by Lauren Kate
The gym was empty, and pin-drop quiet compared to the thunderstorm outside. Most of the lights were off. She hadn’t asked if she was allowed to use the gym after hours, but the door was unlocked, and, well, no one was there to stop her.
In the dim hallway, she passed the old Latin scrolls in the glass cases, and the miniature marble reproduction of the pietà. She paused in front of the door to the weight room, where she’d happened upon Daniel jumping rope. Sigh. That’d be a great addition to her catalog:
September 18: D accuses me of stalking him.
Followed two days later by:
September 20: Penn convinces me to really begin stalking him. I consent.
Ugh. She was in a black hole of self-loathing. And yet she couldn’t stop herself. In the middle of the hallway, she froze. All at once she understood why this whole day she’d felt even more consumed by Daniel than usual, and also even more conflicted about Cam. She’d dreamed about them both last night.
She’d been wandering through a dusty fog, someone holding her hand. She’d turned, thinking it would be Daniel. But while the lips she pressed against were comforting and tender, they weren’t his. They were Cam’s. He gave her innumerable soft kisses, and every time Luce peeked at him, his stormy green eyes were open, too, boring into her, questioning her about something she couldn’t answer.
Then Cam was gone, and the fog was gone, and Luce was wrapped tightly in Daniel’s arms, right where she wanted to be. He dipped her low and kissed her fiercely, as if he were angry, and each time his lips left hers, even just for half a second, the most parching thirst ran through her, making her cry out. This time, she knew they were wings, and she let them wrap around her body like a blanket. She wanted to touch them, to fold them around her and Daniel completely, but soon the brush of velvet was receding, folding back on itself. He stopped kissing her, watched her face, waited for a reaction. She didn’t understand the strange hot fear growing in the pit of her stomach. But there it was, making her uncomfortably warm, then blisteringly hot—until she could stand it no longer. That was when she jolted awake: In the dream’s last moment, Luce herself had seared and splintered—then had been obliterated into ash.
She’d woken up soaked with sweat—her hair, her pillow, her pajamas all wet and suddenly making her so, so cold. She’d lain there shivering and alone until the morning’s first light.
Luce rubbed her rain-soaked sleeves to warm up. Of course. The dream had left her with a fire in her heart and a chill in her bones she’d been unable to reconcile all day. Which was why she’d come here for a swim, to try to work it out of her system.
This time, her black Speedo actually fit, and she’d remembered to bring a pair of goggles. She pushed open the door to the pool and stood under the high-dive platform alone, breathing in the humid air with its dull tang of chlorine. Without the distraction of the other students, or the trill of Coach Diante’s whistle, Luce could feel the presence of something else in the church. Something almost holy. Maybe it was only that the natatorium was such a gorgeous room, even with the rain pelting in through the cracked stained-glass windows. Even with none of the candles lit in the red side altars. Luce tried to imagine what the place had looked like before the pool had replaced the pews, and she smiled. She liked the idea of swimming under all those praying heads.
She lowered her goggles and leaped in. The water was warm, much warmer than the rain outside, and the crash of thunder outside sounded harmless and far away when she ducked her head underwater.
She pushed off and began a slow warm-up crawl stroke.
Her body quickly loosened up, and a few laps later, Luce increased her speed and began the butterfly. She could feel the burn in her limbs, and she pushed through it. This was exactly the feeling she was after. Totally in the zone.
If she could just talk to Daniel. Really talk, without him interrupting or telling her to transfer schools or ducking out before she could get to her point. That might help. It also might require tying him up and taping his mouth shut just so he’d listen to her.
But what would she even say? All she had to go on was this feeling she got around him, which, if she thought about it, had nothing to do with any of their inter actions.
What if she could get him back to the lake? He was the one who’d implied it had become their place. This time, she could lead him there, and she’d be super-careful not to bring up anything that seemed to freak him out—
It wasn’t working.
