Fallen 2. Torment(65)

cascaded out in a gorgeous halo around her shoulders as she spun around Steven. Their

feet wove patterns on the deck with such grace, the match looked almost like a dance.

The expressions on their faces were dogged and full of a brutal determination to

win. After those first few touches, they were evenly matched. They must have been

getting tired. They'd been fencing for more than ten minutes without a hit. They began to

fence so quickly that the arcs of their blades all but disappeared; there were only a fine

fury and a faint buzz in the air and the constant crack of their foils against one another.

Sparks began to fly each time their swords connected. Sparks of love or hatred?

There were moments when it almost looked like both.

And that unnerved Luce. Because love and hate were supposed to stand cleanly

on opposite sides of the spectrum. The division seemed as clear as ... well, angels and

demons would once have seemed to her. Not anymore. As she watched her teachers in

awe and fear, memories of last night's argument with Daniel fenced through her mind.

And her own feelings of love and hate--or if not quite hate, a building fury--knotted up

within her.

A cheer rang out from her classmates. It felt like Luce had only blinked, but she

had missed it. The point of Francesca's sword jabbed into Steven's chest. Close to the

heart. She pressed against him to the point where her thin blade bent into an arc. Both of

them stood still for a moment, looking each other in the eye. Luce couldn't tell whether

this, too, was part of the show.

"Right through my heart," Steven said.

"As if you had one," Francesca whispered.

The two teachers seemed momentarily unaware that the deck was full of students.

109

"Another win for Francesca," Jasmine said. She tipped her head toward Luce and

dropped her voice. "She comes from a long line of winners. Steven? Not so much." The

comment seemed loaded, but Jasmine just bounded lightly off the bench, slid her mask

over her face, and tightened her ponytail. Ready to go.

As the other students started bustling around her, Luce tried to picture a similar

scene between her and Daniel: Luce taking the upper hand, holding him at the mercy of

her sword as Francesca had Steven. It was, frankly, impossible to imagine. And that

bothered Luce. Not because she wanted to lord it over Daniel, but because she didn't want

to be the one ruled over either. The night before, she'd been too much at his mercy.

Remembering that kiss made her anxious, flushed, and overwhelmed--and not in a good

way.

She loved him. But.

She should have been able to think the phrase without tacking on that ugly little

conjunction. But she couldn't. What they had right now was not what she wanted. And if

the rules of the game were always going to stay this way, she just didn't know if she even

wanted to play. What kind of match was she for Daniel? What kind of match was he for

her? If he'd been drawn to other girls ... at some point he must have wondered, too. Could

someone else give them each a more level playing field?

When Daniel kissed her, Luce knew in her bones that he was her past. Folded into

his embrace, she was desperate for him to remain her present. But the second their lips

parted, she couldn't really be sure he was her future. She needed the freedom to make that

decision one way or the other. She didn't even know what else was out there.

"Miles," Steven called. He was fully back in teacher mode, sheathing his sword in

a narrow black leather case and nodding to the northwest corner of the deck. "You'll

match with Roland over here."

On her left, Miles leaned in to whisper, "You and Roland go back a ways--what's

his Achilles heel? I am not going to lose to the new kid."

"Um ... I don't really ..." Luce's mind went blank. Looking over at Roland, whose

mask already covered his face, she realized how very little she really knew about him.

Other than his catalog of black-market goods. And his harmonica playing. And the way

he'd made Daniel laugh so hard that first day at Sword & Cross. She'd still never found

out what they'd been talking about ... or what Roland was really doing at Shoreline

anyway. When it came to Mr. Sparks, Luce was definitely in the dark.

Miles patted her knee. "Luce, I was kidding. There's no way that guy's not going

to kick my ass." He stood up, laughing. "Wish me luck."

Francesca had moved to the other side of the deck, near the entrance to the lodge,

and was sipping a bottle of water. "Kristy and Millicent, take this corner," she told two

Nephilim girls with pigtails and matching black sneakers. "Shelby and Dawn, come

match right here." She gestured to the corner of the deck directly in front of Luce. "The