self so completely, he might have found the spectacle of Lucinda’s death almost beautiful.

His old self slowly got to his feet. His mouth gaped open and his wings burst out of his black dress coat, taking up most of the room. He raised his fists toward the sky and bel owed.

Outside, Daniel couldn’t take it anymore. He rammed his wing through the window, sending shards of glass out into the night. Then he barreled through the jagged hole.

“What are you doing here?” his past self gasped, cheeks streaming with tears. With both pairs of wings ful y extended, there almost wasn’t room for them in the enormous parlor. They rol ed back their shoulders as much as possible to draw away from each other. Both knew the danger of touching.