Crap. She was doing it again. She was supposed to be swimming. Just swimming. She’d swim until she was too tired to think about anything else, especially Daniel. She’d swim until—
“Luce!”
Until she was interrupted. By Penn, who was standing at the side of the pool.
“What are you doing here?” Luce asked, spitting water.
“What are you doing here?” Penn returned. “Since when do you exercise willingly? I don’t like this new side of you.”
“How did you find me?” Luce didn’t realize until she’d said it that her words might have sounded rude, like she was trying to avoid Penn.
“Cam told me,” Penn said. “We had a whole conversation. It was weird. He wanted to know if you were all right.”
“That is weird,” Luce agreed.
“No,” Penn said, “what was weird was that he approached me and we had a whole conversation. Mr. Popularity … and me. Need I spell out my surprise any further? Thing is, he was actually really nice.”
“Well, he is nice.” Luce pulled her goggles off her head.
“To you,” Penn said. “He’s so nice to you that he snuck out of school to buy you that necklace—which you never wear.”
“I wore it once,” Luce said. Which was true. Five nights before, after the second time Daniel left her stranded at the lake, alone with his path lit up in the forest. She hadn’t been able to shake the image of it and hadn’t been able to sleep. So she’d tried on the necklace. She’d fallen asleep clutching it near her collarbone, and woken up with it hot in her hand.
Penn was waving three fingers at Luce, as if to say, Hello? And your point is …?
“My point is,” Luce said finally, “I’m not so superficial that all I’m looking for is a guy who buys me things.”
“Not so superficial, eh?” Penn asked. “Then I dare you to make a non-superficial list of why you’re so into Daniel. Which means no He’s got the loveliest little gray eyes or Ooh, the way his muscles ripple in the sunlight.”
Luce had to crack up at Penn’s high falsetto and the way she held her hands clasped to her heart. “He just gets me,” she said, avoiding Penn’s eyes. “I can’t explain it.”
“He gets that you deserve to be ignored?” Penn shook her head.
Luce had never told Penn about the times she’d spent alone with Daniel, the times when she’d seen a flash that he cared about her, too. So Penn couldn’t really understand her feelings. And they were far too private and too complicated to explain.
Penn crouched down in front of Luce. “Look, the reason I came to find you in the first place was to drag you to the library for a Daniel-related mission.”
“You found the book?”
“Not exactly,” Penn said, extending a hand to help Luce out of the pool. “Mr. Grigori’s masterpiece is still mysteriously missing, but I kind of sort of maybe hacked Miss Sophia’s subscribers-only literary search engine, and a couple of things turned up. I thought you might find them interesting.”
“Thanks,” Luce said, hoisting herself out with Penn’s help. “I’ll try not to be too annoyingly gushy over Daniel.”
“Whatever,” Penn said. “Just hurry up and dry off. We’re in a brief no-rain window outside and I don’t have an umbrella.”
Mostly dry and back in her school uniform, Luce followed Penn to the library. Part of the front portion had been blocked off by yellow police tape, so the girls had to slip through the narrow space between the card catalog and the reference section. It still smell
ed like a bonfire, and now, thanks to the sprinklers and the rain, possessed an added mildewy quality.
Luce took her first look at where Miss Sophia’s desk had sat, now a charred, nearly perfect circle on the old tile floor in the library’s center. Everything in a fifteen-foot radius had been removed. Everything beyond that was strangely undamaged.
The librarian wasn’t at her station, but a folding card table had been set up for her next to the burned spot. The table was depressingly bare, save for a new lamp, a pencil jar, and a gray pad of sticky notes.
Luce and Penn gave each other a that-sucks grimace before they continued to the computer stations at the back. When they passed the study section where they’d last seen Todd, Luce glanced over at her friend. Penn kept her face forward, but when Luce reached over and squeezed her hand, Penn squeezed back pretty hard.
They pulled two chairs up to one computer terminal, and Penn typed in her user name. Luce glanced around just to make sure no one else was nearby.
