“Oh that moment when Daniel thought he’d lost her to Cam’s starshot! His wings hat felt too heavy to lift. Colder than death. In that instant , he’d given up all hope.”

“Daniel could feel ir,like a layer of skin was lifting off his bones. His past self's body was slowly cleaving from his own.The venom of separation coursed through him,threading deep into the fibers of his wings.The pain was so raw it was nauseating, roiling deep inside him with great tidal swells. His vision clouded; ringing filled his ears.The starshot in his hand tumbled to the ground.Then,all at once, he felt a great shove and a sharp,cold breath of air.There was a long grunt and two thuds,and then-His vision cleared.The ringing ceased. He felt lightness, simplicity.Free.Miles lay on the ground below him, chest heaving. The starshot in Daniel's hand disappeared. Daniel spun around to find a specter of his past self standing behind him,his skin gray and his body wraithlike,his eyes and teeth coal-black,the starshot grasped in his hand. His profile wobbled in the hot wind,like the picture on a shorted-out television."I'm sorry," Daniel said,reaching forward and clutching his past self at the base of his wings.When Daniel lifted the shadow of himself off the ground, his body felt scant and insufficient.His fingers found the graying portal of the Announcer through which both Daniels had traveled just before it fell apart. "Your day will come," he said.Then he pitched his past self back into the Announcer.He watched the void fading in the hot sun. The body made a drawn-out whistling sound as it tumbled into time, as if it were falling off a cliff. The Announcer split into infinitesimal traces,and was gone.”

“With a loud whoosh he stretched his wings out,and then deftly wrapped them tight around her, a cradle of soft white holding the two of them fast."You really believe it?" she whispered. "That someday I'll live through this?""With all my heart and soul," he said, cupping her face in his hands, pulling his wings tighter around them both. "I will wait for you as long as it takes. I will love you every moment across time."By then,Luce was broiling hot. She cried out from the pain,thrashing in Daniel's arms as the heat overwhelmed her. She was burning his skin, but he never let her go.The moment had come. The starshot was tucked inside her dress,and this-right now-was when she would have used it.But she was never going to give up.Not on Daniel. Not when she knew,no matter how hard it got,that he would never give up on her.Her skin began to blister.The heat was so brutal,she could do nothing but shiver.And then she could only scream.Layla combusted,and as the flames engulfed her body,Luce felt her own body and the soul they were sharing untwine,seeking the fastest escape from the unforgiving heat. The column of fire grew taller and wider until it filled the room and the world,until it was everything,and Layla was nothing at all.”

“Daniel took Luce’s hands in his. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and let his massive white wings unfurl. Fully extended , they would have filled the entire kitchen , but Daniel reined them in, close to his body. They shimmered and glowed and looked altogether too beautiful. Luce reached out and touched them with both hands. Warm and satin smooth on the outside, but inside, full of power. She could feel it coursing through Daniel, into her. She felt so close to him, understood him completely—As If they had become one.”

“She saw Daniel hovering over her in his simple peasant's clothes...but then, a moment later, he was bare-chested, with long blond hair...and suddenly he wore a knight's helmet, whose visor he lifted to kiss her lips...but before he did,he shifted into his present self, the Daniel she'd left in her parents' backyard in Thunderbolt when she stepped through into time.This was the Daniel, she realized, she'd been looking for all along. She reached for him,she called his name, but then he changed again. And again. She saw more Daniels than she'd ever thought possible,each one more gorgeous than the last.They folded into each other like a vast accordion, each image of him tilting and altering in the light of the sky behind him.The cut of his nose,the line of his jawbone, the tone of his skin,the shape of his lips, all whirled in and out of focus,morphing all the time. Everything changed except his eyes.His violet eyes always stayed the same. They haunted her,hiding something terrible,something she didn't understand. Something she didn't want to understand.Fear?In the visions,the terror in Daniel's eyes was so intense Luce actually wanted to look away from their beauty. What could someone as powerful as Daniel fear?There was only one thing: Luce's dying.She was experiencing a montage of her death over and over and over again. This was what Daniel's eyes looked like, throughout time,just before her life went up in flames. She had seen this fear in him before.She hated it because it always meant their time was over.She saw it now in every one of his faces. The fear flashed from infinite times and places. Suddenly,she knew there was more:He wasn't afraid for her,not because she was walking into the darkness of another death.He didn't fear that it might cause her pain.Daniel was afraid of her."Lu Xin!" his voice cried out to her from the battlefield. She could see him through the haze of visions.He was the only thing coming in clearly-because everything else around her was lit up startingly white.Everything inside her was,too.Was her love of Daniel burning her up? Was it her own passion,not his,that destroyed her every time?"No!" His hand reached out for hers. But it was too late.”

“Daniel had ruined that couple’s life. Killed their daughter.All because he’d been some hotshot angel who saw something he wanted and went after it.”

“One day,our love will conquer this dark cycle.That's worth everything to me."Luce looked up and saw the love glowing in his eyes. He believed what he was saying. He didn't care if he suffered again and again; he'd forge on, losing her over and over,buoyed by the hope that one day this wouldn't be their end. He knew it was doomed,but he tried over and over again anyway,and he always would.His commitment to her,to them, touched a part of her that she'd thought she'd given up on.She still wanted to argue: This Daniel didn't know the challenges coming their way,the tears they would shed over the ages.He didn't know that she'd seen him in his moments of deepest desperation. What the pain of her deaths would do to him.But then-Luce knew.And that made all the difference in the world.Daniel's lowest moments had terrified her, but things had changed. All along, she'd felt bound to their love, but now she knew how to protect it.Now she had seen their love from so many different angles. She understood it in a way she'd never thought she would.If Daniel ever faltered,she could raise him up.She had learned how to do it from the best: from Daniel.Here she was,about to kill her soul, about to take away their love permanently, and five minutes alone with him brought her back to life.Some people spent their entire lives looking for love like this.Luce had had it all along.The future held no starshot for her. Only Daniel.Her Daniel, the one she'd left in her parent's backyard in Thunderbolt.She had to go."Kiss me," she whispered.He was seated on the steps with his knees parted just enough to let her body slide between them. She sank to her knees and faced him. Their foreheads were touching.The tips of their noses.Daniel took her hands. He seemed to want to tell her something,but he could not find the words."Please," she begged,her lips edging toward his. "Kiss me and set me free.”