Chapter 1 #2
Blaire glances at me, just a quick check, like she’s reading a pulse. She doesn’t push. She never pushes in front of the others. She saves the hard conversations for hallways and closed doors.
“Remember,” she says instead, smooth as a practiced line, “Harbor’s Edge adores you. Keep it clean. Keep it kind. And for the love of—“ her eyes flick to Jules ”—don’t start any chants in the arena tunnels.”
Jules puts a hand over her heart. “No chants. I swear.”
Remy mutters, “Liar.”
Jules snorts. “Well, what kind of chants are off-limits?”
“The kind that summon chaos,” Blaire says.
“The kind that make security cry,” Remy adds.
“The kind that make Kaia do the jaw thing,” Mina finishes with a devious smile.
I glare at all of them. “Stop talking about my jaw.”
Jules laughs. “But it’s so expressive.”
“It is not.”
Remy’s voice is faintly amused now. “It is.”
I should be annoyed. I am annoyed. But the warmth of it—of them—keeps my ribs from locking completely shut.
The bus crests a low rise, and the town spreads out ahead of us.
Harbor’s Edge unfurls like a painting that’s been left out too long: weathered, salt-warped, and stubbornly familiar. The bay curves around it like an arm. Rooftops cluster tight against the shoreline. The boardwalk is a thin line, the ferris wheel a dark skeleton against the brightening sky.
Something in my chest twists painfully.
Then, near the base of the hill, I see it. A sign in faded red letters: The Lighthouse Diner.
My throat tightens so fast it feels like I’ll choke.
Jules follows my gaze and squints. “That place definitely calls you ‘hon’ while judging your life choices,” she says. “Cute.”
“That’s not funny,” I snap.
Silence drops for half a beat, stunned by the sudden edge in my voice. Jules’s smile fades, and for once she doesn’t make a joke out of it.
I hate myself for the reflex.
I exhale, forcing the air out slowly. “Sorry,” I say. “Just… old landmarks.”
Jules nods immediately, accepting the boundary like it’s sacred. “Okay.”
Remy, mercifully, doesn’t dig. She just says, low, “Yeah. Landmarks’ll do that.”
The bus rolls downhill, closer now, and the morning wakes up around us: a fisherman’s truck rumbling out early, a dog walker bundled in a scarf, a coffee shop tugging its blinds open. It all looks ordinary.
And then the first festival posters start to appear.
Bright paper on lampposts that feature stylized lanterns strung over the boardwalk and a lighthouse rendered like a fairytale. Bold letters promising HARBOR LIGHTS FESTIVAL – A NIGHT OF LIGHT AND WISHES like it’s a blessing and not a magnet for demons.
My skin prickles.
Not fear, but something subtler. A hum at the base of my skull, the way wards feel when you pass them. Looks like the Council has been putting in some work.
Mina rubs her arm, frowning. “Do you feel that?”
Jules’s grin is gone now, replaced by something alert. “Warding’s already up?”
Remy’s voice is quiet, all edge. “Early.”
Blaire’s gaze flicks toward the posters as the bus passes, then back to the road. “That’s what the briefing’s about,” she says. “Council says there’s an active demonic presence building in the area.”
Mina’s voice dips. “What kind of demon?”
Blaire hesitates just long enough for me to notice. “They’re calling it a recurring cluster pattern,” she says carefully.
Remy’s mouth tightens. “Like our Seoul show.”
Jules leans forward, suddenly serious. “The splintery one.”
Blaire doesn’t even blink. “Yes,” she says.
Her tone is pure manager mode—clean, practiced, the kind that makes panic sound like a scheduling problem.
“We took out that cluster demon, but that wasn’t the only one.
If the environment keeps feeding the same emotional frequency, they can form.
Council tracking shows a similar signature in the vicinity. ”
Jules flicks a look at me—checking in, like she always does when the air shifts from joking to dangerous—before focusing on Blaire again. “So, tonight’s concert is the bait, right? End it before the festival?”
Blaire nods once. “Burn off the build-up, draw it in, cut it out for good.”
That’s how it is, being a Resonant. Emotion and attention turn into power whether anyone means it to or not—concerts, festivals, riots, a thousand hearts beating in sync.
Most people just feed it. They laugh, cry, scream, and the world gets a little brighter, a little stranger, and they never know why.
Resonants? We’re trained to catch that energy and amplify it.
Demons feel it the way sharks feel blood in water. Big crowds make it louder. Make us louder.
Lightning rods.
We draw the worst of the demonic presences in, trap them inside the ward lines, and cut them down before they can slip out into the streets and start feeding on someone who doesn’t even know what’s happening.
And tonight, apparently, we’re killing a cluster demon.