A red error box popped up on the screen.
Penn groaned.
“What?” Luce asked.
“After four, you need special permission to access the Web.”
“That’s why this place is always so empty at night.”
Penn was rooting through her backpack. “Where did I put that encrypted password?” she mumbled.
“There’s Miss Sophia,” Luce said, flagging down the librarian, who was crossing the aisle in a black fitted blouse and bright green cropped pants. Her shimmery earrings dusted her shoulders, and she had a pencil poked into the side of her hair. “Over here,” Luce whispered loudly.
Miss Sophia squinted at them. Her bifocals had slipped down her nose, and with a stack of books under each arm, she didn’t have a free hand to push them up. “Who’s that?” she called, walking over.
“Oh, Lucinda. Pennyweather,” she said, sounding tired. “Hello.”
“We were wondering if you could give us the password to use the computer,” Luce asked, pointing at the error message on the screen.
“You’re not doing social networking, are you? Those sites are the devil’s work.”
“No, no, this is serious research,” Penn said. “You’d approve.”
Miss Sophia leaned over the girls to unlock the computer. Fingers flying, she typed in the longest password Luce had ever seen. “You have twenty minutes,” she said flatly, walking away.
“That should be enough,” Penn whispered. “I found a critical essay on the Watchers, so until we track down the book, we can at least read up on what it’s about.”
Luce sensed someone standing behind her and turned around to see that Miss Sophia had returned. Luce jumped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why you scared me.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Miss Sophia said. Her smile practically made her eyes disappear. “It’s just been so hard recently, since the fire. But there’s no reason for me to take my sorrow out on two of my most promising students.”
Neither Luce nor Penn really knew what to say. It was one thing to comfort each other after the fire. Reassuring the school librarian seemed a little bit out of their league.
“I’ve been trying to keep busy, but …” Miss Sophia trailed off.
Penn glanced nervously at Luce. “Well, we might be able to use some help with our research, if, that is, you—”
“I can help!” Miss Sophia tugged over a third chair. “I see you’re looking into the Watchers,” she said, reading over their shoulders. “The Grigoris were a very influential clan. And I just happen to know of a papal database. Let me see what I can pull up.”
Luce nearly choked on the pencil she’d been chewing. “I’m sorry, did you say Grigoris?”
“Oh yes, historians have traced them back to the Middle Ages. They were …” She paused, searching for the words. “A sort of research cluster, to put it in modern layperson’s terms. They specialized in a certain type of fallen-angel folklore.”
She reached between the girls again and Luce marveled as her fingers raced across the keyboard. The search engine struggled to keep up, pulling up article after article, primary source after primary source, all on the Grigoris. Daniel’s family name was everywhere, filling up the screen. Luce felt a bit light-headed.
The image from her dream came back to her: unfurling wings, her body heating up until she smoldered into ash.
“There are different kinds of angels to specialize in?” Penn asked.
“Oh, sure—it’s a wide body of literature,” Miss Sophia said while she typed. “There are those who became demons. And those who threw in with God. And there are even ones who consorted with mortal women.” At last her fingers were still. “Very dangerous habit.”
Penn said, “Are these Watcher dudes any relation to the Daniel Grigori here?”
Miss Sophia tapped her mauve lips. “Quite possible. I wondered that myself, but it is hardly our place to be digging into another student’s business, wouldn’t you agree?” Her pale face pinched into a frown as she looked down at her watch. “Well, I hope I’ve given you enough to get started on your project. I won’t hog any more of your time.” She pointed at a clock on the computer screen. “You’ve only got nine minutes left.”
As she walked back toward the front of the library, Luce watched Miss Sophia’s perfect posture. She could have balanced a book on her head. It did seem like it had cheered her up a little to help the girls with their research, but at the same time, Luce had no idea what to do with the information she’d just been given about Daniel.
Penn did. She’d already started scribbling furious notes.
