"Do I need to kill your lover to get you to join me?" he asked, pointing his arrow now at Daniel. "Or do I need to kill them all?"
Luce stared at the strange, at tip of the silver arrow, less than ten feet from Daniel's chest. No chance Phil would miss from this range. She'd seen the arrows extinguish a dozen angels tonight with that paltry ash of light. But she'd also seen an arrow glance o Callie's skin, like it was nothing more than the dull stick it appeared to be.
The silver arrows killed angels, she suddenly realized, not humans.
She leaped in front of Daniel. "I won't let you hurt him. And your arrows can't hurt me."
A sound escaped from Daniel, a weird half-laugh, half-sob. She turned to him, wide-eyed. He looked afraid, but more than that, he looked guilty.
She thought of the conversation they'd had under the gnarled peach tree at Sword & Cross, the rst time he'd told her about her reincarnations. She remembered sitting with him on the beach in Mendocino when he talked of his place in Heaven before her. What a struggle it had been to get him to open up about those early days. She still felt like there was more. There had to be more.
The creak of the bowstring snapped her attention back to the Outcast, who was pulling back the silver arrow. Now it was aimed at Miles. "Enough talk," he said. "I'll take your friends out one at a time until you surrender to me."
In her mind, Luce saw a bright blink of light, a swirl of color, and a whirling montage of her lives ashing before her eyes--her mom and dad and Andrew. The parents she'd seen in Mount Shasta. Vera ice-skating on the frozen pond. The girl she'd been, swimming under the waterfall in a yellow halter-top bathing suit. Other cities, homes, and times she couldn't recognize yet. Daniel's face from a thousand di erent angles, under a thousand di erent lights. And blaze after blaze after blaze.
Then she blinked and was back in the yard. The Outcasts were drawing closer, huddling together and whispering to Phil. He kept waving them back, agitated, trying to focus on Luce. Everyone was tense.
She saw Miles staring at her. He must have been terri ed. But no, not terri ed. He was xating on her with so much intensity that his gaze seemed to vibrate her very core. Luce grew woozy and her vision clouded. What followed was an unfamiliar sensation of something being lifted o her. Like a casing being removed from her skin.
And she heard her voice say, "Don't shoot. I surrender."
Only, it was echoing and disembodied, and Luce hadn't actually said the words. She followed the sound with her eyes, and her body grew rigid at what she saw.
Another Luce standing behind the Outcast, tapping him on the shoulder.
But this was no glimpse of a former life. This was her, in her skinny black jeans and plaid shirt with the missing button. With her black hair cropped and newly dyed. With her hazel eyes taunting the Outcast. With the burning of her same soul clearly visible to him. Clearly visible to all the other angels, too. This was a mirror image of her. This was--
Miles's doing.
His gift. He had splintered Luce o into a second self, just as he'd told her he could on her very rst day at Shoreline. They say it's easy to do with the people you, like, love, he'd said.
He loved her.
She couldn't think about that right now. While everyone's eyes were drawn to the re ection, the real Luce retreated two steps and hid inside the shed.
"What's happening?" Cam barked at Daniel.
"I don't know!" Daniel whispered hoarsely.
Only Shelby seemed to understand. "He did it," she said under her breath.
The Outcast swung his bow around to aim at this new Luce. Like he didn't quite trust the victory.
"Let's do this," Luce heard her own voice saying in the middle of the yard. "I can't stay here with them. Too many secrets. Too many lies."
A part of her did feel that way. That she couldn't keep going on like this. That something had to change.
"You will come with me, and join my brothers and my sisters?" the Outcast said, sounding hopeful. His eyes made her nauseated. He held out his ghostly white hand.
"I will," Luce's voice projected.
"Luce, no." Daniel sucked in his breath. "You can't."
Now the remaining Outcasts raised their bows at Daniel and Cam and the rest of them, lest they interfere.
Luce's mirror stepped forward. Slipped her hand inside Phil's. "Yes, I can."
The monster Outcast cradled her in his sti white arms. There was a great ap of dirty wings. A stale cloud of dust stormed up from the ground. Inside the shed, Luce held her breath.
She heard Daniel gasp as Luce's mirror and the Outcast soared up and out of the backyard. The rest of them looked incredulous. Except for Shelby and Miles. Shelby and Miles.
"What the hell just happened?" Arriane said. "Did she really--"
"No!" Daniel cried. "No, no, no!"
Luce's heart ached as he tore at his hair, spun in a circle, and let his wings bloom out to their full size.
Immediately, the eet of remaining Outcasts spread their own dingy brown wings and took ight. Their wings were so thin, they had to beat frantically just to stay in the air. They were closing in on Phil. Trying to form a shield around him so he could take Luce wherever he thought he was taking her.
But Cam was faster. The Outcasts were probably twenty feet in the air when Luce heard one nal arrow loose from its bow.
Cam's arrow wasn't meant for Phil. It was meant for Luce.
And his aim was perfect.
Luce froze as her mirror image disappeared in a great bloom of white light. In the sky, Phil's tattered wings shuddered open. Empty. A horrible roar escaped his mouth. He started to swoop back toward Cam, followed by his army of Outcasts. But then he stopped midway. As if he'd realized there was no more reason to go back.
"So it begins again," he called down to Cam. To all of them. "It could have ended peacefully. But tonight you've made a new sect of immortal enemies. Next time we will not negotiate."