Chapter One
The first thing I noticed about funerals is that nobody really looks at the person grieving the most.
They look nearby. Around. Just past.
Safer that way.
I stared at myself in the gunky bathroom mirror, gripping the edge of the sink like it might float me out of here if I begged hard enough. The church’s ladies’ room smelled like cheap floral soap and old perfume, and the fluorescent light buzzed loud enough to count as a fourth mourner.
My eyeliner had lost the will to live an hour ago. My eyes were red in that puffy, raw way that screamed please don’t talk to me and please also hug me except don’t, because I’ll shatter.
“Okay,” I told my reflection. “You’re fine. You’re totally fine. You’re an Aquarius. You’re supposed to be emotionally detached and mysterious and—”
My voice cracked on the last word.
“—and not crying in a church bathroom like a raccoon that lost a fight with a mascara wand.”
The mirror Nyssa sniffed, unimpressed.
I yanked a wad of rough paper towels from the dispenser and dabbed at the black smears under my eyes. The dress—black, knee-length, borrowed from Mrs. Washington—itch-scraped the backs of my knees. My hands shook just enough to make it obvious.
Behind the bathroom door, I could hear the murmur of voices. The after-funeral phase. The casserole phase. People clinking forks against disposable plates while saying things like She’s in a better place and If you need anything, just call in that careful tone that meant Please don’t actually call. I don’t know what to do with real grief.
I swallowed hard. My throat tasted like stale coffee and eulogies.
If I stayed in here any longer, someone would send a search squad of church ladies armed with tissues and unsolicited Bible verses. So I took a breath, straightened my spine, and did what I always did when life felt impossible.
I pretended it wasn’t happening to me.
I cracked the door and slipped out into the hallway. The noise hit first—soft chatter from the fellowship hall, the scrape of metal chairs, Pastor Washington’s deep voice rolling over everything like a gentle bass line. I kept my eyes on the scuffed linoleum as I walked.
“Nyssa.”
I forced myself to look up.
Mrs. Washington stood there in her floral dress and sensible shoes, her brown eyes warm and worried. She’d been my guardian’s best friend for as long as I could remember. She was still clutching a covered dish that someone had already labeled in black Sharpie: MAC N CHEESE - DO NOT SEND HOME WITH LINDA.
Too late.
“There you are, honey,” she said, setting the dish down on a table. “I was about to come looking.”
“Bathroom,” I said, because falling apart didn’t seem like the right level of small talk.
She took in my face without commenting on the damage, which I appreciated more than I knew how to say. “We’re about to wrap up here. Are you doing okay?”
The automatic answer—I’m fine—sat on my tongue like a rehearsed lie. I swallowed it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said instead.
Her expression softened. “That’s allowed.”
She squeezed my arm, gentle. “Eat something before we go, all right? Grief burns through everything.”
I tried for a smile. It came out sideways. “I don’t think they put that in the nutrition handbook.”
“They should.” She glanced toward the hall where people were already scraping plates clean. “Come on. Before the teenagers inhale all the good desserts.”
I let her steer me into the fellowship hall. It was the same one I’d spent half my childhood in—bingo nights, youth group meetings, awkward harvest festivals with hay bales and lukewarm cider. Today it was full of sad black clothing and too many casseroles.
At the front, on a small table with a white cloth, sat an urn with a framed photo propped up beside it. My guardian—Evelyn—smiled from the picture like she’d just said something cutting and was waiting to see if you were brave enough to laugh.
My chest tightened brutally.
I went still.
The room blurred at the edges—the people, the food, the hush of plates and forks. All of it faded under the weight of that single fact that kept slamming into me like a wave I couldn’t get under:
She’s gone. Again. For real this time.
The first time I lost home, I was eight and a social worker with tired eyes came to the door. This time, it had been a phone call at 3:17 a.m., the hospital’s voice saying phrases like wouldn’t wake up and stroke while I clutched my thrift-store blanket and tried not to scream.
