This was the roll call, the last moment of unity before Heaven lost half its souls. At the time Daniel had wondered why the Throne ever permitted the roll call to occur. Did he who had dominion over everything think Lucifer’s appeal to the angels would end in sheer humiliation? How could the Throne have been so wrong?
Gabbe still spoke of the roll call with startling clarity. Daniel could remember little of it—other than the soft brush of a single wing reaching out to him in solidarity. The brush that told him: You are not alone.
Could he dare to look upon that wing now?
Perhaps there was a way to go about the roll call differently, so that the curse that befell them afterward did not strike so hard. With a shiver that reached his very core, Daniel realized that he could turn this trap into an opportunity.
Of course! Someone had reworked the curse so that there was a way out for Lucinda. The whole time he’d been racing after her, Daniel had assumed it must have been Lucinda herself. That somewhere in her heedless flight backward through time, she’d opened up a loophole. But maybe … maybe it had been Daniel all along.
He was here now. He could do it. In some sense, he must already have done it. Yes, he’d been chasing its implications through the millennia he’d traveled to get here. What he did here, now, at the very beginning, would ripple forward into every one of her lives. Finally, things were beginning to make sense.
He would be the one to soften the curse, to allow Lucinda to live and travel into her past—it had to have begun here. And it had to have begun with Daniel.
He descended to the plain of cloudsoil, edging along the glowing border. There were hundreds of angels there, thousands, filling it up with lustrous anxiety. The light was astonishing as he slipped in among the crowd. No one perceived his Anachronism; the tension and fear among the angels were too bright.
“The time has come, Lucifer,” his Voice called from the Throne. This voice had given Daniel immortality, and all that came with it. “This is truly what you desire?”
“Not just for us, but for our fellow angels,” Lucifer was saying. “Free will is deserved by everyone, not just the mortal men and women whom we watch from above.” Lucifer appealed now to the angels, burning brighter than the morning star. “The line has been drawn in the cloudsoil of the Meadow. Now you are all free to choose.”
The first heavenly scribe stood at the base of the Throne in shimmery incandescence and began to call out the names. It started with the lowest-ranking angel, the seven thousand eight hundred and twelfth son of Heaven:
“Geliel,” the scribe called, “last of the twenty-eight angels who govern the mansions of the moon.”
That was how it began.
The scribe kept a running tally in the opalescent sky as Chabril, the angel of the second hour of the night, chose Lucifer, and Tiel, the angel of the north wind, chose Heaven, along with Padiel, one of the guardians of childbeds, and Gadal, an angel involved with magical rites for the ill. Some of the angels made lengthy appeals, some of them scarcely said a word; Daniel kept little track of the tally. He was on a quest to find himself, and besides, he already knew how this ended.
He waded through the field of angels, grateful for the time it took to call out all the choices. He had to recognize his own self before he rose up out of the masses and said the naïve words he’d been paying for ever since.
There was commotion in the Meadow—whispering and flashing lights, a grumble of low thunder. Daniel hadn’t heard the name called, had not seen the angel float up to declare his choice. He shoved through the souls in front of him to get a better view.
Roland. He bowed before the Throne. “With respect, I am not ready to choose.” He looked at the Throne but gestured at Lucifer. “You are losing a son today, and all of us are losing a brother. Many more, it seems, will follow. Please, do not enter lightly into this dark decision. Do not force our family to splinter apart.”
Daniel teared up at the sight of Roland’s soul—the angel of poetry and music, Daniel’s brother and his friend—pleading in the white sky.
“You are wrong, Roland,” the Throne boomed. “And in defying me, you have made your choice. Welcome him to your side, Lucifer.”
“No!” Arriane shrieked, and flew up out of the center of brightness to hover beside Roland. “Please, only give him time to understand what his decision means!”
“The decision has been made” was all the Throne said in reply. “I can tell what is in his soul, despite his words—he has already chosen.”
A soul brushed up against Daniel’s. Hot and stunning, instantly recognizable.
Cam.
“What are you?” Cam whispered. He sensed innately that something was different about Daniel, but there was no way to explain who Daniel really was to an angel who’d never left Heaven, who had no conception of what was to come.
“Brother, do not fret,” Daniel pleaded. “It is me.”
Cam grasped his arm. “I perceive that, though I see you’re also not you.” He grimly shook his head. “I trust you are here for a reason. Please. Can you stop this from happening?”
“Daniel.” The scribe was calling his name. “Angel of the silent watchers, the Grigori.”
No. Not yet. He had not worked out what to say, what to do. Daniel tore through the blinding light of souls around him, but it was too late. His earlier self rose slowly, gazing neither at the Throne nor at Lucifer.
Instead, he was looking into the hazy distance. Looking, Daniel remembered, at her.
“With respect, I will not do this. I will not choose Lucifer’s side, and I will not choose the side of Heaven.”
A roar went up from the camps of angels, from Lucifer, and from the Throne.
“Instead, I choose love—the thing you have all forgotten. I choose love and leave you to your war. You’re wrong to bring this upon us,” Daniel said evenly to Lucifer. Then, turning, he addressed the Throne. “All that is good in Heaven and on Earth is born of love. This war is not just. This war is not good. Love is the only thing worth fighting for.”
“My child,” the rich, steady voice boomed from the Throne. “You misunderstand. I am standing firm on my ruling out of love—love for all of my creations.”
“No,” Daniel said softly. “This war is about pride. Cast me out, if you must. If that is my destiny, I surrender to it, but not to you.”
Lucifer’s laughter was a foul belch. “You’ve got the courage of a god, but the mind of a mortal adolescent. And your punishment shall be that of an adolescent.” Lucifer swept his hand to one side. “Hell will not have him.”
“And he has already made plain his choice to forsake Heaven,” came the disappointed voice from the Throne. “As with all my children, I see what is in your soul. But I do not know now what will become of you, Daniel, nor your love.”
“He will not have his love!” Lucifer shouted.
“Then you have something to propose, Lucifer?” asked the Throne.
“An example must be made.” Lucifer seethed. “Can you not see? The love he speaks of is destructive!” Lucifer grinned as the seeds of his most evil act began to sprout. “So let it destroy the lovers and not the rest of us! She will die!”
Gasps from the angels. It was impossible, the very last thing anyone expected.
“She will die always and forevermore,” Lucifer continued, his voice thick with venom. “She will never pass out of adolescence—will die again and again and again at precisely the moment when she remembers your choice. So that you will never truly be together. That will be her punishment. And as for you, Daniel—”