Lauren Kate: Passion

“No!”

A rocket smashed into a building behind him. The ground quaked, the street bucked and split, and a shower of glass and steel and concrete gathered up in the air and then rained down.

After that, the street went deadly quiet. But Daniel barely noticed. He just stood in disbelief among the debris.

“She’s going further back,” he muttered, brushing the dust from his shoulders.

“She’s going further back,” someone said.

That voice. His voice. An echo?

No, too close for an echo. Too clear to have come from inside his head.

“Who said that?” He dashed past a tangled mess of scaffolding to where Luce had been.

Two gasps.

Daniel was facing himself. Only not quite himself—an earlier version of himself, a slightly less cynical version of himself. But from when? Where was he?

“Don’t touch!” Cam shouted at both of them. He was dressed in an officer’s fatigues, combat boots, and a bulky black coat. At the sight of Daniel, his eyes blazed.

Unwittingly, both Daniels had drawn closer, stepping around one another in a cautious circle in the snow. Now they reared back.

“Stay away from me,” the older one warned the newer. “It’s dangerous.”

“I know that,” Daniel barked. “Don’t you think I know that?” Just being this close made his stomach lurch. “I was here before. I am you. ”

“What do you want?”

“I’m—” Daniel looked around, trying to get his bearings. After thousands of years of living, of loving Luce and losing her, the tissue of his memories had grown ragged. Repetition made the past hard to recall. But this place wasn’t so long ago, this place he remembered—

Desolate city. Snow on the streets. Fire in the sky.

It could have been one of a hundred wars.

But there—

The place on the street where the snow had melted. The dark crater in the sea of white. Daniel sank to his knees and reached for the ring of black ash stained on the ground. He closed his eyes. And he remembered the precise way she had died in his arms.

Moscow. 1941.

So this was what she was doing—tunneling into her past lives. Hoping to understand.

The thing was, there was no rhyme or reason to her deaths. More than anyone, Daniel knew that .

But there were certain lifetimes when he’d tried to shed some light for her, hoping it would change things. Sometimes he’d hoped to keep her alive longer, though that never really worked. Sometimes—like this time during the siege of Moscow—he’d chosen to send her on her way more quickly. To spare her. So that his kiss could be the last thing she felt in that lifetime.

And those were the lifetimes that cast the longest shadows across the eons. Those were the lifetimes that stood out and drew Luce like filings to a magnet as she stumbled through the Announcers. Those lives when he’d revealed to her what she needed to know, even though knowing it would destroy her.

Like her death in Moscow. He remembered it keenly and felt foolish. The daring words he’d whispered, the deep kiss he’d given her. The blissful realization on her face as she died. It had changed nothing. Her end was exactly the same as always.

And Daniel was exactly the same afterward, too: Bleak. Black. Empty. Gutted. Inconsolable.

Gabbe stepped forward to kick snow over the ring of ash where Luschka had died. Her featherlight wings glowed in the night and a shimmering aura surrounded her body as she hunched over in the snow. She was crying.

The rest of them came closer, too: Cam. Roland. Molly. Arriane.

And Daniil, long-ago Daniel, rounded out their motley group.

“If you’re here to warn us about something,” Arriane called, “then say your piece and go.” Her iridescent wings folded forward, almost protectively. She stepped in front of Daniil, who looked a little green.

It was unlawful and unnatural for the angels to interact with their earlier selves. Daniel felt clammy and faint—whether that was because he was having to relive Luce’s death or because he was so close to his previous self, he couldn’t say.

“Warn us?” Molly sneered, walking in a circle around Daniel. “Why would Daniel Grigori go out of his way to warn us about anything?” She got in his face, taunting him with her copper-colored wings. “No, I remember what he’s up to—this one has been skipping through the past for centuries. Always searching, always late.”

“No,” Daniel whispered. That couldn’t be. He’d set out to catch her and he would.

“What she means to ask,” Roland said to Daniel, “is what transpired to bring you here? From whenever you’re coming from?”

“I’d almost forgotten,” Cam said, massaging his temples. “He is after Lucinda. She has fallen out of time.” He turned to Daniel and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe now you’ll forsake your pride and ask for our help?”

“I don’t need help.”

“Seems as if you do,” Cam jeered.

“Stay out of it,” Daniel spat. “You’re enough trouble to us later.”

“Oh, how fun.” Cam clapped. “You’ve given me something to look forward to.”

“This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Daniel,” Roland said.

“I know that.”

Cam laughed a dark, sinister laugh. “So. We’ve finally reached the endgame, haven’t we?”

Gabbe swallowed. “So … something’s changed?”

“She’s figuring it out!” Arriane said. “She’s opening up Announcers and stepping through and she’s still alive !”

Daniel’s eyes blazed violet. He turned away from all of them, looking back at the ruins of the church, the first place where he’d laid eyes on Luschka. “I can’t stay. I have to catch her.”

“Well, from what I remember,” Cam said softly, “you never will. The past is already written, brother.”

“Your past, maybe. But not my future.” Daniel couldn’t think straight. His wings burned inside his body, aching to be released. She was gone. The street was empty. No one else to worry about.

He threw his shoulders back and let them out with a whoosh. There. That lightness. That deepest freedom. He could think more clearly now. What he needed was a moment alone. With himself. He shot the other Daniel a look and took off into the sky.

Moments later, he heard the sound again: the same whoosh of wings unfurling—the sound of another pair of wings, younger wings, taking flight from the ground below.

Daniel’s earlier self caught up with him in the sky. “Where to?”

Wordlessly they settled on a third-story ledge near Patriarch’s Pond, on the roof across from Luce’s window, where they used to watch her sleep. The memory would be fresher in Daniil’s mind, but the faint recollection of Luce lying dreaming under the covers still sent a warm rush across Daniel’s wings.

Both were somber. In the bombed-out city, it was sad and ironic that her building had been spared when she hadn’t. They stood in silence in the cold night, both carefully tucking back their wings so that they wouldn’t accidentally touch.

“How are things for her in the future?”

Daniel sighed. “The good news is that something is different in this lifetime. Somehow the curse has been … altered.”

“How?” Daniil looked up, and the hope that shone bright in his eyes darkened. “You mean to say, in her current lifetime she has not yet made a covenant?”

“We think not. That’s part of it. It seems a loophole has opened up and allowed her to live beyond her usual time—”

“But it’s so dangerous.” Daniil spoke quickly, frantically, spewing out the same discourse that had been running through Daniel’s mind ever since the last night at Sword & Cross, when he’d realized that this time was different: “She could die and not come back. That could be the end. Every single thing is on the line now.”