“Eight and a half minutes,” she informed Luce, handing her a pen and a piece of paper. “There’s way too much here to make sense of in eight and a half minutes. Start writing.”
Luce sighed and did as she was told. It was a boringly designed academic Web page with a thin blue border framing a plain beige background. At the top, a header in a severe blocky font read: THE GRIGORI CLAN.
Just reading the name, Luce felt her skin warm.
Penn tapped the monitor with her pen, snapping Luce’s attention back to her task.
The Grigoris do not sleep. Seemed possible; Daniel always did look tired. They are generally silent. Check. Sometimes talking to him was like pulling teeth. In an eighth-century decree—
The screen went black. Their time was up.
“How much did you get?” Penn asked.
Luce held up her sheet of paper. Pathetic. What she had was something she didn’t even remember doodling: the feathered edges of wings.
Penn gave her a sideways glance. “Yes, I can see you’re going to be an excellent research assistant,” she said, but she was laughing. “Maybe later we can theorize a game of MASH.” She held up her own much more copious notes. “It’s okay, I’ve got enough to lead us to a few other sources.”
Luce stuffed the paper into her pocket right next to the crumpled master list she’d started of all her interactions with Daniel. She was beginning to turn into her father, who didn’t like to be anywhere too far away from his paper shredder. She bent down to look for a recycling bin and spotted a pair of legs walking down the aisle toward them.
The gait was as familiar as her own. She sat back up—or attempted to sit back up—and smacked her head on the underside of the computer table.
“Ow,” she moaned, rubbing the spot where she’d hit her head in the library fire.
Daniel stood still a few feet away. His expression said that the last thing in the world he’d wanted to do right now was run into her. At least he’d shown up after the computer had logged them off. He didn’t need to think she was stalking him any more actively than he already did.
But Daniel seemed to be looking through her; his violet-gray eyes were fixed over her shoulder, on something—or someone else.
Penn tapped Luce on the shoulder, then jerked her thumb toward the person standing behind her. Cam was leaning over Luce’s chair and grinn
ing at her. A bolt of lightning outside sent Luce practically jumping into Penn’s arms.
“Just a storm,” Cam said, cocking his head. “It’ll blow over soon. Shame, because you look pretty cute when you’re scared.”
Cam reached forward. He started at her shoulder, then traced the edge of her arm with his fingers all the way down to her hand. Her eyes fluttered, it felt so good, and when she opened them, there was a small ruby velvet box in her hand. Cam flipped it open, just for a second, and Luce saw a flash of gold.
“Open it later,” he said. “When you’re alone.”
“Cam—”
“I went by your room.”
“Can we—” Luce looked over at Penn, who was blatantly staring at them with a front-row moviegoer’s captivation.
Finally snapping out of her trance, Penn waved her hands. “You want me to leave. I get it.”
“No, stay,” Cam said, sounding sweeter than Luce expected. He turned to Luce. “I’ll go. But later—you promise?”
“Sure.” She felt herself blush.
Cam took her hand and pushed it and the box down inside the front left pocket of her jeans. It was a tight fit, and it made her shiver to feel his fingers spread out on her hips. Then he winked and turned on his heel.
Before she’d even had a chance to catch her breath, he’d doubled back. “One last thing,” he said, gliding his arm behind her head and stepping close to her.
Her head tilted back and his tilted forward, and his mouth was on hers. His lips were as plush as they’d seemed all the times Luce had stared at them.
It wasn’t deep, just a peck, but Luce felt like it was much more. She couldn’t breathe for the shock and the thrill and the public viewing potential of this very long, very unexpected—
“What the—!”
Cam’s head had spun away, and then he was hunched over, clutching his jaw.
Daniel was standing behind him, rubbing his wrist. “Keep your hands off her.”
“Didn’t hear you,” Cam said, drawing himself up slowly.
Oh. My. God. They were fighting. In the library. Over her.