Chapter 16
Skyla
The ghostly piano music has downshifted to something that sounds more appropriate for a funeral than a party, each note drifting from the mansion’s French doors and mixing with the raucous laughter echoing all around Marshall’s mega-mansion.
The fountain at the center of his elaborate garden gurgles and splashes like it’s trying to compete with the noise, sending crystalline droplets dancing in the moonlight while party guests weave around us.
The scent of night-blooming jasmine mingles with Marshall’s intoxicating cologne and the lingering, rather toxic perfume that trails off those seventeenth-century hussies who seem to be having the time of their afterlives, flirting with West High’s finest boy toys. Including Gage and Logan.
I hope Chloe walks in and sees Gage surrounded by dead women who actually have a chance. Don’t judge. I come by my vindictive streak naturally—Chloe and I have been training each other in the art of spite since high school.
Nevertheless, I’m standing near the marble fountain when Marshall materializes beside me, forming from a shadow like something out of a dark fantasy. Even irate, he’s criminally gorgeous—the kind of handsome that should come with a warning label and probably safe words.
His jaw is set in that way that means trouble, and his eyes hold that magnetic pull that could make a nun reconsider her vows.
Behind us, I can hear Ellis trying to convince a courtesan that his fake ID is totally legitimate—as if she cares—while Drake appears to be getting relationship advice from what looks like a ghost in a powdered wig.
Marshall towers over me with a frown. “What was your mother saying to you that day on the shoreline? She looked terse.” He squints my way as if trying to read my thoughts. And the ultra-annoying part? I’m not sure how or why, but he so can.
“So you know I’m light driving.” A thought comes to me, and my eyes widen.
“Wait, you really don’t know what my mother is up to?
” Typically, when my mother points a celestial gun at my feet and tells me to dance, the heavenlies are long since apprised of her wicked ways.
I’m not surprised that Marshall saw my mother speaking to me that day, let alone looking terse—mostly because he was present at the bonfire.
Technically, that day is still today—I think—just somewhere far, far away as far as the calendar goes.
But what does surprise me is the fact he’s in the dark.
His eyes narrow onto mine, and he suddenly looks rather terse himself. “I see everything.”
“Well, clearly you don’t know everything.” I gird myself because them be fighting words.
“I know enough.” He lifts his chin and looks across the way, and stops short on Logan, who seems to be reciprocating the terse look to Marshall—or perhaps more to the point, me. He’s not Dudley’s biggest fan, despite the fact they’re vaguely related and are darn near doppelgangers.
Marshall straightens. “What has she done now?” he growls as he continues to stare Logan down.
Logan knows.
I know.
Heck, Brielle knows just enough at this point.
I don’t see the harm in adding Marshall to the list.
I’m about to open my mouth when Marshall clamps his hand onto the top of my head, and it feels as if my soul is being sucked right out of my body in a very deliciously sexual way.
“Oh wow,” I moan. “Oh yes,” I say a little too enthusiastically.
He tips his head back, and a wicked smile curves on his lips.
And I’m assuming, just like that, Marshall, too, is in the know.
“Well, Ms. Messenger,” his cutthroat features sharpen like iron, “as your lexicon anemic peers would say—game on.” He cups my chin with his hand. “And I’m not talking about you and the Pretty One. I’m talking about you and me.”
I frown up at him
“You’re light driving,” Marshall says without preamble, his voice low and gravelly in a way that does unholy things to my pulse.
I blink up at him. “I thought we covered that.”
“We did. But what I don’t know is why.”
The way he says it makes my stomach do a little flip. Marshall doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already suspect the answers to, which means I’m either in trouble or about to be.
Around us, the party continues its bizarre blend of teenage debauchery and historical reenactment, but Marshall’s hotter-than-hellfire presence creates a bubble of intensity that makes everything else fade to background noise.
Which is saying something considering Ellis just proved that roses and recreational substances don’t mix as he becomes one with the shrubbery.
“My mother told me this all has something to do with Demetri, trying to prevent a power grab with children who aren’t even born yet,” I start, then catch myself.
Even saying it sounds insane. “She said he’s been watching my kids, that there’s some kind of threat coming.
She needed Logan and me to go back in time to set an anchor—some kind of protection ritual or hedge that requires us to relive a meaningful memory.
” Wait, did she say meaningful memory? Ironically, my memory is lagging in the department where my mother told us what was what and why the hell we’re here in the first place.
Marshall lifts one perfectly sculpted eyebrow but doesn’t say a word, which is somehow more unnerving than if he’d launched into a lecture about the dangers of light driving under my mother’s questionable supervision.
A particularly enthusiastic whoop from the hedge maze punctuates the silence, followed by what sounds like someone discovering the hard way that Marshall’s topiary animals have actual thorns and horns and most likely sharpened blades sticking out of them as well.
“You don’t believe me?” I ask as I bat my lashes at him. “Or is it that you don’t trust me?”
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
Well, that’s cryptic as hell. The weight of that statement settles between us like a stone dropped in still water, and I’m about to demand clarification when Logan’s voice cuts through the tension from somewhere near the ornate cherub sculptures to my right.
“Dudley.” Logan gives him that look—the one that says he knows that Marshall just took me on a supernatural magic carpet ride of ecstasy and he’s about two seconds from violence.
“Well, if it isn’t the Pretty One.” Marshall looks both disgusted and irritated by his presence all at once. “I suppose you’re here on a little field trip yourself.”
“Something like that,” Logan growls as he slides an arm around my waist, apparently unfazed by the fact that we’re having this conversation while someone behind us is trying to teach a courtesan how to do the Electric Slide.
