Page 5. Page 6. Page 7. Page 8. Page 9. E ver since she can remember, Luce has been haunted by strange shapes shadowsthat she sees in corners, on ceilings, all around her. At her new school, the shadows seem stronger than ever. But theres one bright spot Daniel Grigori. Daniel captures Luces attention the moment she sees him. Luce has to find out Daniels secrets.
Look Inside. Sep 28, Minutes Young Adult Buy. Hell on earth. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts—immortals who want to kill Luce. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. They were enormous, rising three times taller than Daniel, and curved up into the sky and to either side like broad white sails. Their broad expanse caught the light of the stars and reflected it more intensely, so that they glowed with an iridescent shimmer. Near his body they darkened, shading into a rich earthy cream color where they met his shoulder muscles.
But along their tapered edges, they grew thin and glowed, becoming almost translucent at the tips. Luce stared at them, rapt, trying to remember the line of every glorious feather, to hold all of it inside her for when he went away.
He shone so bright, the sun could have borrowed light from him. The smile in his violet eyes told her how good it felt for him to let his wings out. As good as Luce felt when she was wrapped up in them. I have to give you something to remember me by. With her back pressed to his chest, and his head over her shoulder, Daniel traced a line of kisses down her neck.
She held her breath, waiting. Then he bent his legs and gracefully pushed off the edge of the cliff. They were flying. Away from the rocky ledge of the coastline, over the crashing silver waves below, arcing across the sky as if they were soaring for the moon. The night was absolutely quiet.
As if they were the only two people left in the world. Daniel laughed. Maybe one day soon. They were far above the tallest building in town and moving incredibly fast.
But Luce had never felt safer or more in love in her life. The sounds of the ocean grew louder again. A dark single-lane road wound off the main highway. When their feet touched down lightly on a cool patch of thick grass, Luce sighed. The Shoreline School. She could see a large building in the distance, but from here it looked completely dark, merely a shape on the horizon. Daniel held her pressed to him, as if they were still in the air. She craned her head around to look at his expression.
His eyes were damp. They have been for millennia. They will do anything they can to stop us. I love you, Luce. More than anything. When he let her out of his embrace, he opened his palm and a small red shape inside it began to grow. Her duffel bag. In just a few seconds, it had filled out entirely, back to its full size. A single light went on inside the building. A silhouette appeared in the doorway. She let everything else fall away, let her heart brim over.
And the future. The figure in the doorway was walking toward her, a woman in a short white dress. The kiss Luce had shared with Daniel, too sweet to be so brief, left her just as out of breath as their kisses always did.
It was all happening too fast. Not yet. Her heart went after him as she opened her eyes and saw the last trace of his wings disappear inside a cloud, into the dark night. Luce winced and rubbed her face. Her nose stung. Now it was her cheekbones. Her eyelids drifted open and, almost immediately, she scrunched up her face in surprise.
A stocky dishwater-blond girl with a grimly set mouth and major eyebrows was leaning over her. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head. She wore yoga pants and a ribbed camouflage tank top that matched her green-flecked hazel eyes. She held a Ping-Pong ball between her fingers, poised to pelt. Luce scrambled backward in her bedsheets and shielded her face. Her heart already hurt from missing Daniel. She looked down, still trying to get her bearings, and remembered the bed she had indiscriminately collapsed into the night before.
Even in her stunned stupor, Luce could tell that the woman was beautiful. She was in her mid-thirties, with blond hair brushing her shoulders, round cheekbones, and large, soft features. Angel, Luce decided almost instantly. Other than the stranger I wake to find squatting in my room. Other than the kid disrupting my morning mantra with her weirdly personal sleep-babbling.
Just a Californian girl with a strong sense of entitlement. Luce sat up in bed and looked around. The room was a little cramped, but it was nicely appointed, with light-colored hardwood floors; a working fireplace; a microwave; two deep, wide desks; and built-in bookshelves that doubled as a ladder to what Luce now realized was the top bunk. She could see a private bathroom through a sliding wooden door.
And—she had to blink a few times to be certain—an ocean view out the window. Not bad for a girl who had spent the past month gazing out at a rank old cemetery in a room more appropriate for a hospital than a school. But then, at least that rank cemetery and that room had meant she was with Daniel. And 21 now she was back to starting from scratch. Sterile chic, as Callie had once said.
This room, on the other hand—there was something about it that was strangely … groovy. Wait, how did you know my name? She pictured Shelby darting across a whole network of ledges on the roof to get back here in the middle of the night. Shelby made a show of yawning.
Especially not Lucinda Price. Luce wanted to know what it meant. And where Shelby had been until three. And who were the Nephilim kids? But though Arriane had seemed intimidating and even a little dangerous, there had been something charmingly off-kilter about her from the start. Shelby popped off the bed and lumbered into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
After digging through her duffel bag to find her toothbrush, Luce followed her in and gestured sheepishly at the toothpaste. She spat out a mouthful of froth. Not one brush of an angel wing.