Now there was an urn and a photo where a person used to be.
“Hey.” A paper plate appeared in my field of vision, piled with food. “Mac and cheese. Potato salad. The good rolls.”
I blinked. Mrs. Washington had somehow collected all the most comforting carbs on one plate.
“Thank you,” I managed.
“Sit,” she said, guiding me toward a corner table. “I’ll bring you some sweet tea.”
I sat. People came over in waves—soft hands on my shoulder, murmured condolences, the same phrases repeated in slightly different packages.
“She loved you so much, sweetheart.”
“She was so proud you stuck with your job.”
“She’s watching over you now.”
No one said, I’m so sorry you’re alone again.
They didn’t have to. The thought sat in every glance.
I nodded and thanked them and zoned out so hard I could’ve astral projected. My fork made tracks through the mac and cheese without really picking any up. The room grew fuzzier, like I’d been wrapped in cotton I didn’t ask for.
Eventually, people started leaving. Hugs, handshakes, last-minute invitations to “come visit anytime.” Mrs. Washington and her husband, Pastor Washington, stayed close, orbiting around me like gentle moons.
When the last car pulled out of the church parking lot, Pastor Washington sat down across from me, folding his big hands on the table.
“All right, Nyssa,” he said quietly. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
That tone—calm, practical—had gotten me through more than one crisis over the years. I focused on it.
“You’re going to pack up any overnight things you need from Evelyn’s house,” he said. “You’ll stay with us for a bit.”
My spine went stiff. “I can stay there.”
He smiled sadly. “Not tonight. The utilities… and the paperwork… It’ll take a few days to sort everything out with her estate. It’s better you’re not alone.”
I wanted to argue. To say I’ve been alone longer than anyone realizes. To say I’m twenty-three, not a lost kid. But the truth was, the idea of going back to the dark, empty house by myself made my stomach flip.
“Just for a little while,” Mrs. Washington added, perching on the chair beside me. “Guest room’s all ready. Fresh sheets and everything. You know we snore, but we also make pancakes.”
That made my mouth twitch. Barely. “You had me at pancakes.”
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. Pastor Washington nodded, like a tiny piece of his plan had slid into place.
“Good,” he said. “We’ll follow you over, all right?”
⸻
Evelyn’s house looked wrong in daylight.
The little brick place on the corner had always felt like a safe pocket—old creaky floors, overwatered plants, teetering stacks of secondhand books. Today the curtains hung heavy and still. The mailbox bulged with sympathy cards and bills.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Grief is weird. Sometimes it hits like a tidal wave; sometimes it’s just… absence. A shape cut out of a room.
Her mug was still in the sink. The reading glasses she’d left on the arm of her favorite chair. A half-finished crossword clue about constellations I’d teased her over yesterday—Aquarius, eleven letters, water-bearer.
“There you are,” I whispered, fingertips brushing the paper. “Should’ve known you’d get the star one.”
I moved on autopilot, stuffing clothes and toiletries into a duffel: jeans, hoodies, underwear that had seen better days. My journal. The cheap astrology book Evelyn had picked up for me at a flea market when I turned eighteen—“Thought you’d like knowing why you’re so annoyingly stubborn,” she’d said.
The Washingtons waited politely in the living room, sitting on the edge of the couch like they were worried about wrinkling the cushions. Every now and then, Mrs. Washington’s gaze would drift to Evelyn’s photo on the mantle. Her mouth pressed thin.
“You can take your time, honey,” she called. “We’re not in a rush.”
I shoved my phone charger into the bag and took one last look around my room. The bed with its mismatched sheets. The tiny bookshelf with its crooked towers of paperbacks. The poster of a star map I’d never really understood but liked looking at.
The longer I looked, the less this felt like home and the more it felt like a set someone had forgotten to strike after the last show.
I slung the duffel over my shoulder and headed back out. We locked the house and drove to the Washingtons’ in silence, the late afternoon sun turning the world a too-bright kind of gold.
