with his napkin, Luce half-marveled, half-chuckled at his occasionally impeccable table manners. She couldn't help picturing him taking some fancy etiquette course at the golf club as a boy.
"Shelby's rough around the edges," Miles said, "but she can be cool, too. When she feels like it. Not like I've ever witnessed that side of her." He laughed. "But that's the rumor. And the Frankie/Steven thing weirded me out at rst, too, but somehow they make it work. It's like a celestial balancing act. For some reason having both sides present gives students here the most freedom to develop."
There was that word again. Develop. She remembered that Daniel had used it when he rst told her he wouldn't be joining her at Shoreline. But develop into what? It could only apply to the kids who were Nephilim. Not Luce, who was the lone full human in her class of almost-angels, waiting until her angel felt like swooping back in to save her.
"Luce," Miles said, interrupting her thoughts. "The reason people stare at you is because everyone's heard about you and Daniel, but no one knows the real story."
"So instead of just asking me--"
"What? Whether you two really do it on the clouds? Or whether his rampant, ya know, `glory' ever overwhelms your mortal"--he stopped, catching the horri ed look on Luce's face, then gulped. "Sorry. I mean, you're right, they let it blow up into some big myth. Everyone else, that is. I try not to, um, speculate." Miles put down his tea and stared at his napkin. "Maybe it feels too personal to ask about."
Miles shifted his gaze and was now staring at her, but it didn't make Luce feel nervous. Instead, his clear blue eyes and slightly lopsided smile felt like an open door, an invitation to talk about some of the things she hadn't been able to tell anyone yet. As much as it sucked, Luce understood why Daniel and Mr. Cole had forbidden her to reach out to Callie or her parents. But Daniel and Mr. Cole were the ones who had enrolled her at Shoreline. They were the ones who'd said she'd be okay here. So she couldn't see any reason to keep her story a secret from someone like Miles. Especially since he already knew some version of the truth.
"It's a long story," she said. "Literally. And I still don't know all of it. But basically, Daniel is an important angel. I guess he was kind of a big deal before the Fall." She swallowed, not wanting to meet Miles's eyes. She felt nervous. "At least, he was until he fell in love with me."
It all began to pour out of her. Everything from her rst day at Sword & Cross, to how Arriane and Gabbe took care of her, to how Molly and Cam taunted her, to the gut-wrenching feeling of seeing a photograph of herself in a former life. Penn's death and how it devastated her. The surreal battle in the cemetery. Luce left out some of the Daniel details, private moments they'd shared together ... but by the time she nished, she thought she'd given Miles a pretty complete picture of what had happened--and hopefully dispelled the myth of her intrigue for at least one person.
At the end, she felt lighter. "Wow. I've never actually told this stu to anyone. Feels really good to say it aloud. Like it's more real now that I've admitted it to someone else."
"You can keep going if you want to," he said.
"I know I'm only here for a short time," she said. "And in a way, I think Shoreline will help me to get used to people--I mean angels like Daniel. And Nephilim like you. But I still can't help feeling out of place. Like I'm posing as something I'm not."
Miles had been nodding and agreeing with Luce the whole time she told her story, but now he shook his head. "No way--the fact that you're mortal makes the whole thing even more impressive."
Luce glanced around the terrace. For the rst time, she noticed a clear line piding the tables of the Nephilim kids from the rest of the student body. The Nephilim claimed all the tables on the west side, closest to the water. There were fewer of them, no more than twenty, but they took up a lot more tables, sometimes with just one kid at a table that could have seated six, while the rest of the kids had to cram into the