The mist curls and twists like ghostly fingers reaching for my window, as if the island itself is trying to reclaim the Landon house, brick by brick. Even the steady rhythm of waves crashing against the distant cliffs sounds muffled, dreamlike—like a heartbeat trapped beneath layers of cotton.
My eyes struggle to adjust to the familiarity of my old bedroom. For a split second, I’m disoriented—wasn’t I just with Logan at West? Aren’t I supposed to be climbing the stairs to bed at Whitehorse?
The canopy of my old bed greets me like a long-lost friend, and I can’t help but smile.
Then reality crashes back. We’re stuck here in the past, courtesy of my mother’s cryptic setting an anchor scheme. I’m back in the Landon house, back to being teenage Skyla with an adult mind, watching the angsty show from behind very tired eyes.
By the looks of it, it’s morning or some random point in a sunless Paragon day.
I peel myself from the sheets and tiptoe to the closet, pulling out my favorite old jeans—the ones with the frayed edges that I forgot existed—the ones I lived in back when my biggest problem was which Oliver boy to obsess over. They slide on like butter, which is honestly shocking since I haven’t been this size since literally right now. Light driving: the ultimate diet plan.
It’s surreal to see them again, even more surreal that they actually fit. I throw on a red sweater and that short red peacoat I was obsessed with back when my biggest fashion concern was whether Gage would notice. The whole outfit reeks of vanilla and coconut body spray—because apparently, teenage me thought smelling like a tropical dessert was peak sophistication.
Footsteps thunder up the stairs, followed by a sharp rap on my door.
“Skyla!” My mother’s voice rings through the wood—my mother, as in Lizbeth London, the woman who still terrorizes me with her questionable romantic choices every now and then, even though she’s still firmly married to Tad. “Are you finally awake? It’s almost noon!”
I swing open the door to find my mother, the one who raised me, standing in a floral dress, her auburn hair swept up into a messy bun. The smell of Sunday breakfast—bacon, pancakes, and freshly brewed coffee—wafts up from downstairs, mixed with the distinctive scent of Mom’s familiar rose perfume. And all of the above spells out home to me.
“Morning,” I manage, trying to sound like a groggy teenager instead of a visitor from another time entirely, studying the face of a woman I now know is a Count pretending to be so many things, including exclusively in love with her husband.
“You missed church,” Mom says, her hands perched on her hips. “You were sleeping like a log. I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”
“I’m so sorry. But thank you so much for not waking me. You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a good night’s rest.”
“Skyla.” She laughs. “Just wait until you have kids. You won’t sleep for a year.”
“Try five years,” I mumble, following her down the creaking stairs. Every step feels like a trip through a museum of my past—the chipped banister, the faded family photos, the water stain on the ceiling that looks vaguely like Abraham Lincoln if you squint. Honestly, it’s all still there somewhere in the future, but for some reason, the house feels all that much more startling in this newoldreality.
We make our way to the kitchen, which is a typical snapshot of Sunday morning chaos in the Landon house. Tad sits at the head of the table with the newspaper spread before him like a general reviewing battle plans, his face set in its perpetual expression of mild disappointment. His stab wound from Thanksgiving, just days before, is clearly still healing, and he winces as he reaches for his coffee mug.
My sweet sisters—okay, so not so sweet, but still—Mia and Melissa are sprawled across the living room couch, their attention locked on the TV where some mind-numbing reality show plays at full volume. My newly minted stepbrother Drake lounges in the armchair, looking bored while occasionally flicking kernels of cereal at his sisters for entertainment.
“Well, well, well.” Tad lowers his paper, eyeing me over his reading glasses. “Nice of you to remember you have a family. We were about to file a missing persons report. Or celebrate. We hadn’t decided.”
He’s a riot.
“Would you stop.” Mom swats him.
“At least she’s not in jail,” he muses. I take a moment to gawk at him. His hair is thicker and darker than it ever will be, and even Tad Landon looks kissed by youth. My mother, in contrast, has always looked forever young and will far into the future. Come to think of it,it’s probably some pact she made with the devil—and the devil’s name happens to be Demetri Edinger. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he slipped eternal youth into her coffee at some point like some supernatural roofie. Most people send chocolates; Demetri offers up immortal hotness—at least to the woman he’s obsessed with.
“Good morning to you, too, Tad,” I shoot back, not even bothering to smile. “I was up late doing homework. And I’m still not finished,” I add, because the truth is, I never did quite finish it despite the fact I walked the stage at graduation. Between those hot Oliver boys and the faction war, calculus didn’t really make the priority list. “Healing up nicely, I see,” I tell him while eyeing those bandages crisscrossing his body like medical caution tape.
He narrows his eyes. “No thanks to your littleaccidentthe other night.”
It’s true, there was an accident between Tad, a knife, and one very angry spirit. And well, I might still chuckle at the memory every Thanksgiving. At least the past has given us more than its fair share of war stories. Tad’s contributions mostly involve bleeding and screaming.
“Now, now,” Mom sings, sliding a plate of pancakes in my direction. “Let’s not rehash the past.” If she only knew. “The doctor called it a miracle that the knife missed all of his vital organs.”
“Miracle is one word for it,” Tad grumbles, rustling his paper as if it owed him money. He wishes. Sometimes I think that Demetri himself is the one who keeps Tad around for kicks. Why marry the woman of your dreams when you can enter into sin with her?
“So, what’s everyone up to today?” Mom asks, doing her best to change the subject. “Oh! Before I forget—great news! My sister is coming to town in a few weeks. Your Aunt Karen can’t wait to see you all again.”
I freeze with a forkful of Mom’s fluffy, light pancakes halfway to my mouth.
Aunt Karen? My brain rushes through an entire litany of memories like a computer searching corrupted files. Aunt Karen never visited Paragon once since we moved here. Not once. And poorKaren has no idea how her sweet name will be hijacked one day in the very worst way, and she will curse the fact that her mother ever gifted it to her in the first place.
“I’ll conveniently be working overtime at Althorpe that week,” Tad announces, giving the paper a rustle with satisfaction. “As in working late and leaving early.”
