their history from Daniel made it feel both possible and impossible. Hearing it also made her feel extremely guilty. He'd stuck with her for so long, over so many lifetimes. She'd forgotten how well he knew her. Better even than she knew herself. Would Daniel know what she was thinking now? Luce wondered whether, in some ways, it was easier to be her and to never have remembered Daniel than it was for him to go through this time and time again.
If he said he had to leave for a few weeks and couldn't explain why ... she would have to trust him.
"What was it like when you rst met me?" she asked.
Daniel smiled. "I chopped wood in exchange for meals back then. One night around dinnertime I was walking past your house. Your mother had the cabbage going, and it stank so badly I almost skipped your house. But then I saw you through the window. You were sewing. I couldn't take my eyes o your hands."
Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered ngers and small, square palms. She wondered if they'd always looked the same. Daniel reached for them across the console. "They're just as soft now as they were then."
Luce shook her head. She loved the story, wanted to hear a thousand more just like it, but that wasn't what she'd meant. "I want to know about the rst time you met me," she said. "The very rst time. What was that like?"
After a long pause, he nally said, "It's getting late. They're expecting you at Shoreline before midnight." He stepped on the gas, taking a quick left into downtown Mendocino. In the side mirror, Luce watched the mobile home park grow smaller, darker, until it disappeared completely. But then, a few seconds later, Daniel parked the car in front of an empty all-night diner with yellow walls and oor-to-ceiling front windows.
The block was full of quirky, quaint buildings that reminded Luce of a less stu y version of the New England coastline near her old New Hampshire prep school, Dover. The street was paved with uneven cobblestones that glowed yellow in the light from the streetlamps overhead. At its end, the road seemed to drop straight into the ocean. A coldness sneaked up on her. She had to ignore her re exive fear of the dark. Daniel had explained about the shadows--that they were nothing to be afraid of, merely messengers. Which should have been reassuring, except for the hard- to-ignore fact that it meant there were bigger things to be afraid of.
"Why won't you tell me?" She couldn't help herself. She didn't know why it felt so important to ask. If she was going to trust Daniel when he said he had to abandon her after longing all her life for this reunion--well, maybe she just wanted to understand the origins of that trust. To know when and how it had all begun.
"Do you know what my last name means?" he said, surprising her.
Luce bit her lip, trying to think back to the research she and Penn had done. "I remember Miss Sophia saying something about Watchers. But I don't know what it means, or if I'm even supposed to believe her." Her ngers went to her neck, to the place where Miss Sophia's knife had lain.
"She was right. The Grigoris are a clan. They're a clan named after me, actually. Because they watch and learn from what happened when ... back when I was still welcome in Heaven. And back when you were ... well, this all happened a very long time ago, Luce. It's hard for me to remember most of it."
"Where? Where was I?" she pressed. "I remember Miss Sophia saying something about the Grigoris consorting with mortal women. Is that what happened? Did you ...?"
He looked over at her. Something changed on his face, and in the dim moonlight, Luce couldn't tell what it meant. It was almost like he was relieved that she had guessed it, so he didn't have to be the one to spell it out.
"The very rst time I saw you," Daniel continued, "it wasn't any di erent than any other time I've seen you since. The world was newer, but you were just the same. It was--"
"Love at rst sight." That part she knew.
He nodded. "Just like always. The only di erence was, in the beginning, you were o -limits to me. I was being punished, and I'd fallen for you at the worst possible