Not one kiss of his lips. Luce needed the girl to help jog her memory. She must have been dreaming about Daniel. Next time, try enunciating. You coming or what? Shelby shrugged. Whatever takes the least amount of time. She would have liked to spend a few more minutes on her first-day-of-school look, but she just grabbed her backpack and followed Shelby out the door. The dormitory hallway was different in the daylight.
Everywhere she looked were bright, oversized windows with ocean views, or built-in bookshelves crammed full of thick, colorful hardcover books. Every few steps, the hallway seemed to split off into small tributary hallways, with spiral staircases leading further into the dimly lit maze.
Two flights of stairs and what looked like one secret door later, Luce and Shelby stepped through a set of double-paned French windows and into the daylight. It smelled like the ocean, but not really like home. Less briny, more chalky than the East Coast shore. This lawn was bordered on three sides by thick blue hydrangea bushes, and on the fourth by the steep, straight drop into the sea.
As they approached the terrace, Luce saw another building, a long, rectangular structure with wooden shingles and cheery yellow-trimmed windowpanes. It was certainly the nicest mess Luce had ever seen. The terrace was filled with whitewashed iron lawn furniture and about a hundred of the most laid-back-looking students Luce had ever seen. Most of them had their shoes kicked off, their feet propped up on the tables as they dined on elaborate breakfast dishes.
Eggs Benedict, fruit-topped Belgian waffles, wedges of rich-looking, flaky spinach-flecked quiche. Kids were reading the paper, gabbing on cell phones, playing croquet on the lawn. Luce knew from rich kids at Dover, but East Coast rich kids were pinched and snotty, not sun-kissed and carefree. The whole scene looked more like the first day of summer than a Tuesday in early November. Luce wished she could turn to Arriane now.
It would be good to be able to laugh. Looking around, she accidentally caught the eyes of a couple of students. A pretty girl with olive skin, a polka-dot dress, and a green scarf tied in her glossy black hair. A sandy-haired guy with broad shoulders tackling an enormous stack of pancakes. But … neither one of these kids glared at her. The biggest surprise about Shoreline was not the crystal sunshine or the cushy breakfast terrace or the buckets-of-money aura hovering over everyone.
It was that the students here were smiling. Well, most of them were smiling. When Shelby and Luce reached an unoccupied table, Shelby picked up a small placard and flung it to the ground. Luce leaned sideways to see the word RESERVED written on it just as a kid their age in a full-on black-tie waiter suit approached them with a silver tray. Gotta slave to get by. She picked up the San Francisco Chronicle from the middle of the table and unfolded the front page with a yawn. It was right around then that Luce had had enough.
She was tall, with an imperious bearing, and was put together with a style that came across as effortless. Her lips were glossy pink. She wore a cool fitted black sheath dress with a blue belt and matching peep-toe stilettos. It was the kind of outfit that would make anyone feel dowdy by comparison. And maybe not worn her mud-crusted Converses. Luce just cleared her throat.
Most of our gifted students just ease right in. Or just lean on Shelby. Her laugh was a gruff, gravelly thing, the kind of chortle Luce would have expected from an old man, a lifetime smoker, not a teenage yoga enthusiast. Luce could feel her face pinching up into a scowl. She belonged with real people, people with soul instead of squash rackets, who knew what life was like.
She belonged with Daniel. She still had no idea what she was doing here, other than hiding out very temporarily while Daniel took care of his … war. After that, he was going to take her back home.
Or something. Enjoy breakfast! When she was gone, Shelby took a big slurp of her coffee and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Part of her wanted to find another table. There were happy buzzes of conversation going on all around her. But she was confused by what Francesca had said. Why pitch Shelby as some great roommate when it was clear the girl was a total hater?
She raised one giant eyebrow. So what if I have a few questions? She folded and set down the paper and 25 leaned back in her chair. Every semester, they wage a campaign. And every semester, Francesca has to make up some bunk unpassable test to keep him out.
That means anything with angel in its DNA. Mortals, immortals, transeternals. We try not to discriminate.
Would you want to be called a nephil? It sounds like a bag you carry your shame in. No, thanks. She just seemed kind of coarse and cranky. Do you go on to angel college after this? A lot of kids take a year off and do Nephilim Corps.
You get to travel, have a fling with a foreigner, et cetera. The girl whose big-shot boyfriend pulled some strings. Was that … the truth? Just leave me out of it, okay? Maybe she and Shelby needed to rewind again. Suddenly, the girl with the green scarf was standing before her, grinning and nudging another girl forward.
