“Cut it out!” Mr. Davison said, returning to the stage. He turned to Lilith. “Nice job.”
But Lilith was rushing off the stage and out of the cafeteria. Cam ran after her, but she was too fast, and it was too dark outside to see where she had gone. She knew this place better than he did.
The door closed behind him, silencing the distant sound of another student reading poetry. He sighed and leaned against the stucco wall. He thought of Daniel, who had suffered through so many bleak periods when his longing for Luce consumed him, made him wish he could die and escape their curse, only to be rewarded with a single brush of her fingertips in the next life before she was gone again.
Is it worth it? Cam had often asked his friend.
Now Cam understood Daniel’s unchanging answer. Of course it is, he’d say. It’s the only thing that makes my existence worthwhile.
“Rookie mistake.”
Cam turned his head and saw Luc emerge from the shadows.
“What?” Cam muttered.
“Getting cocky on the first day.” Lucifer snarled. “We’ve got two more weeks together, and there are so many ways for you to lose.”
Cam was feeling far from cocky. If the devil got his way, Cam wasn’t the only one who would lose.
“Up your game at any time,” he told Lucifer through his teeth. “I’m ready.”
“We’ll see how ready you are,” Lucifer snickered just before he disappeared, leaving Cam alone.
Approximately 1000 BCE
In the moonlight, the blond boy dove into the Jordan River. His name was Dani, and though he had been in the village for only a month, his loveliness was already legendary from here to southern Beer-sheba.
From the banks of the river, a dark-haired girl watched him, fingering her necklace. Tomorrow she would turn seventeen.
And—out of sight—Cam was watching her. She seemed more beautiful now that she’d fallen for the night swimmer. Of course, Cam knew what the girl’s fate would be, but nothing could stop her from loving Dani. Her love, Cam thought to himself, was pure.
“He’s like a religion,” a soft voice said from behind him. He turned to find a stunning redhead. “She is devoted to him.”
Cam stepped toward the girl on the riverbank. He had never seen a mortal like her. Her waist-length red hair shimmered like a garnet. She was as tall as he was and graceful even standing still. Freckles kissed her slender shoulders and her smooth cheeks. He marveled at the intimacy in her blue eyes, as if the two of them were already complicit in some delightful brand of mischief. When she smiled, the tiny gap between her front teeth thrilled him in a way he’d never known.
“Do you know them?” Cam asked. This marvelous girl was only talking to him because she’d caught him watching Daniel and Lucinda.
Her laughter was clear as rainwater. “I grew up with Liat. And everyone knows Dani, though he only found our tribe near the end of the last moon. There is something unforgettable about him, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps,” Cam said. “If you like that type.”
The girl studied Cam. “Did you travel here on the giant star that fell through the sky last night?” she asked. “My sisters and I were sitting by the fire, and we thought the star bore the wondrous shape of a man.”
Cam knew she was teasing, flirting, but he was impressed that she had guessed correctly. His wings had carried him here the night before; he’d been chasing the tail of a shooting star.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My friends call me Lilith.”
“What do your enemies call you?”
“Lilith,” she growled, baring her teeth. Then she laughed.
When Cam laughed, too, Liat whirled around a few feet below. “Who’s there?” she called from the bank into the darkness.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lilith said quietly to Cam, and held out her hand.
This girl was amazing. Fierce, full of life. He took her hand and let her lead him, a little worried he might do so forever, following wherever she went.
Lilith guided him to a bank of irises farther down the curving river, then reached inside the hollow trunk of an enormous carob tree and pulled out a lyre. Sitting among the flowers, she tuned the instrument by ear, so deftly Cam could see that she did it every day.
“Will you play for me?” Cam asked.
She nodded. “If you’ll listen.” Then she began to play a series of notes that entwined like lovers, curled like the bends in the river. Miraculously, her glorious, humming melody assumed the shape of words.
She sang a sad love song that made everything else vanish from his mind.
Wrapped in her song, he couldn’t care less about Lucifer or the Throne, Daniel or Lucinda. There was only Lilith’s breathtaking, lingering song.
Had she composed it here, among the irises by the river? Which came to her first, melody or lyric? Who had been the inspiration?