“Hands off my wife,” Marshall growls at Logan, and there’s enough menace in his voice to make my knees wobble.
“She’s not your wife,” Logan shoots back with a grin that’s all charm and challenge.
“Neither is she yours.”
“Technically, she is, and I would be moved to kill to protect her.”
Oh my word. The testosterone level in this garden just became a fire hazard. Even the fountain seems to gurgle more aggressively, as if it’s trying to douse the flames of masculine posturing before someone gets burned.
Marshall’s gaze sweeps over the remaining party guests scattered across his expansive backyard—our classmates mingling with historical harlots near the gazebo, with what appears to be a conga line forming around the fountain down the way, and Ellis now attempting to sweet-talk his way into a threesome with two courtesans who look more amused than aroused by his pharmaceutical-enhanced charm.
“Keep this knowledge to yourselves,” he says, his voice carrying the kind of authority that somehow cuts through the party chaos. “You’ll be doing yourselves and everyone else a favor. We’ll be in touch.”
And just like that, he stalks off toward the mansion, cutting through the revelry like a shark through shallow water, leaving behind only the faint scent of his cologne and the echo of unspoken threats.
Logan and I exchange a look that says we’re both thinking the same thing—this might be bigger than we thought, and if it is, we’re probably screwed.
“Come on,” Logan sighs while taking my hand. “Let’s find somewhere a little quieter.”
He leads me away from the fountain’s splashing and the increasingly creative party games happening near the maze, toward a secluded corner of the garden where an ancient willow tree creates a natural alcove.
The branches form a curtain around us, muffling the sounds of the party to a distant hum while the scent of jasmine grows strong in the night air.
“That was intense,” I breathe.
“Marshall doesn’t do anything halfway,” Logan agrees, then his expression softens as he cups my face in his hands. “You told Brielle and Dudley?”
Clearly, Bree told Logan.
“But don’t worry. I’m never telling Ellis,” I’m quick to assure him.
“I told Ellis.”
Logan and I take a moment to stare one another down.
“So that leaves Gage,” I say.
Logan nods. “And Chloe.”
“We’re not saying a word to either of them,” I say.
His lips curve with the idea of a smile. “Why do I get the feeling that if we don’t get this right, it could cost us everything.”
I shake my head in protest. “It can’t.”
But something tells me it will.
“But right now, I don’t want to think about time travel or protection rituals or whatever game your mother is playing.”
“What do you want to think about?”
His smile is answer enough before he leans down to kiss me, and sweet heavens, every kiss with Logan feels like coming home and going on an adventure at the very same time.
His lips are warm and sure, and I melt into him like I was made for this exact moment, the distant sounds of the party fade until there’s nothing but the fountain’s gentle splash and the racing of my own heart.
I’m just getting lost in the taste of Logan Oliver when someone clears their throat.
We spring apart as if we’ve just been electrocuted, and my heart sinks straight to my toes when I see Gage standing just outside the curtain of willow tendrils with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and an expression on his face that makes my chest tight.
Behind him, the party continues with its surreal celebration, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding in the shadows.
Well, this is awkward. And painful. And about seventeen different kinds of wrong. One for each year of our lives.
I take a half step forward. “Oh my goodness, Gage, I’m so sorry—”
“No, it’s okay,” he says a little too quickly, but I can see the hurt flickering behind his eyes like the flame of a candle in the wind. He offers a forced smile as he nods to Logan. “Why don’t you give her a ride home? I think I’m going to turn in early.”
The way he says it, so careful, so controlled, it makes my heart shatter into a million pieces. This is Gage trying to be noble, and it’s killing me.
“Gage, wait—” I start, but he’s already taking off, his shoulders set in that rigid way that means he’s holding himself together by sheer will before disappearing back into the maze of party guests and supernatural entertainment.
Logan and I watch him go, and the weight of what just happened settles over me like a wet blanket. Even the fountain seems to mock us with its cheerful gurgling.
“Well, that was a disaster wrapped in awkward with a side of kill me now,” I say with a sigh. My entire body aches to see Gage in this much pain.
Logan winces. “Yeah, that could have gone a hell of a lot better—if he didn’t catch us.”
“I got the feeling he knew something had happened last night.”
Logan drops his gaze to the ground. “I got the very same feeling when I got home. He was pissed. He definitely knew something.”
I turn to look at him, and for the first time, I see my own confusion and guilt reflected in his face.
This whole situation is one big hot mess—the past, the present, the future, all tangled up like a big ball of Christmas lights that you’re better off throwing away than trying to straighten.
My head spins while Marshall’s garden party continues to rage around us as if nothing life-changing just happened. And according to my mother’s light driving rules and regulations—it didn’t.
“We need to figure this out,” I say just below a whisper.
“The getting back home thing?”
“Everything.” I gesture helplessly in the direction Gage disappeared. “This whole situation with the three of us, with Candace, with whatever Marshall suspects but isn’t telling us. I have the feeling we’re walking into something much darker than a simple protective hedge.”
Logan nods slowly as the distant sound of the ghostly piano drifts from the mansion like a backdrop to our nightmare.
“Logan, what if my mother isn’t telling us everything?”
The question hangs between us like a sword waiting to fall, and I realize that somewhere between that haunted piano music and Marshall’s dark warning, the ground beneath our feet has shifted. I get the feeling we’re not just dealing with family drama or supernatural politics anymore.
The fountain continues to dance in the moonlight as the party swirls around us in all its bizarre glory, and I can’t shake the feeling that in this garden, in this moment, marks the end of something we can never get back.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about being my mother’s daughter, it’s that sometimes the only way forward is through the fire.