“The past is the past,” Luc said, softening again. “But if you care about your future, you’ll kick Cam out of the band.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Lilith left Luc and ducked under the branches. She found her favorite place by the creek. As she neared her carob tree, she saw something unusual: a pocked and battered antique rolltop desk sat beside it. It had a heavy wrought-iron frame and must have weighed a ton. Who had brought it here? And how? Whoever they were, they’d covered its wooden top with iris petals.
Lilith had always adored irises, even though she’d only ever seen pictures of them online. She’d been inside Crossroads’s one junky florist, Kay’s Blooms, dozens of times to pick up a bouquet of yellow carnations—Bruce’s favorite—when he was feeling bad. Mr. Kay and his sons owned the business, and ever since Mrs. Kay had died, they stocked the basics only. Red roses, carnations, tulips. Lilith hadn’t ever seen anything as exotic as irises in there.
She admired the blue-and-yellow blossoms, and she slid into the low-backed chair and rolled back the top of the desk. Inside was a handwritten note:
Every songwriter needs a proper desk. Found this on the curb in front of the Palace of Versailles. Pour toi.
He must have found it on someone’s curb in the fancy part of Crossroads, waiting to be picked up and taken to the dump. But she liked that Cam had seen the desk and thought of her. She liked that he’d probably cleaned it up so she could use it. She read the last line of the note:
Love, Cam
“Love,” Lilith said, tracing the letters with a finger. “Cam.”
She couldn’t remember a single time anyone had used that word with her. Her family didn’t talk like that, and she’d certainly never gotten anywhere near close enough to a boy for him to say it. Had Cam dashed the word out casually, like he did so many things? She shifted uncomfortably in the desk and could barely look at the word on the page.
She wanted to ask him what the deal was with this note, this desk—but it wasn’t the note or the desk, it was the word. It did something to her, stirred something deep in her soul. It made her sweat. She wanted to confront Cam, but she didn’t know where he lived. Instead, she took out her black notebook and let it come out as a song.
That word. What could it mean?
Eight Days
High above Lilith, Cam spread his wings and watched her read the note he’d left on the antique desk. He’d stolen it from Chloe King, of all people—from the attic of her family’s house in the fancy part of Crossroads. He would have gone to Versailles to bring Lilith back a present, he would have gone anywhere—but right now he was stuck in her Hell, so this would have to do.
He studied the way she ran her fingers over the paper several times. He watched her smell the irises—her old favorite, he knew—then take her notebook out of her backpack. When she started writing a new song, Cam smiled. This had been his vision when he’d brought the desk there for her.
It was nice just to watch Lilith at peace for a little while. Since Cam had arrived in Crossroads, it seemed like all he ever did was try to smooth over Lucifer’s interventions, each one geared to make Lilith despise Cam a little more. He shouldn’t complain—after all, Lilith had suffered far more and for far longer than Cam—but it was hard to get close to Lilith when she so rarely showed him anything but rage.
He looked down from the clouds and knew that even if he showered Lilith with presents and love notes every hour, every day, it wouldn’t be enough. Once in a while Cam broke through to her—that day, band practice had been pretty good—and he relished those moments. But he knew they wouldn’t last, that tomorrow Lucifer would find a way to undo Cam’s progress and the cycle would continue until Lilith’s Hell expired.
He’d torn up his first draft of the note, which asked her to go to prom with him. Lilith backed away swiftly whenever Cam came on too strong. He would save that question, plan something special, and ask her in person. He mouthed the memorized words of the note he had left on the desk. He hoped the word love hadn’t scared her.
He thought about Daniel and Lucinda. They had embodied love for so long, as far as the fallen angels were concerned. He wished they were beside him now, playing the role of the happy couple offering sage advice to their suffering friend.
Fight for her, they would tell him. Even when it seems like all is lost, do not give up the fight for love.
How had Luce and Daniel done it for so long? It took a strength Cam wasn’t sure he had. The pain when she refused him—and, so far, almost all she did was refuse him—was staggering. And yet he went for it again and again and again. Why?
To save her. To help her. Because he loved her. Because if he gave up…
He could not give up.