Was it even possible to just be normal and happy anymore? What on earth--or
beyond it--would it take for Luce to be as content with her life as someone like Miles
seemed to be? Her mind kept circling around Daniel. And she had her answer: The only
way she could be carefree again would be to have never met Daniel. To have never
known true love.
Something rustled in the treetops. A frigid wind assailed her skin. She hadn't been
concentrating on an Announcer specifically, but she realized--just as Steven had told
her--that her wish for answers must have summoned one.
No, not one.
She shivered, looking up into the tangle of branches. Hundreds of stealthy, murky,
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foul-smelling shadows.
They flowed together in the high redwood branches over her head. Like someone
in the clouds had tipped over a giant pot of black ink that had spread across the sky and
dripped down into the canopy of the trees, bleeding one branch into another until the
forest was a solid wash of blackness. At first it was almost impossible to tell where one
shadow stopped and the next one began, which shadow was real and which an
Announcer.
But soon they began to morph and make themselves obvious--slyly at first, as if
they were moving innocently in the fading light of the day--but then more boldly. They
pinched themselves free from the branches they'd been occupying, wrenching their
tendrils of blackness down, down, close to Luce's head. Beckoning or threatening her?
She steeled herself but couldn't catch her breath. There were too many. It was too much.
She gasped for air, trying not to panic, knowing it was already too late.
She ran.
She started south, back toward the dorm. But the swirling black abyss in the
treetops just moved with her, hissing along the lower branches of the redwoods, drawing
closer. She felt the icy pinpricks of their touch on her shoulders. She yelped as they
groped for her, swatting them away with her bare hands.
She changed course, swung herself around in the opposite direction, toward the
Nephilim lodge to the north. She would find Miles or Shelby or even Francesca. But the
Announcers wouldn't let her go. Immediately, they slithered ahead, swelling out in front
of her, swallowing the light and blocking the path to the lodge. Their hissing drowned out
the distant murmurs of the Nephilim campfire, making Luce's friends seem impossibly
far away.
Luce forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. She knew more about the
Announcers than she ever had before. She should be less afraid of them. What was her
problem? Maybe she knew she was getting closer to something, some memory or
information that could alter the course of her life. And her relationship with Daniel. The
truth was, she wasn't just terrified of the Announcers. She was terrified of what she might
see within them.
Or hear.
Yesterday, Steven's mention of tuning out the Announcers' noise had finally
clicked--she could listen in on her past lives. She could cut through the static and focus
on what she wanted to know. What she needed to know. Steven must have meant to give
her this clue, must have known she would listen and take her new knowledge straight to
the Announcers.
She turned and stepped back into the dark solitude of the trees. The whooshing
sounds from the Announcers quieted and settled.
The darkness under the branches engulfed her in cold and the peaty smell of
decomposing leaves. In the twilight, the Announcers crept forward, settling into the
dimness all around her, camouflaging themselves again among the natural shadows.
Some of them moved swiftly and stiffly, like soldiers; others had a nimble grace. Luce
wondered whether their appearances reflected anything about the messages they
contained.
So much about the Announcers still felt impenetrable. Tuning them in wasn't
intuitive, like fiddling with an old radio dial. What she'd heard yesterday--that one voice
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among the riot of voices--had come to her by accident.
The past might have been unfathomable to her before, but she could feel it
pressing up against the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light. She closed her eyes
and cupped her hands together. There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed
them to come out. She called on those coldest, darkest things, asking them to deliver her
past, to illuminate her and Daniel's story. She called on them to solve the mystery of who
he was and why he had chosen her.
Even if the truth broke her heart.
A rich, feminine laugh rang out in the forest. A laugh so clear and full, it felt as if
it were surrounding Luce, bouncing off the branches in the trees. She tried to trace its
origin, but there were so many shadows gathered--Luce didn't know how to pinpoint the
source. And then she felt her blood go cold.
The laughter was hers.
Or had once been hers, back when she was a child. Before Daniel, before Sword