A hollow, gorgeous hum. 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 body—or maybe this was her soul—was free to float up into the sky.

But then she heard Miss Sophia bleating, "Not yet! It's happening too soon!" The old woman had torn the dagger away from Luce's 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 Luce's 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 she'd done, and what she'd 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 Luce's 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 cheeks, 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 Daniel's glory.

He was still glowing, as if lit from within. She could still clearly see his violet-gray eyes and his full mouth. His strong hands and broad shoulders. She could reach out and fold herself into her love's 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 burn her, but they flowed around her fingers, softer than the smoothest velvet, the plushest rug. The way she'd like to imagine that a fluffy, sun-drenched cloud would feel if she could cup 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 to look?"

She shook her head. "I thought it might," she said, thinking back to her dreams. "But it hurts not to."

He sighed, relieved. "I want you to feel safe with me." The glittering light around them fell like confetti, and Daniel pulled her to him. "It's a lot for you to take in."

She bent her head back and parted her lips, eager to do just that.

The loud slam of a door interrupted them. Miss Sophia had found the stairs. Daniel gave a slight nod and a blazing figure of light darted through the secret door after the woman.

"What was that?" Luce asked, gaping at the trail of light fast fading through the open door.

"A helper." Daniel guided her chin back.

And then, even though Daniel was with her and she felt loved and protected and saved, she also felt a sharp stab of uncertainty, remembering all the dark things that had just happened, and Cam and his thundering black minions. There were still so many unanswerable questions running through her mind, so many awful events she felt she'd never understand. Like Penn's death, poor sweet innocent Penn, her violent, senseless end. It overwhelmed Luce, and her lip began to quiver.

"Penn's gone, Daniel," she said. "Miss Sophia killed her. And for a moment, I thought she'd killed me, too."

"I would never let that happen."

"How did you know to find me here? How do you always know how to save me?" She shook her head. "Oh my God," she whispered slowly as the truth slammed into her. "You're my guardian angel."

Daniel chuckled. "Not exactly. Though I think you were giving me a compliment."

Luce blushed. "Then what kind of angel are you?"

"I'm sort of in between gigs right now," Daniel said.

Behind him, the remaining silver light in the room pooled and split in half. Luce turned to watch it, her heart thumping, as the glow finally gathered, as it had around Daniel's figure, around two distinct shapes:

Arriane and Gabbe.

Gabbe's wings were already unfurled. They were broad and plush and three times the size of her body. Feathery, with softly scalloped edges, the way angels' wings looked on greeting cards and in movies, and with just a hint of the palest pink around the tips. Luce noticed them beating very lightly—and that Gabbe's feet were a few inches off the ground.

Arriane's wings were smoother, sleeker and with more pronounced edges, almost like a giant butterfly's. Partially translucent, they glowed and cast shifting opalescent prisms of light on the stone floor beneath them. Like Arriane herself, they were strange and alluring, and totally badass.

"I should have known," Luce said, a smile sweeping across her face.

Gabbe smiled back, and Arriane gave Luce a little curtsy.

"What's going on out there?" Daniel asked, registering the worried expression on Gabbe's face.

"We need to get Luce out of here."

The battle. Was it not over yet? If Daniel and Gabbe and Arriane were all here, they must have won—right? Luce's eyes flashed over to Daniel's. His expression gave nothing away.

"And someone needs to go after Sophia," Arriane said. "She could not have been working alone."

Luce swallowed. "Is she on Cam's side? Is she some kind of… devil? A fallen angel?" It was one of the few terms that had stuck with her from Miss Sophia's lecture.

Daniel's teeth were clenched. Even his wings looked stiff with fury. "No devil," he muttered, "but hardly an angel, either. We thought she was with us. We should never have let her get this close."

"She was one of the twenty-four elders," Gabbe added. She lowered her feet to the ground and tucked her pale pink wings behind her back so she could sit down on the altar. "A very respectable position. She kept this part of her well hidden."

"As soon as we got up here, it was like she just went crazy," Luce said. She rubbed her neck where the dagger had nicked her.