Subject: HERE IT IS! I believe the ight reservation below speaks for itself. Send me your address and I'll take a cab when I get in on Thursday morning. My rst time in Georgia! With my long-lost
best friend! It's going to be soooo peachy! See you in SIX DAYS!
In less than a week, Luce's best friend would be showing up for Thanksgiving at her parents' house, her parents would be expecting her, and Luce would be right here, grounded in her dorm room. An enormous sadness engulfed her. She would have given anything to go to them, to spend a few days with people who loved her, who would give her a break from the exhausting, confusing couple of weeks she'd spent shackled within these wooden walls.
She opened a new email and composed a hasty message:
Don't worry, I'm not going to beg you to let me go home for Thanksgiving. I know a hopeless waste of e ort when I see one. But I don't have the heart to tell my parents. Will
you let them know? Tell them I'm sorry.
Things here are ne. Sort of. I am homesick.
Luce
A thumping knock at the door made Luce jump--and click Send on the email without proofreading it rst for typos or embarrassing admissions of emotion.
"Luce!" Shelby's voice called from the other side. "Open up! My hands are full of Harvest Fest crap. I mean, bounty." The thuds continued on the other side of the door, louder now, with the occasional whimpering grunt thrown in.
Pulling open the door, Luce found a panting Shelby, sagging under the weight of an enormous cardboard box. She had several stretched-out plastic bags threaded through her ngers. Her knees trembled as she staggered into the room.
"Can I help with something?" Luce took the feather-light wicker cornucopia that was resting on Shelby's head like a conical hat.
"They put me on Decorations," Shelby grumbled, heaving the box onto the ground. "I'd give anything to be on Garbage, like Miles. Do you even know what happened the last time someone made me use a hot-glue gun?"
Luce felt responsible for both Shelby's and Miles's punishments. She pictured Miles combing the beach with one of those trash-poking sticks she'd seen convicts using on the side of the road in Thunderbolt. "I don't even know what Harvest Fest is."
"Obnoxious and pretentious, that's what," Shelby said, digging through the box and tossing onto the oor plastic bags of feathers, tubs of glitter, and a ream of autumn-colored construction paper. "It's basically a big banquet where all of Shoreline's donors come out to raise money for the school. Everyone goes home feeling all charitable because they unloaded a few old cans of green beans on a food bank in Fort Bragg. You'll see tomorrow night."
"I doubt it," Luce said. "Remember, I'm grounded?"
"Don't worry, you'll be dragged to this. Some of the biggest donors are angel advocates, so Frankie and Steven have to put on a show. Which means the Nephilim all have to be there, smiling pretty."
Luce frowned, glancing up at her non-Nephilim re ection in the mirror. All the more reason she should stay right here.
Shelby cursed under her breath. "I left the stupid paint-by-number turkey centerpiece in Mr. Kramer's o ce," she said, standing up and giving the box of decorations a kick. "I have to go back."
When Shelby pushed past her toward the door, Luce lost her balance and started to tumble, tripping over the box and snagging her foot on something cold and wet on the way down.
She landed face- rst on the wood oor. The only thing breaking her fall was the plastic bag of feathers, which popped, shooting colorful u out from under her. Luce looked back to see how much damage she had done, expecting Shelby's eyebrows to be joined in exasperation. But Shelby was standing still with one hand pointing toward the center of the room. A smog-brown Announcer was quietly oating there.
"Isn't that a little risky?" Shelby asked. "Summoning an Announcer an hour after getting busted for summoning an Announcer? You really don't listen at all, do you? I kind of admire that."
"I didn't summon it," Luce insisted, pulling herself up and picking the feathers out of her clothes. "I tripped and it was just there, waiting or something." She stepped closer to examine the hazy, dun-colored sheet. It was as at as a piece of