Luce mentally flails around in shock for a while about Sophia being so evil and Penn being so dead.  At least it’s actually an appropriate time to go flaily.  Sophia goes around lighting candles and chanting in some presumably religious ceremony of some sort.

“I trusted you.”

“That’s your own fault, dear,”

I’m starting to dig Miss Sophia.  😛

She makes Luce lie down on an alter.  Is she going to kill Luce?  Because I would be a huge Sophia fan if she sacrificed this chick to some pagan god or another.

“I would say it’s nothing personal, Lucinda, but actually, it is,” she cackled. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment alone with you.”

“Why?” Luce asked. “What do you want from me?”

“You, I just want eliminated,”

Take me, pretty lady, I’m yours!

“You’re just sitting there swooning over him, aren’t you?” Miss Sophia asked. She smacked the book closed and banged her fist on its cover. “This is precisely the problem.”

This whole chapter might just be me descending into Sophia fandom.

“I should like to have a word with whoever thought putting the fate of all of our eternal souls in the hands of one lovesick pair of infants was so brilliant an idea.”

*squeeee*

Luce, of course, has no fucks to give over the little dollops of information Sophia is dishing out and just keeps angsting over the fact that Daniel is “fighting a battle” outside.  You’re tied to an alter with a knife-wielding goddess– I mean, maniac!  Pay attention!

“You’re the human equivalent of a migraine.”

“Well, my dear, the reason you come back again and again is because all the other times you’ve been born, you were ushered into religious belief. This time, when your parents opted out of baptizing you, they effectively left your little soul up for grabs.” She shrugged dramatically. “No ritual to welcome you into religion equals no reincarnation for Luce. A small but essential loophole in your cycle.”

Wait, what?

…

……

That’s…weird.  The Christian religion doesn’t include reincarnation, so baptism should mean going to heaven after death. 

Wait, was she reborn into a Christian family in every one of her past lives?  So, was that Tahiti reference…some missionary couple or something?

Well, nonsensical mythology aside, the end point is that if she dies in this unbaptized life, she dies for good, and apparently that’s going to upset some sort of balance.

Before Sophia can actually kill her, alas, some angels crash in through the window and save Luce.

the shuddering glow felt like a deep massage, down to Luce’s very bones.

…you clearly have never had a deep-tissue massage, because that description makes me cringe in pain.

The description of this rescue is ridiculously long, considering it’s just a bunch of lights showing up and…being bright.  And then Daniel turns visible and pulls out his wings, if you know what I mean. While Luce swoons over that, Sophia high-tails it out of there, because apparently this rescue didn’t involve actually stopping the bad guy for some reason.

Gabbe and Arriane show up, too, and they all stand around chatting about what ‘side’ all the various characters are on.  Apparently Sophia is an…’elder,’ whatever that means.  Not actually an angel, but lives in heaven?  And all the angel characters (Molly included) are technically fallen angels.  And…Roland is one, too?  But…on the bad guy’s side?  Or is he a devil?  For all we’re finally get answers, they’re so quick and so lacking in context that it’s hard to follow.  I mean, not only is all this information presented poorly, but it’s also not what I was actually curious about. 

Luce starts asking questions that actually matter, like “why the fuck am I so important,” and the angel characters refuse to tell her TMR-style.

“but we can’t unload everything on you at once. Like how you’re never supposed to shock a sleepwalker into wakefulness. It’s too dangerous.”

That will never not be bullshit.  And not just because the sleepwalker thing is patently false.

If you ever find yourself using this as an excuse for dragging out the plot, back away from the keyboard immediately and be ashamed.  But only for like half a second.  Then fix it.  Fix it by actually saying what the fuck is going on.  Every time I’ve seen this used, it’s completely pointless.  You can tell a character that evil angels are trying to kill them and then have the rest of the story be evil angels trying to kill them, that’s interesting enough on its own.  Withholding information in the hopes of keeping readers hooked is just a sign than you don’t think the actual plot is good enough to hold their interest.  Either grow some big brass authorial balls and bravado your way through that self-doubt, or make the plot more interesting.  But whatever you pick, don’t fall back on this little cheating trick.

To be fair to the book, Luce has died before from learning too much.  To be fair to the readers, though, that’s not explained very well.  After all, it wasn’t learning the news that killed her, it was those weird shadow things killing her after she learned it.  Wasn’t it?  And if you’re going to use a plot device like that, you need to actually use it.  Don’t keep it around as a justification for cheating.  Make figuring out how to tell her part of the plot.  Make the experimentation and discovery central.  Play around with it, use it to create real tension and difficulties instead of just using it to stall.  After all, from the way they’re talking, it sounds like they plan to straight-up tell her stuff, just not right now, and that’s not interesting.

They all decide that they need to get Luce away from here, because whoever the bad guys are, said bad guys now know that Luce can die ‘for real.’  How they know is not explained.  Did Sophia tell them?  Do they have super-hearing and overheard her saying all that?

Point is, it’s protecting-Luce time, but the angels can’t take her away because…that would draw attention?  From who?  So they go to get someone who can help.  We’ll have to wait until next chapter to find out who that is.