Mina’s brows pull tighter. “If it’s so dangerous, why not—why not just… cancel the festival?”
Jules makes a face like she’s tasted something sour. “Because money.”
“Because tradition.” My voice stays even, but my stomach twists anyway. “Even if you cancel the official event, the town will still celebrate. People will still hang lanterns and crowd the pier.”
Blaire nods.
“Exactly,” she says. “So we don’t try to stop the tide—we cut the rot out early, before it can swell.” Then her tone shifts, softer without losing the edge. “And you’re not alone. Council will have support on the ground. Eon security is doubling perimeter checks. We’re not walking into this blind.”
Jules lets out a breath she’s been holding and forces a smile back onto her face like it’s a weapon she’s practiced wielding. “Cool. Love that for us. Nothing like demon hunting before breakfast.”
Remy lifts her hood higher. “I hate breakfast demons.”
Mina’s mouth twitches despite herself. “All demons are breakfast demons if you don’t sleep.”
Jules points at her. “That’s poetry. Write that down. Put it on merch.”
Mina laughs. “No way.”
The bus slows as we approach the town’s weathered welcome sign at the limits—salt-warped wood, peeling paint, the letters stubbornly hanging on. It reads: WELCOME TO HARBOR’S EDGE.
My lungs feel too small.
Harbor’s Edge used to feel like the whole world. The streets, the boardwalk, the rusty carnival rides that only worked when someone kicked them just right. The Lighthouse Diner with its cracked vinyl booths and the sign that buzzed like it was always about to give up.
Evie used to sit across from me in those booths, elbows on the table, chin on her fist, watching me like I was something worth studying.
… I shouldn’t be thinking of Evie right now…
I straighten in my seat, forcing my shoulders back. Leader posture.
“Alright,” I say, voice steady enough to fool even me. “Game faces.”
Jules salutes with two fingers, but her eyes stay sharp. “Game faces.”
Mina nods, swallowing her nerves. “Game faces.”
Remy’s answer is almost a whisper. “Game faces.”
Blaire taps her tablet once, satisfied, like she’s sealing a deal with the universe. “Good,” she says. “Because the second we step off this bus, you’re Midnight Halo again. We go straight from drop-off to arena tour to morning briefing. You can catch up on doomscrolling after soundcheck.”
The bus takes the turn toward the arena, tires whispering over the freshly paved road. Banners are already up on the lampposts: Eon’s stylized logo, the Harbor Lights emblem, and our faces blown up three stories tall.
MIDNIGHT HALO: HARBOR’S EDGE HOMECOMING
My smile on the banner is the same one I’m wearing now: perfect teeth, soft eyes, hair caught mid-swoop.
Evie used to tell me that I smiled with my whole face, not just my mouth. But that was before the stylists and media training taught me how to smile for the cameras.
The bus hisses as it brakes, air suspensions sighing like it’s relieved to be done carrying us.
Security and staff converge towards the bus in their black jackets, hands at their earpieces. A few fans managed to slip around to the back; they press up against the barriers, holding signs and chanting our name.
Blaire is up first, like she always is, already halfway through a phone call before the door even opens.
”—yes, we’re here. No, she doesn’t need the second option. I said no—“ She flicks two fingers in our direction without looking back, a silent move. “We’ll be inside in three minutes. Keep the corridor clear.”
“On your marks,” Blaire says to us. “Kaia goes first, then Jules, Remy, Mina. Sunglasses. Hoods. Smile like we love them, move like we’ve slept. Ready?”
“Ready,” I chorus with the others.
I’m good at this part. The doors hiss open, and I flip the switch.
The morning air hits my face, cold and smelling faintly of salt and coffee from somewhere nearby. The fans scream. I wave, that practiced open-palmed motion that makes it look like I’m reaching for them individually. My cheeks lift, my eyes crinkle, the smile comes out on command.
“Welcome home, Kaia!” someone shrieks.
Home.
Flashes pop. Security moves us through the little gauntlet of bodies and cameras toward the service entrance. Jules pauses to blow a kiss; Mina makes a heart with her fingers; Remy does a half bow.
The arena looms ahead, a squat oval of steel and glass with our tour logo plastered across the front. In one of the wide street-level windows, the reflection of the bay catches my eye. For a second, if I squint, I can almost see the crooked outline of the pier where—
No.
I look down at my boots and keep walking.
Inside, the fluorescent-lit guts of the building smell like paint and sawdust, like every other venue on the tour.
We fall into formation without thinking about it: Mina close to my left shoulder, Jules drifting like a comet near my right, Remy a step behind like she’s watching for ambushes. Blaire leads. Craig the skeleton remains in the bus, seatbelted and abandoned, a martyr to scheduling.