Luce glanced past them, but Shelby was already far away—and probably not worth catching up to. Up close, the green-scarf girl looked kind of like a young Salma Hayek, with full lips and an even fuller chest. The other girl, with her pale coloring, hazel eyes, and short black hair, looked kind of like Luce. She had very small white teeth and was using them to hold a couple of sequin-tipped bobby pins while she twisted a few dark tendrils into little knots. Ohmigod, what was Cam like? I saw him once at this death metal concert … of course, I was too nervous to introduce myself.
This is Jasmine. This was new. We always say how you and Daniel are, like, the greatest love story. Okay, does it make you want him even more? I bet it does! She glanced around the busy terrace, wondering whether anyone could overhear them. Speaking of burning up, her cheeks must be beet red right now. An iron bell rang from the roof of the mess hall to signal the end of breakfast, and Luce was glad to see that everyone else had other things to focus on. Like getting to class. It sounds so totally romantic and awesome.
Luce had never been on the receiving end of one of those giggles before. Not what you want to hear. This was maddening. Luce was fiercely embarrassed. And, okay, a little excited. And absolutely unsure whether any of it was true.
One thing was sure: Luce was suddenly kind of … famous. But it felt strange. Like she was one of those unnamed bimbos next to the It-boy movie star in a paparazzi photo.
All the time! She had to keep reminding herself: This was only temporary. Temporary, but still stunningly beautiful. The three of them walked along the hydrangea path, which curved around the mess hall. The waves rolled toward the small stretch of tawny beach at the foot of the cliff almost as casually as the Shoreline student body rolled toward class.
An impressive two-story A-frame cabin stood alone at the end of the path. It had been built in the middle of a shady pocket of redwoods, so its steep, triangular roof and 28 the vast open lawn in front of it were covered with a blanket of fallen needles. There was a nice grassy patch with some picnic tables, but the main attraction was the cabin itself: More than half of it looked like it was made of glass, all wide, tinted windows and open sliding doors.
Like something Frank Lloyd Wright could have designed. Several students lounged on a huge second-story deck that faced the ocean, and several more kids were mounting the twin staircases that wound up from the path. It looked more like a vacation home than a school building. He had a thin face, stylish rectangular glasses, and a thick head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair. He looked at Luce long enough to make her veer toward nervousness, but the smile stayed on his face.
She is shameless. And you call them by their first names? Who teaches what? Frankie and Steven teach it jointly. Part of the deal here, sort of yin and yang. You know, so none of the students get … swayed. Everyone else was starting to amble through the sliding glass doors. They just sort of … live in sin.
Come on, we gotta go. It was broad and had three shallow risers, with desks on them, that led down to a couple of long tables. Most of the light came in through skylights. The natural lighting and high ceilings made the room seem even bigger than it was.
An ocean breeze blew in through the open doors and kept the air comfortable and fresh. She wondered if Daniel was thinking about her. Did he miss her the way she 29 missed him? Luce chose a desk close to the windows, between Jasmine and a cute boy-next-door kind of guy who was wearing cutoffs, a Dodgers cap, and a navy sweatshirt.
A few girls stood clustered near the door to the bathroom. One of them had curly hair and boxy purple glasses. But when the girl turned toward Luce, her face was a little squarer and her clothes were a little tighter and her laugh was a little louder and Luce almost felt like her heart was wilting. It never would be, ever again. Luce could feel the other kids glancing at her—some of them outright stared. There were two dry-erase white boards behind the tables.
Two bookshelves on either side. Two trash cans. Two desk lamps. Two laptops, one on each table. And the two teachers, Steven and Francesca, huddled near the front of the room, whispering. Francesca sat on top of one, with one leg tucked beneath her and one of her high heels skimming the wood floor.
Steven leaned against the other table, opened a heavy maroon leather portfolio, and rested his pen between his lips. But none of that happened. And most of the kids were still sneaking glances at her. Steven smiled, showing a flash of brilliant white teeth. They were actually turning in their seats to focus on her.
She could feel her heart race and her palms grow damp. She shrank in her seat, wishing she were just a normal kid at a normal school back home in normal Thunderbolt, Georgia.
But there was where her anxious, tumbling mind always came to a full stop: How to be normal and still have Daniel? Who was so very far from normal. It was impossible. So here she was, sucking it up. So Luce had just gotten her out of a presentation. That had to be worth something in roommate points.
Luce expected the chorus of groans that those words usually evoked from a classroom of teens. But these kids all seemed so agreeable and well-adjusted. They were actually just going to go with the flow.
Lines had been drawn on the page, dividing it into twenty boxes. Each box contained a phrase. The object was to go around the room and match a different student with each phrase.
Mostly, she was relieved; there were definitely more embarrassing icebreakers out there. She thought back to the nervous waiter who had brought her and Shelby their breakfast. Maybe Luce would be more comfortable among the scholarship kids.
She could levitate? Trying not to show that she was feeling more and more inadequate, Luce searched the page for something, anything she knew anything about. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Read Online Download.
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