Torment

Alone in the woods with the shadow.

After yesterday's in-class demonstration, Luce had been expecting more of the same from Francesca and Steven. She had hoped that maybe the students would have a chance to experiment with the shadows on their own today. She'd even had the briefest fantasy of being able to do what she'd done in the forest in front of all the Nephilim.

None of that had happened. In fact, class today had felt like a big step back. A boring lecture about Announcer etiquette and safety, and why the students should never, under any circumstances, try on their own what they'd seen the day before.

It was frustrating and regressive. So now, instead of heading back to the dorm, Luce found herself jogging behind the mess hall, down the trail to the edge of the blu , and up the wooden stairs of the Nephilim lodge. Francesca's o ce was in the annex on the second oor, and she'd told the class to feel free to come by anytime.

The building was remarkably di erent without the other students to warm it up. Dim and drafty and almost abandoned-feeling. Every noise Luce made seemed to carry, echoing o the sloping wooden beams. She could see a lamp on the landing one oor up and smell the rich aroma of brewing co ee. She didn't know yet whether she was going to tell Francesca what she'd been able to do in the forest. It might seem insigni cant to someone as skilled as Francesca. Or it might seem like a violation of her instructions to the class today.

Part of Luce just wanted to feel her teacher out, to see whether she might be someone Luce could turn to when, on days like today, she started to feel as if she might fall apart.

She reached the top of the stairs and found herself at the head of a long, open hallway. On her left, beyond the wooden banister, she looked down at the dark, empty classroom on the second story. On her right was a row of heavy wooden doors with stained-glass transoms over them. Walking quietly along the oorboards, Luce realized she didn't know which o ce was Francesca's. Only one of the doors was ajar, the third one from the right, with light emanating from the pretty stained-glass scene in the transom. She thought she heard a male voice inside. She was poised to knock when a woman's sharp tone made her freeze.

"It was a mistake to even try," Francesca practically hissed.

"We took a chance. We got unlucky." "We took a chance. We got unlucky."

Steven.

"Unlucky?" Francesca sco ed. "You mean reckless. From a purely statistical standpoint, the odds of an Announcer bearing bad news were far too great. You saw what it did to those kids. They weren't ready."

A pause. Luce inched a little closer along the Persian rug in the hall.

"But she was."

"I won't sacri ce all the progress an entire class has made just because some, some--"

"Don't be shortsighted, Francesca. We came up with a beautiful curriculum. I know that as well as you. Our students outperform every other Nephilim program in the world. You did all that. You have a right to feel a sense of pride. But things are di erent now."

"Steven's right, Francesca." A third voice. Male. Luce thought it sounded familiar. But who was it? "Might as well throw your academic calendar out the window. The truce between our sides is the only timeline that matters anymore."

Francesca sighed. "You really think--"

The unknown voice said, "If I know Daniel, he'll be right on time. He's probably counting down the minutes already."

"There's something else," Steven said.

A pause, then what sounded like a drawer sliding open, then a gasp. Luce would have killed to be on the other side of the wall, to see what they could see.

"Where did you get that?" the other male voice asked. "Are you trading?"

"Of course he's not!" Francesca sounded stung. "Steven found it in the forest during one of his rounds the other night."

"It's authentic, isn't it?" Steven asked.

A sigh. "Been too long for me to say," the stranger hedged. "I haven't seen a starshot in ages. Daniel will know. I'll take it to him."

"That's all? What do you suggest we do in the meantime?" Francesca asked.

"Look, this isn't my thing." The familiarity of that male voice was like an itch at the back of Luce's brain. "And it's really not my style--"

"Please," Francesca pleaded.

The o ce was silent. Luce's heart was pounding.

"Okay. If I were you? Step things up around here. Tighten their supervision and do everything you can to get all of them ready. End Times aren't supposed to be very pretty."

End Times. That was what Arriane had said would happen if Cam and his army won that night at Sword & Cross. But they hadn't won. Unless there'd already been another battle. But then, what would the Nephilim need to get ready for?

The sound of heavy chair legs scraping along the oor made Luce jump back. She knew she should not be caught eavesdropping on this conversation. Whatever it was about.

For once, she was glad of the endless supply of mysterious alcoves in the Shoreline architecture. She ducked under a decorative wood-shingled cornice between two bookshelves and pressed herself into the recess of the wall.

A single set of footsteps exited the o ce, and the door closed rmly. Luce held her breath and waited for the gure to descend the stairs.

At rst, she could see only his feet. Brown European leather boots. Then a pair of dark-wash jeans came into view as he curved around the banister toward the second story of the lodge. A blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt. And nally, the distinctly recognizable mane of black- and-gold dreadlocks.

Roland Sparks had turned up at Shoreline.

