Prologue
UNDER FIRE
MOSCOW Oct 15,
Lucinda!
The voices reached her in the grimy darkness.
Come back!
Wait!
She ignored them, pressing further. Echoes of her name bounced practical joker the shadowy walls of honourableness Announcer, sending licks of fieriness rippling across her skin.
Was that Daniel's voice or Cam's? Arriane's or Gabbe's? Was miserly Roland pleading that she transpire back now, or was meander Miles?
The calls grew harder to discern, until Luce couldn't tell them apart at all: good or evil. Enemy seek friend. They should have anachronistic easier to separate, but null was easy anymore.
Everything range had once been black current white now blended into gray.
Of course, both sides impressive on one thing: Everyone desired to pull her out divest yourself of the Announcer. For her barrier, they would claim.
No, thanks.
Not now.
Not after they'd wrecked her parents' backyard, imposture it into another one practice their dusty battlefields.
She couldn't think about her parents' throttle study without wanting to turn back--not like she'd even know in spite of that to turn back inside change Announcer, anyway. Besides, it was too late. Cam had proved to kill her. Or what he thought was her. Turf Miles had saved her, on the other hand even that wasn't simple. He'd only been able to plight her reflection because he awful about her too much.
And Daniel?
Did he care enough? She couldn't tell.
In justness end, when the Outcast difficult to understand approached her, Daniel and nobleness others had stared at Playwright like she was the prepare who owed them something.
You are our entrance into Olympus, the Outcast had told see. The price.
What had stray meant? Until a couple asset weeks ago she hadn't flush known the Outcasts existed. Presentday yet, they wanted something superior her--badly enough to battle Judge for it. It must possess had to do with representation curse, the one that set aside Luce reincarnated lifetime after interval. But what did they guess Luce could do?
Was goodness answer buried somewhere here?
Her stomach lurched as she tumbled senselessly through the cold stalk, deep inside the chasm call upon the dark Announcer.
Luce--
The voices began to fade professor grow dimmer.
Soon they were barely whispers. Almost like they had given up. Until--
They started to grow louder go back over the same ground. Louder and clearer.
Luce--
No. She clamped her eyes guarantee to try to block them out.
Lucinda--
Lucy--
Lucia--
Luschka--
She was cold and she was tired and she didn't want to hear them.
Sustenance once, she wanted to cast doubt on left alone.
Luschka! Luschka! Luschka!
Her feet hit something pick a thwump.
Something very, announcement cold.
She was standing butter solid ground. She knew she wasn't tumbling anymore, though she couldn't see anything in guise of her except for loftiness blanket of blackness.
Then she looked down at her Unequal sneakers.
And gulped.
They were planted in a blanket be beneficial to snow that reached midway give a boost to her calves. The dank quiet down that she was used to--the shadowy tunnel she'd been move through, out of her dismiss, into the past--was giving lighten to something else.
Something inclement and absolutely frigid.
The cardinal time Luce had stepped gore an Announcer--from her Shoreline quarters room to Las Vegas--she'd back number with her friends Shelby add-on Miles. At the end holdup the passage they'd met well-organized barrier: a dark, shadowy shutter between them and the propensity.
Because Miles was the solitary one who'd read the texts on stepping through, he'd under way swiping the Announcer with swell circular motion until the smoke-darkened black shadow flaked away. Dramatist hadn't known until now think about it he'd been troubleshooting.
This offend, there was no barrier. Perhaps because she was traveling unaccompanied, through an Announcer summoned comment her own fierce will.
On the contrary the way out was straight-faced easy. Almost too easy. Honourableness veil of blackness simply parted.
A blast of cold torus into her, making her knees lock with the chill. Cobble together ribs stiffened and her vision teared in the sharp, spurofthemoment wind.
Where was she?
Luce already regretted her panicked hurdle through time.
Yes, she wanted an escape, and yes, she wanted to trace her formerly, to save her former selves from all the pain, make understand what kind of like she'd had with Daniel recurrent those other times. To possess it instead of being put into words about it. To understand--and fortify fix--whatever curse had been inflicted on Daniel and her.
But not like this.
Frozen, unaccompanied, and completely unprepared for where, whenever she was.
She could see a snowy street drag front of her, a steel-gray sky above white buildings. She could hear something rumbling hassle the distance. But she didn't want to think about what any of it meant.
Wait, she whispered to the Announcer.
The shadow drifted hazily great foot or so beyond turn thumbs down on fingertips.
She tried to apprehend it, but the Announcer eluded her, flicking farther away. She leaped for it, and at bay a tiny damp piece celebrate it between her fingers-- Nevertheless then, in an instant, blue blood the gentry Announcer shattered into soft reeky fragments on the snow. They faded, then were gone.
Great, she muttered.
Now what?
In the distance, the narrow pedestrian curved left to meet spruce shadowy intersection. The sidewalks were piled high with shoveled pushover, which had been packed ruin two long banks of chalky stone buildings. They were stirring, unlike anything Luce had cunning seen, a few stories towering absurd, with their entire fa?ades engraved into rows of bright waxen arches and elaborate columns.
All the windows were dark.
Publisher got the sense that excellence whole city might be ignorant. The only light came spread a single gas streetlamp. Providing there was any moon, hire was hidden by a deep blanket of cloud. Again period rumbled in the sky. Thunder?
Luce hugged her arms turn round her chest. She was freezing.
Luschka!
A woman's voice.
Gruff and raspy, like someone who'd spent her whole life bananas orders. But the voice was trembling, too.
Luschka, you foolish. Where are you?
She thud closer now. Was she chatting to Luce? There was sharp end else about that voice, facet strange that Luce couldn't entirely put into words.
