On the cliffs towering over the plateau, four Outcasts perched on ledges, each pale warrior watching a different cardinal direction. The Outcasts’ wings, tucked to their sides, were barely visible, but the edges of Daniel’s lantern light revealed the starshots in each of their silver bows, as if they expected the Scale’s arrival at any moment.
The four fallen angels Luce knew best occupied the stone seats around the ceremonially placed relics. Arriane and Annabelle sat on one side, backs straight, their wings concealed. On the other side sat Cam and Roland—with one empty seat between them.
Was it for Luce or Daniel?
“Good, everyone’s here except the moon.” Dee looked up at the eastern sky. “Five more minutes. Daniel, will you take a seat?”
Daniel handed Dee the lantern and walked across the marble slab. He stood before the Qayom Malak. Luce wanted to go to him, but before she could even lean in his direction, Dee’s grip tightened around her hand.
“Stay with me, honey.”
Daniel sat down between Roland and Cam and turned his expressionless gaze to Luce.
“Allow me to explain.” Dee’s calm, clear voice echoed off the red-rock walls, and all the angels straightened in attention. “As I told you earlier, we require the moon to make an appearance, and now, in a moment, she will visit us above this peak. She will grin down through the lens of the Halo. We are fortunate the sky is clear tonight, with nothing to obscure the shadows of her lovely craters as they join with the cracks in the Halo’s glass.
“Together, these elements will project the outlines of continents and lines of countries, which, in concert with the carvings on the Slab, will comprise the Map of the Simulacra Terra Prima. Right here.” She pointed to an empty space on the marble step, where she’d lain the night before, measuring the distance between the Qayom Malak and the Silver Pennon. “You will see a representation of the way the world was when you angels fell to Earth. Yes”—she inhaled—“just another moment.
There.”
The crown of the moon rose above the rocky crag that jutted out behind the Qayom Malak. And even though the moon was pale white and waning, at the moment, it shone as brilliantly as dawn. The angels, the Outcasts, Luce, and Dee stood quietly for several minutes, watching the moon climb, watching it cast a little light and then a little more through the translucent surface of the halo. The marble slab beyond it was blank, then clouded; then, all at once, the projection was clear and focused and real. It projected lines, intersections—continents—borders, lands, and seas.
It looked half complete. Some lines trailed off into nothing; some boundaries never closed. But it was clearly a map of the Earth, Luce thought, as it would have looked when Daniel fell for her. It stirred something in the deepest recesses of her memory. It looked familiar.
“Do you see the yellow stone at the center there?” Dee asked.
Luce squinted to see a tile of the same slightly darker yellow stone as the one where the goblet had been placed.
“That is us, right here in the middle of everything.”
“Like an arrow saying, ‘You Are Here,’” Luce said.
“That’s right, dear.” Dee turned to Luce. “And now, my Lucinda, have you figured out your role in this ceremony yet?”
Luce squirmed. What did they want from her? This was their story, not hers. After all this commotion, she was just another girl, swept up in the promise of love.
Daniel had found her on Earth after his fall from grace; someone should ask him what was going on. “I’m sorry.
I don’t know.”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Dee said. “Do you see the spot where angels fell marked on this map?” Luce sighed, eager to get to the point. “No.”
“It was ordained many millennia ago that this location on this map could only be revealed in blood. The blood that courses through our veins knows far more than we do. Look closely. See the grooves along the marble? They are the lines to close the boundaries of the angelico-prelapsarian Earth. They shall become clear once the blood is shed and poured. The blood will pool in one vitally important place. The knowledge, my dear, is in the blood.”
“The site of the Fall,” one of the angels said reverently, Arriane or Annabelle; Luce couldn’t tell.
“Somewhat like a treasure map in an adventure story, the impact point—that’s the site of the Fall—will be marked with a five-pointed star of blood. Now . . .” Dee was talking but Luce could no longer hear what she was saying. So this was what it was going to take to stop Lucifer. This was what Cam meant she had to do.
This was why Daniel wouldn’t look at her. Her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. When she opened her mouth, her voice sounded like she was speaking underwater. “You need”—she swallowed in pain—“my blood.” Dee choked on her laugh and pressed a cold hand to Luce’s hot cheek. “Good heavens, no, child! You keep yours. I’m going to give you mine.”
“What?”
“That’s right. As I am passing out of this world, you will fill the Silver Pennon with my blood. You will pour it into this depression just east of the golden arrow marker”—she indicated a dent at the left of the goblet, then fanned her hands out dramatically toward the map—“and watch it follow the grooves here and there and here and there until you find the star. Then you will know where to meet Lucifer and thwart his plan.” Luce cracked her knuckles. How could Dee speak about her own death so casually? “Why would you do this?”
“Why, it’s what I was created for. Angels were made to adore and I have a purpose, too.” Then, from the deep pocket of her brown cloak, Dee withdrew a long silver dagger.
“But that’s—”
The dagger Miss Sophia had used to kill Penn. The one she’d had in Jerusalem when she bound up the fallen angels.
“Yes. I picked this up in Golgotha,” Dee said, admiring the craftsmanship of the blade. It shone as if freshly sharpened. “Dark history, this knife. It’s time it was put to some good use, dear.” She held out the knife, its blade flat on her open palm, its hilt pointing toward Luce. “It would mean a lot to me if you would be the one to spill my blood, dear. Not only because you are dear to me, but also because it must be you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You must kill me, Lucinda.”
FIFTEEN
THE GIFT
“I can’t!”
“You can,” Dee said. “And you will. No one else can do it.”
“Why?”
Dee looked over her shoulder in Daniel’s direction.
He was still seated, looking at Luce, but he didn’t seem to see her. None of the angels rose to help her.
Dee spoke in a whisper. “If you are, as you say you are, fully resolved to break your curse—”
“You know I am.”
“Then you must use my blood to break it.” No. How could her curse be bound up in someone else’s blood? Dee had brought them up here to the Qayom Malak to reveal the site of the angels’ Fall. That was her role as the desideratum. It didn’t have anything to do with Luce’s curse.
Did it?
Break the curse. Of course Luce wanted to; it was all she wanted.
Could she break it, right here, right now? How would she live with herself if she killed Dee? Luce looked to the old woman, who took her by the hands.
“Don’t you want to know the truth of your original life?”
“Of course I do. But why would killing you reveal my past?”
“It will reveal all kinds of things.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh dear.” Dee sighed, looking past Luce at the others. “These angels have done well to keep you safe—
but they have also protected you into complacency. The time has come for you to awaken, Lucinda, and to awaken, you must act. ”