Chapter 27
Skyla
Devil’s Peak looms before us like something out of a Gothic nightmare with its knife-sharp rocks and treacherous cliff face that drops straight into the churning Pacific below.
The northern tip of Paragon has always been dramatic, but tonight it’s putting on a show that would make every angel in heaven jealous.
The sky writhes with clouds so heavy and dark they seem ready to burst, their bellies glowing with an incandescent blue light that makes everything look like we’re trapped inside a supernatural snow globe.
An icy breeze cuts across the rocky crags with enough force to make my eyes water, carrying the scent of salt spray and something electric that makes the hair on my arms stand on end.
The parking lot that’s usually packed with restless teenagers looking for a place to make dubious and quasi-legal decisions sits empty except for Logan’s truck, which looks ridiculously small against the vastness of the blackness we’re engulfed in.
We get out and start making our way to the edge of oblivion, because for some reason, that seems like the logical next step.
“Remind me again why your mother chose the most ominous location on the island for our little family chat?” Logan asks, shoving his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.
“Because subtlety has never been Candace’s strong suit,” I reply, watching the fog roll in from the ocean like a mystical red carpet.
“And she might want to shove us off the cliff should the mood strike. Besides, this place has history for us. I earned my wings here, remember? I took a swan dive off that cliff and discovered I could fly.”
“Right. You realize I died here once. And Gage fell here, too. Chloe’s body was found buried at the base. And you nearly died here as well. Starting to see a pattern?”
“Devil’s Peak—where the Oliver boys come to meet and greet the Grim Reaper, and the girls of Paragon discover their true potential. We should put that on a tourism brochure.”
Logan sighs my way. “Do you think she’ll show up before we graduate? Again?”
“She’ll show when she feels like it. And she will show. We both know my mother never misses an opportunity for dramatic entrances and cryptic conversations.”
As if summoned by my words, the air in front of us begins to shimmer and twist, coalescing into the familiar figure of the wily Caelestis we know and almost always love. Almost.
The wind picks up to hurricane speeds, and Candace materializes as if she’s stepping through an invisible doorway, her golden hair catching the strange blue light from the clouds above.
She’s wearing that expression I know so well—the one that says she’s three steps ahead of everyone else and enjoying every wicked minute of it.
“My children,” she says, spreading her arms like she’s welcoming us to some kind of celestial family reunion. “Thank you for coming.”
“Like we had a choice,” I mutter, earning a sharp look from those crystal knowing eyes.
“There are always choices, Skyla. That’s rather the point of our current situation.”
Logan steps forward, and I can see him mentally preparing for battle. “Candace, we need to get home. This whole anchor experiment isn’t working out so well.”
“Isn’t it?” She tilts her head with the kind of innocent curiosity that immediately puts me on high alert. “I think it’s working exactly as intended.”
“Intended to do what?” I ask. “Destroy everyone’s lives while we’re here?
Turn my stepbrother into a motorcycle gang wannabe?
Make Gage think he needs to entertain Chloe Bishop with his baseball bat?
Because that’s what’s going to happen if we hang out here for another second.
And yes, we’re well aware of the fact that we can’t really change anything.
But honestly? We’ve already changed everything. ”
My mother’s smile is serene and completely infuriating. “You’re focusing on the small picture, my love. Don’t forget, I’m maintaining Celestra’s power balance.”
“Power balance,” Logan repeats slowly. “What exactly does that mean?”
I’m with Logan. I, too, want to read between the lines, but when it comes to my mother, even the lines have lines, and nothing is in a language I can understand.
“It means ensuring that the celestial realm remains stable,” Candace replies with the kind of vague authority that makes me want to throttle her. “Your presence in this timeline serves a greater purpose.”
“Which is?” I press for details that I already know will never come.
“Preventing catastrophic disruption to the natural order.”