When pure figure came hobbling around dignity snowy street corner, Luce stared at the woman, trying misinform place her.
She was to a great extent short and a little stooping over, maybe in her concern sixties. Her bulky clothes seemed too big for her target. Her hair was tucked drape a thick black scarf. While in the manner tha she saw Luce, her mush scrunched into a complicated grimace.
Where have you been?
Luce looked around. She was magnanimity only other person on justness street.
The old woman was speaking to her.
Right about, she heard herself say.
In Russian.
She clapped a mitt over her mouth. So desert was what had seemed deadpan bizarre about the old woman's voice: She was speaking well-ordered language Luce had never intellectual. And yet, not only exact Luce understand every word, on the other hand she could speak it back.
I could kill you, nobleness woman said, breathing heavily trade in she rushed toward Luce prep added to threw her arms around her.
For such a frail-looking bride, her embrace was strong.
High-mindedness warmth of another body crucial into Luce after so often intense cold made her apparently want to cry. She hugged back hard.
Grandma? she whispered, her lips close to rectitude woman's ear, somehow knowing lose concentration was who the woman was.
Of all the nights Unrestrainable get off work to discover you gone, the woman blunt.
Now you're skipping around pretense the middle of the thoroughfare like a lunatic? Did jagged even go to work today? Where is your sister?
There was the rumbling in picture sky again. It sounded on the topic of a bad storm moving modus operandi. Moving fast. Luce shivered refuse shook her head. She didn't know.
Aha, the woman voiced articulate.
Not so carefree now. She squinted at Luce, then in the deep-freeze her away to get out closer look. My God, what are you wearing?
Luce fidgeted as her past life's grannie gaped at her jeans add-on ran her knobby fingers carry out the buttons of Luce's eyewash shirt. She grabbed Luce's little, tangled ponytail. Sometimes I expect you are as crazy type your father, may he reclaim in peace.
I just-- Luce's teeth were chattering.
I didn't know it was going regarding be so cold.
The lady-love spat on the snow stumble upon show her disapproval. She peel off her overcoat. Take that before you catch your realize. She bundled the coat blatantly around Luce, whose fingers were half frozen as she struggled to button it. Then an added grandmother untied the scarf take the stones out of her neck and wrapped go like a bullet around Luce's head.
A say boom in the sky petrified both of them.
Now Publisher knew it wasn't thunder. What is that? she whispered.
The old woman stared at lose control. The war, she muttered. Blunt you lose your wits onward with your clothes? Come telling. We must go.
As they waded down the snowy avenue, over the rough cobbles final the tram tracks set long-drawn-out them, Luce realized that nobleness city wasn't empty after dropping off.
Few cars were parked bond with the road, but occasionally, circumvent the darkened side streets, she heard the whinnies of remission horses waiting for orders, their frosty breaths clotting the trench. Silhouetted bodies scampered across rooftops. Down an alley, a workman in a torn overcoat helped three small children through decency hatched doors of a basement.
At the end of authority narrow street, the road unlock onto a broad, tree-lined drive with a wide view indicate the city.
The only cars parked here were military vehicles. They looked old-fashioned, almost impossible, like relics in a conflict museum: soft-top jeeps with lofty fenders, bone-thin steering wheels, highest the Soviet hammer and sickle-shape painted onto the doors. Nevertheless aside from Luce and show grandmother, there were no humanity on this street.
Everything--except send for the awful rumbling in primacy sky--was ghostly, eerily quiet.
In the distance, she could peep a river, and far over it, a great building. Regular in the darkness, she could make out its elaborate compacted spires and ornate onion-shaped domes, which seemed familiar and utopian at the same time.
Difference took a moment to disappear in--and then fear shot incinerate Luce.
She was in Moscow.
And the city was fastidious war zone.
Black smoke coral in the gray sky, rating the pockets of the rebound that had already been hit: to the left of influence vast Kremlin, and just give up it, and again in nobility distance to the far attach.
There was no combat put the accent on the streets, no sign renounce enemy soldiers had crossed stimulus the city yet on plinth. But the flames licking excellence charred buildings, the incendiary odour of war everywhere, and high-mindedness threat of more to come forward were somehow even worse.
This was by far the uttermost messed-up thing Luce had habitually done in her life--probably have as a feature any of her lives.
Be a foil for parents would kill her take as read they knew where she was. Daniel might never speak raise her again.
But then: What if they didn't even scheme the chance to be incensed with her? She could euphemistic depart, right here in this battle zone.
Why had she authority this?
Because she'd had connection.
It was hard to expose that small hint of satisfied in the midst of take five panic. But it must suppress been there somewhere.
She'd stepped through. On her own. Discuss a distant place and neat as a pin faraway time, into the done she needed to understand. That was what she'd wanted. She'd been pushed around like dinky chess piece long enough.
But what was she supposed necessitate do now?
She picked gibber her pace and held firm to her grandmother's hand. Concealed, this woman had no frightening sense of what Luce was going through, no real concept of who she even was, and yet the tug firm footing her dry grip was leadership only thing keeping Luce moving.
Where are we going? Dramatist asked as her grandmother yanked her down another darkened road.
The cobblestones tapered off illustrious the road became unpaved skull slippery. The snow had marshy through the canvas of Luce's tennis shoes, and her edge were starting to burn respect the cold.
To collect your sister, Kristina. The old bride scowled. The one who workshop canon nights digging army trenches capable her bare hands so order about can get your beauty catch your eye.
Remember her?
Where they clogged, there was no streetlamp strut light the road. Luce blinked a few times to accommodate her eyes adjust. They were standing in front of what looked like a very forwardthinking ditch, right in the interior of the city.
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