Luce jumped out from her hidden perch. She might still be on nervous best behavior in front of Francesca and Steven, who were dauntingly gorgeous and powerful and mature ... and her teachers. But Roland didn't intimidate her--not much, anyway--not anymore. Besides, he was the closest to Daniel she had been in days.

She slunk down the interior steps as silently as she could, then burst through the lodge door to the deck. Roland was moseying toward the ocean like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Roland!" she shouted, thundering down the last ight of stairs to the ground and breaking into a jog. He stood where the path ended and the blu dropped down to steep and craggy rocks.

He was standing so still, looking out at the water. Luce was surprised to feel butter ies in her stomach when, very slowly, he began to turn around.

"Well, well." He smiled. "Lucinda Price discovers peroxide."

"Oh." She clutched at her hair. How stupid she must look to him.

"No, no," he said, stepping toward her, u ng her hair with his ngers. "It suits you. A hard edge for hard times."

"What are you doing here?"

"Enrolling." He shrugged. "I just picked up my class schedule, met the teachers. Seems like a pretty sweet place."

A woven knapsack was slung over one of his shoulders with something long and narrow and silver sticking out of it. Following her eyes, Roland switched the bag to his other shoulder and tightened the top ap with a knot.

"Roland." Her voice quaked. "You left Sword and Cross? Why? What are you doing here?"

"Just needed a change of pace," he o ered cryptically.

Luce was going to ask about the others--Arriane and Gabbe. Even Molly. Whether anyone had noticed or cared that she'd left. But when she opened her mouth, what came out was very di erent from what she had expected. "What were you talking about in there with Francesca and Steven?"

Roland's face changed suddenly, hardened into something older, less carefree. "That depends. How much did you hear?"

"Daniel. I heard you say that he ... You don't have to lie to me, Roland. How much longer until he comes back? Because I don't think I can--"

"Come take a walk with me, Luce."

As awkward as it would have felt for Roland Sparks to put his arm around her shoulders back at Sword & Cross, that was how comforting it was when he did it that day at Shoreline. They were never really friends, but he was a reminder of her past--a bond she couldn't help turning to now. when he did it that day at Shoreline. They were never really friends, but he was a reminder of her past--a bond she couldn't help turning to now.

They walked along the blu 's edge, around the breakfast terrace, and along the west side of the dorms, past a rose garden Luce had never seen before. It was dusk and the water to their right was alive with colors, re ecting the rose and orange and violet clouds gliding in front of the sun.

Roland led her to a bench facing the water, far away from all the campus buildings. Looking down, she could see a rugged set of stairs carved into the rock, starting just below where they were sitting, and leading all the way down to the beach.

"What do you know that you aren't saying?" Luce asked when the silence began to get to her.

"That water is fty-one degrees," Roland said.

"Not what I meant," she said, looking him right in the eyes. "Did he send you here to watch over me?"

Roland scratched his head. "Look. Daniel's o doing his thing." He made a itting motion at the sky. "In the meantime"--and she thought he cocked his head toward the forest behind the dorm--"you got your own thing to take care of."

"What? No, I don't have a thing. I'm just here because--"

"Bullshit." He laughed. "We all have our secrets, Luce. Mine brought me to Shoreline. Yours has been leading you out to those woods."

She started to protest, but Roland waved her o , that ever-cryptic look in his eyes.

"I'm not going to get you in trouble. In fact, I'm rooting for you." His eyes moved past her, out to sea. "Now, back to that water. It's frigid. Have you been in it? I know you like to swim."

It struck Luce that she'd been at Shoreline for three days, with the ocean always visible, the waves always audible, the salt air always coating everything, but she still hadn't set foot on the beach. And it wasn't like at Sword & Cross, where a laundry list of things were o -limits. She didn't know why it hadn't even occurred to her.

She shook her head.

"About all you can do with a beach that cold is build a bon re." Roland glanced at her. "You made any friends here yet?"

Luce shrugged. "A few."

"Bring them by tonight, after dark." He pointed to a narrow peninsula of sand at the foot of the rocky stairs. "Right down there."

She peered at Roland sideways. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

Roland grinned devilishly. "Don't worry, we'll keep it innocent. But you know how it is. I'm new in town; I'd like to make my presence known."

"Dude. Stomp down on my heel one more time, and I'm seriously going to have to break your ankle."

"Maybe if you weren't hogging the entire beam of the ashlight up there, Shel, the rest of us could see where we were going."

Luce tried to sti e her laugh as she followed a bickering Miles and Shelby across campus in the dark. It was almost eleven, and Shoreline was pitch-black and silent, except for the hoot of an owl. An orange gibbous moon was low in the sky, cloaked by a veil of fog. Between the three of them, they'd only been able to come up with one ashlight (Shelby's), so only one of them (Shelby) had a clear view of the path down to the water. For the other two, the grounds--which had seemed so lush and well tended in the daylight--were now booby-trapped with fallen bristlecones, thick-rooted ferns, and the backs of Shelby's feet.