Oh, good grief. Logan and I exchange a glance. Only one thing is clear: Candace Messenger is a master at talking in circles. And she’s taken us for idiots—because apparently, we are.
“Okay, but here’s the thing,” I say, crossing my arms and channeling every ounce of teenage stubbornness I can muster without meaning to.
“We’re done. Logan and I want to go back to our own time, to our own children, to a future where we haven’t demolished the past like a house of cards lost in a time-traveling tornado. ”
“Candace, we can’t light drive back. We’ve tried,” Logan adds. “And considering you’re the one who brought us here, we’d like for you to return us to where we belong.”
My mother’s expression doesn’t change, but something dangerous flickers in her eyes. “The temporal barriers are in place for your protection.”
“Our protection from what?” I demand, shocked that she’s all but admitted to locking us into a past we’re not thrilled with and throwing away the key.
“From making choices that could unravel everything you hold dear.”
Logan growls. “Everything we hold dear is sitting in our future, probably wondering where their parents disappeared to,” he says, his voice tight with frustration. “Our kids, Candace. Your grandchildren. Do you remember them? Do they even exist anymore?”
I suck in a breath and shoot him a look for even going there.
Of course, they exist. They do, don’t they?
My mother glowers at him as if Logan himself weren’t going to exist after one more outburst like the last. “They are safe and sound in the future you left them in. What you need to focus on is fulfilling your purpose here.”
“And what purpose is that, exactly?” I ask. “Because so far, all we’ve accomplished is making everyone miserable and creating new problems that didn’t exist before.”
Candace walks toward the knife-sharp edge of the cliff, her movements so annoyingly graceful and deliberate. “You’re ensuring that certain events unfold as they should. Preventing others from occurring prematurely or altogether.”
Prematurely, or altogether… The words ring out in my mind like a demonic gong.
“That’s not an answer,” Logan says, following her. “That’s more mystical nonsense designed to avoid giving us actual information.”
“Some information is too dangerous to share freely,” she says with a forced smile.
“More dangerous than letting us stumble around blindly, changing things we don’t understand?” I snap.
Candace tosses a dark look out to the water, and for a moment, I see something calculating underneath the veneer she’s presenting. “You’re exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you need to do.”
“According to whom?” Logan demands. “You? The Decision Council—who is also you? Some cosmic plan that nobody bothered to explain to us, written by fate—who is also you?”
She blinks his way. “According to the natural order of things.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I explode. “Can you give us one straight answer? Just one? Why can’t we go home?”
She leans my way and bares her fangs. Okay, so she bears a smile, but still. With her, it’s essentially the same thing. “Because your work here isn’t finished.”
“What work?” Logan’s voice is rising now, echoing off the rocky crags like a riot. “What are we supposed to be doing that’s so important it requires kidnapping us from our own lives?”
Candace’s smile becomes more pronounced, and I realize with growing horror that she’s enjoying this.
She likes having us trapped, likes being the one with all the answers while we flounder around in confusion.
We’re ants trapped under a glass, fireflies trapped in a jar, and she knows she’s strong enough to prevent us from ever hoping to leave.
“You’re stabilizing temporal fluctuations,” she says, as if that explains anything.
“By doing what, exactly?” I press. “Going to high school? Attending cheerleading practice? Watching Drake turn into a leather-clad dumbbell?” I have a feeling he’s not the only dumbbell around here.
“Every action creates a ripple. You’re ensuring those ripples move in the right direction.”
“The right direction for whom?” Logan asks. “And since when can the past be changed, anyway? That’s one of the founding tenets of light driving, Candace. You can’t change the big things. The timeline self-corrects. The ripples mean nothing, or at least they shouldn’t.”
“Exactly,” she says with satisfaction. “The major events remain intact. A few minor behavioral adjustments here and there are perfectly normal and expected. Nothing to worry about at all.”
“Minor behavioral adjustments?” I repeat incredulously.
