The first warning came with the wind.
It wasn't the soft, lazy kind that always carried the scent of salt and fried food from the boardwalk. This wind was sharp, restless, like a giant had taken a deep breath and was holding it. It made the gulls scream and circle high above, uneasy.
Aria Solen paused at the edge of Mariner's Bay pier, fingers tightening around the straps of her faded blue backpack. Splinters of the worn wood pressed through the soles of her sneakers. She'd grown up here. Every creak and sway of the dock was familiar, but today even the boards felt different—as if the sea itself was holding its breath.
Above her, the sky was wrong.
Clouds had rolled in out of nowhere, green-black like bruises, boiling and heavy. A low growl of thunder rolled across the horizon, so deep it vibrated in her chest. There hadn't been a storm forecast. She'd checked. In late summer, the weather could be unpredictable, but this? This looked like the kind of storm that swallowed ships whole.
Her aunt's voice echoed in her mind, sharp and scolding: "Stay home during storms, Aria. Don't go chasing ghosts like your parents did."
Her parents. Even now the thought pinched something in her chest. They had disappeared out at sea when she was eight. No one knew why they had gone out that night, or what they had been looking for.
Some part of her always wondered if she would find a clue here.
She almost turned back. Almost.
But the bronze key around her neck—the one thing her mother had left her—was warm. Warm in a way it had never been before, like sunlight pressing into her skin. She held it tightly, the edges biting into her palm.
"What are you trying to tell me?" she whispered to it.
The sky cracked open.
A fork of lightning arched across the water, not white but a violent violet, its branches splitting like veins of amethyst. The wind hit harder, forcing her to brace her legs. Down the pier, fishermen were packing up their gear, shouting over the rising howl of the gale. Their words were ripped away by the wind before she could make them out.
Then she heard something else.
A whisper.
No—hundreds of whispers, threading through the storm like smoke, curling around her ears. Find the door. Find the door.
She jerked her head, searching for the voices, but no one else was close. Her pulse jumped. They weren't just in the air—they were inside her head.
Something tugged at her, invisible strings drawing her forward. Her sneakers slid on wet planks, the boards slick with sea spray, but she kept moving. The edge of the pier loomed closer, where the ocean heaved below like a restless beast.
And then she saw it.
Not a wave. Not a boat.
A shimmer was rising from the sea, a patch of water warping as if she were looking at it through heatwaves. The surface rippled and peeled back, revealing a jagged, glowing crack in midair, hanging just above the waves. Light bled from its edges, pulsing faintly like a wound. Through the rift she saw things that did not belong: trees taller than skyscrapers, silver-blue leaves glinting, skies burning under two suns, and… shapes. Crawling, shadowy shapes that looked straight at her.
Her breath caught. Her heart beat so loud it was all she could hear. "I'm hallucinating," she whispered, even as the words tasted like a lie.
The key at her neck flared hot, nearly searing her skin.
"Nope, not hallucinating," she muttered hoarsely.
She turned to run.
Too late.
The rift burst outward, a storm in itself. A wall of air slammed into her, lifting her off her feet as easily as a leaf. She spun, arms flailing, a scream clawing out of her throat, but the wind tore the sound away. The world tilted, blurred. Somewhere in the chaos, the chain around her neck snapped. The key spun loose, catching the violet light—and then jerked toward the rift as if it had been hooked.
It dragged her with it.
Everything shattered.
For a heartbeat, there was no up or down. Only sky and water and light and shadow, everything folding over itself like a kaleidoscope. The voices screamed now, hundreds of them, a chorus of words she couldn't understand, and her body felt like it was being pulled apart into a thousand pieces.
Then, with a jarring thud, she hit the ground.
Pain flared through her shoulder and hip as she rolled across damp earth. Grass stuck to her hands. She coughed, dragging in a breath that was sharp and cool and—wrong. It didn't smell like the ocean anymore. It smelled sweet, like flowers she'd never known, and sharp like a lightning strike.
"Where… am I?" Her voice was shaky, small.
The world around her was a dream painted wrong.
The grass beneath her hands shimmered faintly, as if each blade was tipped with starlight. Trees rose like spirals, their trunks twisting as though they had grown under a different set of rules, their leaves silver-blue and whispering in the wind. Above her, the sky burned gold and pale—a pair of suns hanging side by side, one warm and brilliant, the other cold and ghostly.
And the shadows.
They slid across the ground without a source, living pools of darkness that crept closer, closer. Her breath stuttered.
One shadow lifted its head.
Where its face should have been was nothing. A hollow blackness stared back at her.
"Oh no."
The shadow lunged.
Aria scrambled backward, feet sliding in the damp grass. Another shadow darted from the side, cutting off her escape.
She swung her backpack in panic, smacking the first creature with a loud thud. The impact rippled through it like striking smoke, and it shrieked—a sound like glass breaking. Her arms trembled with terror.
The second shadow struck. Its cold, boneless fingers clamped around her ankle. She gasped at the sensation—like plunging into ice and fire at the same time. Pain lanced up her leg as she kicked, desperate.
The key! It had fallen onto the glowing grass, blazing like a star. She dove for it.
Before her fingers could close around it, the air itself moved.
A roar of wind crashed into the clearing, spinning like a miniature hurricane. The shadows screamed, ripped from the ground, twisting apart into vapor as they were scattered.
Aria clung to the ground, arms over her head, hair whipping around her face. The gale eased after a few heartbeats, settling into a strange, steady breeze.
When she dared to lift her head, someone was standing in front of her.
A boy.
He was a little older than her, maybe seventeen, with silver hair that moved as though the wind loved him. His eyes—sharp, brilliant teal—glowed faintly, reflecting both suns. In his hands, he held twin curved blades that gleamed with dangerous grace, and a long, dark cloak billowed around him as though the breeze was alive.
He looked down at her, expression unreadable.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said.
Aria's fingers clenched around her key. Her voice came out trembling. "Yeah? No kidding."
"You opened a rift?" His tone was wary, like she was some kind of threat.
"I didn't open anything! I fell!"
He frowned. His gaze flicked to the edge of the clearing, where shadows were already starting to reform, thin and restless.
"Then you'd better run."
"I just got here!" she yelled back, panic making her voice too high.
"Do you want to live or not?" His voice was sharp.
Before she could think, he grabbed her hand.
Wind surged upward like a living creature, wrapping around them. The ground disappeared. The world became a blur of green and silver and light as the gale carried them away.
Aria's scream was torn from her throat and swept into the sky.