Fallen

The Sword & Cross School appears out of the Savannah marsh like a bad dream, a grim collection of cinder-block buildings ringed by barbed wire and weeping willows. For Lucinda Price, it is the last stop. Sent here after a mysterious fire claimed the life of a boy she'd just started to fall for, she arrives burdened by guilt and a secret she can't explain to anyone: the menacing, inky shadows that have haunted her for years. The school's oppressive rules - no cell phones, no privacy, and an all-black dress code - only confirm her deepest fear: that she is dangerous. She is not alone, however. There is the charming, easygoing Cam, with his knowing green eyes and a knack for acquiring forbidden things. And then there is Daniel Grigori, a boy so breathtakingly beautiful that Luce feels an inexplicable, magnetic pull toward him from the moment she sees him - a pull he answers by staring at her with an unnerving intensity before pointedly flipping her off.

Luce's new world is a strange ecosystem of outcasts. She finds an unlikely guide in Arriane, a wild girl with a scarred neck and a defiant streak, and a true friend in the nerdy, kindhearted Penn. But for every ally, there is an enemy. Molly, a pixie-faced girl with a venomous glare, seems determined to make Luce's life a living hell, culminating in a public humiliation in the cafeteria that leaves Luce coated in meatloaf and shame. Through it all, her confusion over Daniel deepens. He is cold and dismissive, yet he always seems to be there at the most critical moments, his presence a strange comfort. When a marble angel in the school's Civil War-era cemetery inexplicably topples, it is Daniel who shields her from the crushing stone, his hand on her head, his eyes filled with a fear that seems to go far beyond the immediate danger.

The shadows that have plagued Luce's life grow more aggressive at Sword & Cross. They are no longer just fleeting, terrifying shapes in her peripheral vision; they are tangible, icy forces that seem to coincide with disaster. They were there the night Trevor died, their dark forms twisting over the lake just before the fire. They are there again the night a fire breaks out in the school library, a night that ends with another boy, Todd, dead from a broken neck after a fall. Luce was with him, had felt the shadows slam into them both, but her memory of the event is a smoky haze. All she knows is the crushing weight of another death on her conscience and the disquieting fact that Daniel was the one who carried her from the blaze.

Torn between two boys, Luce finds herself in an impossible position. Cam is a constant, warm presence, inviting her on a romantic picnic in the cemetery and making her feel seen and desired. He is the easy choice, the one who seems to offer a straightforward affection she desperately craves. But Daniel is the one who occupies her thoughts, her dreams, and a strange, unexplainable space in her soul. He pushes her away, warning her to stay clear of him, telling her he was badly burned by a past love and isn't ready for anything new. Yet he leads her to a hidden, pristine lake, a sanctuary away from the school's prying eyes. There, as he dives into the water, she sees it for just a moment - a shimmering afterimage in the sunlight, an impossible shape that looks, for all the world, like a pair of wings.

With Penn's help, Luce begins to dig into Daniel's past, a search that yields only a single, sparse page in the school's archives listing him as an orphan with a history of petty crimes. Their only other clue is a reference to a rare, centuries-old book titled *The Watchers*, written by one of Daniel's ancestors. The book is missing from the library, but the mystery of it, and of him, only deepens. The push and pull between them reaches a breaking point on a windswept beach, where Daniel finally rescues her from a disastrous night out with Cam. In the purple twilight, surrounded by the roar of the ocean, Luce can no longer deny her feelings and kisses him. The kiss is everything she has ever imagined - a fire that courses through her, a feeling of coming home. But it sends Daniel into a spiral of despair, and he finally tells her a sliver of an impossible truth: they have met before, countless times, in countless past lives. And every single time, their love has ended with her death.

Shaken, Luce returns to her room to find that Penn has left the lost book on her bed. Inside the cover is a sepia-toned photograph from Helston, England, dated 1854. In it, a man who is the spitting image of Daniel stands beside a woman with long, dark, wavy hair and a familiar smile. The woman is Luce. The truth crashes down on her, terrifying and exhilarating all at once. She finds Daniel in the cemetery, just as a battle of celestial proportions begins to erupt around them. A swarm of demonic shadows, led by Cam, faces off against a host of shimmering, iridescent beings. “You're an angel,” she whispers to Daniel, the words feeling truer than anything she has ever known.

It is then that she learns the whole story. Daniel is a fallen angel, damned for refusing to choose a side in the great war between Heaven and Hell. His curse is to live forever, finding and falling in love with her soul every seventeen years, only to watch her die the moment she remembers her past. Arriane and Gabbe are angels on his side; Cam, Molly, and Roland are demons on the other. They are all caught in an eternal struggle, and Luce is somehow at the center of it all. But this lifetime is different. Unbaptized, Luce's soul is now mortal. If she dies this time, she will not be reincarnated.

The battle rages, a storm of light and darkness, but the true danger comes from an unexpected source. Miss Sophia, the seemingly kind librarian, reveals herself as a member of a fanatical angelic sect bent on tipping the balance of the war. Believing Daniel's grief over Luce's permanent death will force him to finally choose a side, she murders Penn in cold blood and attempts to sacrifice Luce on a hidden altar. Daniel and the other angels arrive just in time to save her, their magnificent wings unfurling in a blaze of glory. In the aftermath, they realize Luce is no longer safe. The truce that ends the battle does not apply to mortals, and now that her secret is out, demons will be hunting her.

As dawn breaks over the dust-filled cemetery, Luce says a tearful goodbye to the life she has just begun to understand. Daniel leads her to the hidden lake one last time, his wings carrying them through the air in a breathtaking flight. He gives her a locket containing a picture of them from a past life, a promise that he will always find her. With a final, desperate kiss, he sends her away in a small plane piloted by her history teacher, Mr. Cole, another secret ally. As she flies away from Sword & Cross, over the dark ocean toward an unknown shore, Luce grips the locket around her neck. She is no longer just a girl in a reform school; she is a part of an ancient war. And for the first time, instead of running from the fight, she feels a powerful urge to turn and face it, with Daniel by her side.