“My parents are planning to retire early and go on a series of back-to-back luxury cruises—essentially wiping one of my sisters from existence.” I shake my head at her.
“You know darn well that Demetri is that child’s father, but still.
My mother lives to procreate with just about anyone.
And I can’t mention enough that Gage is about to throw himself at Chloe Bishop.
These aren’t minor adjustments—this is a complete personality overhaul for half the people we know. ”
“Skyla—”
“No!” I cut her off, stepping closer to the edge where she’s teetering—and if she couldn’t fly, I would so push her off. “I’m done with this cryptic maternal act. I’m done with the vague explanations and the non-answers. We want to go home. Now.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
I blink back as if she slapped me. “Why not?”
She lifts her chin a notch as the wind picks up. “Because I said so.”
The words hang in the air between us like a challenge, and I feel something cold settle in my stomach. This isn’t about cosmic balance or temporal stability. This is about Candace Messenger having complete control. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
“We’re leaving,” Logan says, reaching for my hand. “Candace, whatever game you’re playing, we’re done.”
“Oh, my dear children,” she says, and her voice carries a chill that has nothing to do with the ocean breeze. “We’re not done until I say we’re done.”
The temperature around us drops about twenty degrees, and the strange blue light in the clouds begins to pulse faster. The ground beneath our feet begins to tremble, and I can hear thunder building in the distance.
“Candace,” I start, but she’s already fading away.
“You will remain here until your purpose is fulfilled,” she says, her voice echoing as the wind begins to whip around us with enough supernatural force to make the trees shudder and all of Paragon groan. “Whether you understand that purpose or not.”
“Like hell we will,” I shout over the growing storm.
And just like that, Candace Messenger explodes.
Not in the literal sense—though given the way this evening is going, that wouldn’t have surprised me either.
Candace dissipates into a tornado comprised solely of lightning that reaches from the cliff to the roiling clouds above, her essence scattered into crackling electricity that makes the air taste like copper and ozone.
Thunder crashes around us with enough force to make my teeth rattle, and the entire island shakes as if it’s having a seizure.
Logan pulls me back from the cliff’s edge as lightning forks across the sky in patterns that definitely aren’t natural.
The storm rages for what feels like hours but lasts just minutes, and when it finally subsides, we’re left standing alone with nothing but the sound of the waves and our own ragged breathing.
“Well,” Logan says after a beat of silence, “that went better than expected.”
I stare at the spot where my mother just had what can only be described as a supernatural tantrum. “She’s completely lost her mind.”
“Or she’s been playing us from the beginning.”
“Probably both.” I turn to look at him as my dread begins to grow. “Logan, we’re not just trapped in the past. We’re trapped in the past by someone with some major control issues.”
“Someone who clearly has her own agenda.”
“Someone who just threatened us with celestial imprisonment if we don’t do whatever mysterious thing she wants us to do. But if we don’t know what we’re supposed to get done, how are we supposed to do it?”
He cocks his head to the side as he considers this. “Maybe that’s the point. She doesn’t need us to know anything.”
I nod his way. “Maybe she needs us to mess everything up. Talk about leaning on one of my strengths. She did seem rather attached to those ripples of hers.”
Logan wraps his arms around me, and I press into his warmth, trying to process what just happened. The cliff feels different now, heavier somehow, like the weight of Candace’s deception has settled into every crag.
“We’ll figure this out,” he says quietly. “We’ll find another way home.”
“What if there isn’t one? What if she’s the only one who can send us back, and she’s hell-bent on keeping us here? What if we have to relive that nightmare of a faction war all over again?”
Logan stares past me into the dark abyss of the Pacific and slowly shakes his head. “We have to take down Candace Messenger.”
I close my eyes for a moment because the words that need to come next seem stuck in my throat. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Famous last words.
It didn’t end so well for everyone the first time, and I have a feeling the second verse in this case will be a lot like the first.
If Candace wants a war, that’s exactly what she’ll get.