"Uh, Luce, are you okay?" Penn asked. She was fanning Luce's flushed cheeks with her drink umbrella.
"Fine," Luce said. It was impossible to push those wings out of her mind. To forget the sensation of his face over hers. "Just still recovering, I guess."
Gabbe patted her hand. "When we heard about what happened, we sweet-talked Randy into letting us come visit," she said, rolling her eyes. "We didn't want you to wake up alone."
There was a knock at the door. Luce waited to see her parents' nervous faces, but no one came in. Gabbe stood and looked at Arriane, who made no move to get up. "You guys stay here. I'll handle this."
Luce was still overcome by what they'd told her about Daniel. Even though it didn't make any sense at all, she wanted it to be him outside that door.
"How is she?" a voice asked in a whisper. But Luce heard it. It was him. Gabbe murmured something back.
"What is all this congregating?" Randy growled from outside the room. Luce knew with a sinking heart that this meant visiting hours were over. "Whoever talked me into letting you hooligans tag along gets a detention. And no, Grigori, I will not accept flowers as bribes. All of you, get in the minivan."
Hearing the attendant's voice, Arriane and Penn cringed, then scrambled to stash the coconut shells under the bed. Penn stuffed the drink umbrellas inside her pencil case and Arriane spritzed the air with some serious vanilla musk perfume. She slipped Luce a piece of spearmint gum.
Penn gagged on a floating cloud of perfume, then leaned quickly into Luce and whispered, "As soon as you're back on your feet, we'll find the book. I think it'd be good for us both to stay busy, keep our minds off things."
Luce squeezed Penn's hand in thanks and smiled at Arriane, who looked too busy lacing up her roller skates to have heard.
That was when Randy barged through the door. "More congregating!" she cried. "Unbelievable."
"We were just—" Penn started to say.
"Leaving," Randy finished for her. She had a bouquet of wild white peonies in her hand. Strange. They were Luce's favorites. And it was so hard to find them in bloom around here.
Randy opened a cabinet under the sink and rooted around for a minute, then pulled out a small, dusty vase. She filled it with cloudy water from the tap, stuffed the peonies roughly inside, and set them on the table next to Luce. "These are from your friends," she said, "who will all now make their departures."
The door was wide open, and Luce could see Daniel leaning against the frame. His chin was lifted and his gray eyes were shadowed with concern. He met Luce's gaze and gave her a small smile. When he brushed his hair away from his eyes, Luce could see a small, dark red gash on his forehead.
Randy steered Penn, Arriane, and Gabbe out the door. But Luce couldn't take her eyes off Daniel. He raised a hand in the air and mouthed what she thought was I'm sorry, just before Randy shoved them out.
"I hope they didn't wear you out," Randy said, lurking in the doorway with an unsympathetic frown.
"Oh no!" Luce shook her head, realizing how much she'd come to rely on Penn's loyalty and Arriane's quirky way of lightening even the soberest mood. Gabbe, too, had been truly kind to her. And Daniel, though she'd barely seen him, had done more to restore her peace of mind than he could ever know. He'd come by to check on her. He'd been thinking of her.
"Good," Randy said. "Because visiting hours aren't over yet."
Again, Luce's heart picked up as she waited to see her parents. But there was just a brisk clicking on the linoleum floor, and soon Luce saw the tiny frame of Miss Sophia. A colorful autumnal pashmina was draped over her thin shoulders, and her lips were painted deep red to match. Behind her walked a short, bald man in a suit, and two police officers, one chubby and one thin, both with receding hairlines and crossed arms.
The chubby police officer was younger. He took a seat on the chair next to Luce, then—noticing that no one else had moved to sit down—stood back up and re-crossed his arms.
The bald man stepped forward and offered Luce his hand. "I'm Mr. Schultz, Sword & Cross's attorney." Luce stiffly shook his hand. "These officers are just going to ask you a couple of questions. Nothing to be used in a court, only an effort to corroborate details from the accident—"
"And I insisted on being here during the questioning, Lucinda," Miss Sophia added, coming forward to stroke Luce's hair. "How are you, dear?" she whispered. "In a state of amnesiac shock?"
"I'm okay—"
Luce broke off as she caught sight of two more figures in the doorway. She almost burst into tears when she saw her mother's dark, curly head and her father's big tortoiseshell glasses.
"Mom," she whispered, too low for anyone else to hear. "Dad."
They rushed toward the bed, throwing their arms around her and squeezing her hands. She wanted to hug them so badly, but she felt too weak to do much more than stay still and take in the familiar comfort of their touch. Their eyes looked just as scared as she felt.
"Honey, what happened?" her mom asked.
She couldn't say a word.
"I told them you were innocent," Miss Sophia said, turning to remind the officers. "Eerie similarities be damned."
Of course they had Trevor's accident on record, and of course the cops would find it… remarkable in light of Todd's death. Luce had enough practice with police officers to know that she was only going to leave them frustrated and annoyed.
The thin cop had long sideburns that were going gray. Her open file in his hand seemed to require his full attention, because not once did he look up at her.
"Ms. Price," he said with a slow southern drawl. "Why were you and Mr. Hammond alone in the library at such a late hour when all the other students were at a party?"
Luce glanced at her parents. Her mom was chewing off her lipstick. Her father's face was as white as the bed-sheet.
"I wasn't with Todd," she said, not understanding the line of questioning. "I was with Penn, my friend. And Miss Sophia was there. Todd was reading on his own and when the fire started, I lost Penn, and Todd was the only one I could find."
"The only one you could find… to do what with?"
"Hold on a minute." Mr. Schultz stepped forward to interrupt the cop. "This was an accident, may I remind you. You're not interrogating a suspect."
"No, I want to answer," Luce said. There were so many people in this tiny room that she didn't know where to look. She eyed the cop. "What do you mean?"
"Are you an angry person, Ms. Price?" He gripped the folder. "Would you call yourself a loner?"
"That's enough," her father interrupted.
"Yes, Lucinda is a serious student," Miss Sophia added. "She had no ill will toward Todd Hammond. What happened was an accident, no more."
The officer glanced toward the open doorway, as if wishing Miss Sophia would relocate herself outside it. "Yes, ma'am. Well, with these reform school cases, giving the benefit of the doubt is not always the most responsible—"
"I'll tell you everything I know," Luce said, balling up her sheet in her fist. "I don't have anything to hide."
She took them through it as best she could, speaking slowly and clearly so she would raise no new questions for her parents, so the cops could take notes. She didn't let herself slide into emotion, which seemed like exactly what everyone was expecting. And—leaving out the appearance of the shadows—the story made a lot of sense.