Free Torment by Lauren Kate Page A

however each of you decide to define that. We like to look forward, instead of backward.”
    “But what you saw today,” Steven said, “was more than just a history lesson with incredible special effects. And it wasn’t just imagery we conjured up. No, what you were seeing was the actual Sodom and Gomorrah, as they were destroyed by the Great Tyrant when he—”
    “Unh-unh-unh!” Francesca said, wagging a finger. “We don’t go for easy name-calling in here.”
    “Of course. She’s right, as usual. Even I sometimes lapse into propaganda.” Steven beamed at the class. “But as I was saying, the Announcers are more than mere shadows. They can hold very valuable information. In a way, they are shadows—but shadows of the past, of long-ago and not-so-long-ago events.”
    “What you saw today,” Francesca finished, “was just a demonstration of an invaluable skill some of you may be able to harness. Someday.”
    “You won’t want to try it right now.” Steven wiped his hands with a handkerchief he’d pulled from a pocket. “In fact, we forbid you to attempt this, lest you lose control and lose yourselves in the shadows. But someday, maybe, it will be a possibility.”
    Luce shared a glance with Miles. He gave her a wide-eyed smile, as if he were relieved to hear this. He didn’t seem to feel at all shut out, not the way Luce did.
    “Besides,” Francesca said, “most of you will probably find that you feel fatigued.” Luce looked around the room at the students’ faces as Francesca talked. Her voice had the effect of aloe on a sunburn. Half of the kids had their eyes closed, as if they’d been soothed. “That’s very normal. Shadow-glimpsing is not done without great cost. It takes energy to look back even a few days, but to look back millennia? Well, you can feel the effects yourselves. In light of that”—she looked at Steven—“we’re going to let you out early today to rest.”
    “We’ll pick up again tomorrow, so make sure you’ve done your reading on disapparition,” Steven said. “Class dismissed.”
    Around Luce, students rose slowly from their desks. They looked dazed, exhausted. When she stood up, her own knees were a little wobbly, but somehow she felt less shaken than the others seemed to be. She tightened her cardigan around her shoulders and followed Miles out of the classroom.
    “Pretty heavy stuff,” he said, taking the stairs down from the deck two at a time. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine,” Luce said. She was. “Are you?”
    Miles rubbed his forehead. “It just feels like we were really there. I’m glad they let us out early. Feel like I need a nap.”
    “Seriously!” Dawn added, coming up behind them on the winding path back to the dorm. “That was the last thing I was expecting from my Wednesday morning. I am so conking out right now.”
    It was true: The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah had been horrifying. So real, Luce’s skin still felt hot from the blaze.
    They took the shortcut back to the dorm, around the north side of the mess hall and into the shade of the redwoods. It was strange seeing the campus so empty, with all the other kids at Shoreline still in class in the main building. One by one, the Nephilim peeled off the path and headed straight to bed.
    Except for Luce. She wasn’t tired, not at all. Instead, she felt strangely energized. She wished, again, that Daniel were there. She badly wanted to talk to him about Francesca and Steven’s demonstration—and to know why he hadn’t told her sooner that there was more to the shadows than she could see.
    In front of Luce were the stairs leading up to her dorm room. Behind her, the redwood forest. She paced outside the entrance to the dorm, unwilling to go inside, unwilling to sleep this off and pretend she hadn’t seen it. Francesca and Steven wouldn’t have been trying to scare the class; they must have intended to teach them something. Something they couldn’t come right out and say. But if