his head over the railing and peered down at Luce, but he took one look at Steven's red-hot expression, widened his eyes, and moved along.
"Luce," Steven said, more politely than she expected. "Would you mind seeing me after school?"
When he lifted his hands o the railing, the wood underneath them was scorched black.
Steven opened the door before Luce even knocked. His gray shirt was a bit wrinkled and his black knit tie was loosened at the neck. But he had regained the appearance of serenity, which Luce was beginning to realize took e ort for a demon. He wiped his glasses on a monogrammed handkerchief and stepped aside.
"Please come in."
The o ce wasn't big, just wide enough for a large black desk, just long enough for three tall black bookshelves, each one crammed with hundreds of well-worn books. But it was comfortable and even welcoming--not like what Luce had imagined a demon's o ce would be like. There was a Persian carpet in the center of the room, a wide window looking east at the redwoods. Now, at dusk, the forest had an ethereal, almost lavender hue.
Steven sat down in one of two maroon desk chairs and motioned for Luce to take the other. She surveyed the framed pieces of art, jigsawed onto every spare inch of the wall. Most of them were portraits in varying degrees of detail. Luce recognized a few sketches of Steven himself and several
attering depictions of Francesca.
Luce took a deep breath, wondering how to begin. "I'm sorry I summoned that Announcer today; I--"
"Have you told anyone about what happened with Dawn in the water?"
"No. You told me not to."
"You haven't told Shelby? Miles?"
"I haven't told anyone."
He considered this for a moment. "Why did you call the Announcers the shadows the other day when we were talking on the boat?" He considered this for a moment. "Why did you call the Announcers the shadows the other day when we were talking on the boat?"
"It just slipped out. When I was growing up, they always were part of the shadows. They'd detach and come to me. So that's what I called them, before I knew what they were." Luce shrugged. "Stupid, really."
"It's not stupid." Steven stood up and went to the farthest bookshelf. He pulled down a thick book with a dusty red cover and brought it back to the desk. Plato: The Republic. Steven opened it to the exact page he'd been looking for, turning the book right side up in front of Luce.
It was an illustration of a group of men inside a cave, shackled beside one another, facing a wall. A re blazed behind them. They were pointing at the shadows cast on the wall by a second group of men who walked behind them. Below the image, a caption read: The Allegory of the Cave.
"What is this?" Luce asked. Her knowledge of Plato started and ended with the fact that he palled around with Socrates.
"Proof of why your name for the Announcers is actually quite smart." Steven pointed at the illustration. "Imagine that these men spend their lives seeing only the shadows on this wall. They come to understand the world and what happens in it from these shadows, without ever seeing what casts the shadows. They don't even understand that what they are seeing are shadows."
She looked just beyond Steven's nger to the second group of men. "So they can never turn around, never see the people and things creating the shadows?"
"Exactly. And because they can't see what is actually casting the shadows, they assume that what they can see--these shadows on the wall--are reality. They have no idea that the shadows are mere representations and distortions of something much truer and more real." He paused. "Do you understand why I'm telling you this?"
Luce shook her head. "You want me to stop messing with the Announcers?"
Steven closed the book with a snap, then crossed to the other side of the room. She felt as if she'd disappointed him somehow.
"Because I don't believe you will stop ... messing with the Announcers, even if I do ask you to. But I do want you to understand what you're dealing with the next time you summon one. The Announcers are shadows of past events. They can be helpful, but they also contain some very distracting, sometimes dangerous distortions. There's a lot to learn. A clean, safe summoning technique; then, of course, once you have honed your talents, the Announcer's noise can be screened out and