mind reeled.

All day, there had been so much she needed to process, so many people telling her so many
different things. Now the dagger was poised over her heart and her eyes grew fuzzy once again, She felt the
pressure of the blade’s point against her chest, felt miss Sophia probing along her breastbone for the space
between her ribs, and she thought there was some truth in Miss Sophia’s maddening speech. To place so
much hope in the power of true love which she felt she was only barely beginning to glimpse herself was it
naÔve? After all, true love couldn't win that battle outside. It might not even be able to save her from dying
right here on this altar. But it had to. Her heart still beat for Daniel until that changed, something deep inside
Luce believed in that love, in its power to turn her into a better version of herself, to turn her and Daniel into
something glorious and good Luce cried out when the dagger pricked her skin then in shock as the stained
glass window overhead seemed to shatter and the air around her filled with light and noise. A hollow,
gorgeous ham. A blinding brightness. So she had died. The dagger had gone deeper than it had felt. Luce
was moving on to the next place. How else to explain the glowing, opalescent shapes hovering over her,
descending from the sky, the cascade of twinkles, the heavenly glow? It was hard to see anything clearly in
the warm silver light. Gliding over her skin, it felt like the softest velvet, like meringue frosting on a cake.
The ropes binding her arms and legs were loosened, then released, and her bodyor maybe this was her soul
was free to float up into the sky. But then she heard miss Sophia bleating, not yet! It is happening too soon!
The old woman had torn the dagger away from Luceis chest. Luce blinked rapidly. Her wrists, Untied. Her
ankles. Free. Tiny shards of blue and red and green and gold stained glass all over her skin, the altar, the
floor beneath it. They stung as she brushed them away, leaving thin trails of blood on her arms. She squinted
up toward the gaping hole in the ceiling. not dead, then, but saved. By angels. Daniel had come for her.
Where was he? She could barely see. She wanted to wade through the light until her fingers found him,
closed around the back of his neck, and never, never, never let him go. There were just the living opalescent
shapes drifting toward and around Luceis body, like a roomful of glowing feathers. They flocked to her,
tending to her body in the places where the shattered glass had cut her. Swaths of gauzy light that seemed to
somehow wash away the blood on her arms, and on the small gash at her chest, until she was fully restored.
Miss Sophia had run to the far wall and was pawing frantically at the bricks, trying to find the secret door.
Luce wanted to stop her to make her answer for what sheid done, and what sheid almost done but then part
of the silver twinkling light took on the faintest violet hue and began to form the outline of a figure. A bright
pulsing shook the room. A light so glorious it could have outshone the sun made the walls rumble and the
candles rock and flicker in their tall bronze holders. The eerie tapestries flapped against the stone wall. Miss
Sophia cowered, but the shuddering glow felt like a deep massage, down to Luceis very bones. And when
the light condensed, spreading warmth across the room, it settled into the form Luce recognized and adored.
Daniel stood before her, in front of the altar. He was shirtless, barefoot, clad only in white linen pants. He
smiled at her, then closed his eyes and spread his arms out at his sides. Then, gingerly and very slowly, as if
not to shock her, he exhaled deeply and his wings began to unfurl. They came gradually, starting at the base
of his shoulders, two white shoots extending from his back, growing higher, wider, thicker as they spread
back and up and out. Luce eyed the scalloped edges, yearning to trace them with her hands, her checks, her
lips. The inside of his wings began to glow with velvet iridescence. Just like in her dream. Only now, when
it was finally coming true, she could look at his wings for the first time without feeling woozy, without
straining her eyes. She could take in all of Daniels glory. He was still glowing, as if lit from within. She
could still clearly see his violet-gray eyes and his fall mouth. His strong hands and broad shoulders. She
could reach out and fold herself into her love is light. He reached for her. Luce closed her eyes at his touch,
expecting something too otherworldly for her human body to withstand. But no. It was simply, reassuringly,
Daniel. She reached around his back to finger his wings. She reached for them nervously, as if they could
bam her, but they flowed around her fingers, softer than the smoothest velvet, the plushest rag. The way
sheid like to imagine that a fluffy, sundrenched cloud would feel if she could cap it in her hands. You're so
... beautiful, she whispered into his chest. I mean, you've always been beautiful, but this Does it scare you?
he whispered. Does it hurt