The walls were white. Too white. Like they'd been scrubbed and bleached until even shadows didn't dare settle there.
That's the only detail Avery Kane remembered clearly about the night her father died.
The walls were white. The blood was red.
And the silence afterward was deafening.
It was supposed to be an ordinary night. Her father, James Kane—beloved, powerful, untouchable—had poured her a glass of pomegranate juice before going to answer a call. He was wearing his usual silk shirt, gold cufflinks, hair slicked back like always. There was music in the other room, a fire in the hearth, and she'd been texting a friend about school gossip. Nothing had felt wrong.
Until the front door slammed open.
Gunshots echoed like thunder.
James fell before she could even scream.
She never got to him in time. Just the sight of blood seeping into the white marble floor was enough to root her legs in place.
The killer never saw her—or didn't care. He was gone in seconds. The face stayed, though. Burned into her memory like a brand. White hair. Cold eyes. Young. And smiling.
Ethan Carrington.
She'd never forget that name.
....
It had been a year since that night.
Avery sat cross-legged on the wide sill of her bedroom window, her cheek pressed against the cold glass. The mansion was quiet now. It always was. The servants didn't speak unless spoken to, and her grandparents—though kind—never filled the silence the way her father had. He used to hum old jazz songs, leave his door cracked open, make late-night pancakes when she couldn't sleep.
Now, she only had the echo of those things.
Her grandparents tried. They were sweet in their own formal way. Her grandfather, Edward, read the paper every morning and never failed to ask, "Did you sleep well, darling?" Her grandmother, Cecilia, made sure her favorite tea was brewed just right—milk before water, a dash of cinnamon. They loved her, Avery knew. But it was the love of people who had already buried too many things.
"I'm fine," she told them, always. She smiled. She dressed well. She kept her hair brushed and her posture perfect.
And every night, she sat by the window and stared at the sky.
That night, the stars were unusually clear.
She tilted her head back, her long hair spilling over her shoulder, and whispered to the darkness, "I wish I could go back. Just once. I'd fix it. I'd stop it. I'd stop him."
Something flickered.
A shooting star slid across the heavens, bold and sudden.
She stared, breath caught in her throat.
"Let me go back," she said. "Please."
The wind howled.
And then—
The world cracked.
Not like thunder. Not like gunfire. Like glass.
She stumbled off the windowsill, dizzy. The floor seemed to ripple. The walls, white and silent, began to bend. Light flared—too bright—and a weightlessness overtook her.
And she was falling.
She hit the ground with a thud that knocked the air from her lungs.
Grass. Dirt. Morning sun.
Birdsong.
What?
Avery groaned, rolling onto her side. Her T-shirt was damp with dew. Her bare legs were scratched from a tumble she didn't remember. The slope above her stretched steeply upward, like she'd rolled down from a road.
She sat up slowly.
And stopped breathing.
This place—
This wasn't her city.
This wasn't her time.
Greyhaven. She knew it. The buildings were older, the cars vintage, the air different.
She was in Greyhaven.
Her father's city.
But not now.
Not anymore.
She turned slowly, taking in the unfamiliar familiarity.
Somehow, impossibly—
She had gone back.
Back before Ethan Carrington had killed her father.
Back before everything shattered.
The past.
And it was waiting.