⸻
Their house smelled like lemon cleaner and cinnamon. Familiar. Safe-adjacent.
Mrs. Washington showed me to the guest room—a small space with a floral comforter and a cross over the bed. I dropped my duffel on the floor and collapsed backward onto the mattress.
“If you need anything,” she said from the doorway, “I’m just down the hall. Bathroom’s there, kitchen’s always open, don’t be a stranger to the fridge.”
“Thanks,” I said. My voice sounded thin.
She hesitated. “We’ll figure things out, Nyssa. The legal stuff, the house… you won’t have to do it alone.”
Alone. The word curled like smoke in my chest.
“Okay,” I said.
She closed the door softly behind her.
I stared at the ceiling until my eyes blurred. My brain churned in tight, frantic loops: What now? Work. Rent. Where will I live? Am I supposed to sell her house? Do I even own it? The questions stacked up like an avalanche of paperwork.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. Opened my messages. The last text from Evelyn glowed at the top of our thread.
Evelyn: Don’t forget to buy coffee on the way home. The world ends when we run out.
She’d added a little sun emoji she’d just learned how to use, my throat closed.
I typed: Got it. The world is safe.
Then stared at the message, at the little unsent bubble. My thumb hovered over the send button.
I put the phone face down on my chest instead.
“I have no one,” I said aloud, because if I didn’t say it, it would choke me.
The room didn’t argue.
⸻
At some point, exhaustion finally won. Grief, panic, and carb crash teamed up and dragged me under.
I slept. And dreamed.
⸻
The rooftop was too pretty to be real.
City lights glittered below, a thousand windows cut into the night. Overhead, the sky was a deep velvet blue, stars scattered like someone had flicked paint. Not the smudgy, light-polluted sky I was used to—this one felt crisp, close. Attentive.
I stood in a rooftop garden dotted with potted trees and strings of warm fairy lights. A table for two sat near the edge, candles flickering in glass jars, like someone had staged a romantic scene from a movie.
I looked down at myself. I was not in my funeral dress. I was in a backless black jumpsuit that fit like it had been invented for me. My hair actually cooperated. My eyeliner was intact.
Definitely a dream.
“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?” a voice drawled behind me.
I turned.
The guy standing there looked like he’d been custom-ordered by someone’s thirsty Pinterest board. Tall. Lean but strong. Dark hair that fell into his eyes in an artfully messy way. A jawline that could cut glass. He wore a black button-down and slacks like he’d just stepped out of a high-end cologne ad—Do you want to smell like trouble?
He watched me with a kind of lazy focus, like he was both amused and deeply interested. His eyes—
His eyes were silver. Not gray, not hazel, not “whatever that in-between color is.” Silver, like liquid mercury that had decided to try being human for a while.
My stomach did a flip it had no right to do.
“Do I know you?” I asked, because even my subconscious apparently had awkward social skills.
He tilted his head, considering. When he spoke, his voice was deep, smooth, and British.
Of course. My brain had taste, at least.
“Strange,” he said quietly. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for you.”
My heart tripped over itself.
“Okay,” I said, forcing a scoff. “That’s a line.”
“Or maybe,” his mouth curved, just a little, “it’s the truth.”
The way he said it made something in my chest ache in a way I did not approve of.
I crossed my arms. “If this is my dream, you’re very cocky for a figment of my imagination.”
He smiled outright at that. “And if this is mine?”
I opened my mouth to answer, and the rooftop… glitched.
That’s the only way I can explain it. The city lights blurred, stretching into smears of white and gold. The fairy lights overhead streaked like comets. The ground shuddered.
I grabbed the nearest solid thing, which happened to be him.
His hand closed around my wrist, steady, firm, like he’d done it a thousand times.
The rooftop vanished.
Silver trees rose up around us, tall and black-trunked, leaves glowing faintly from within. The air turned cold and sharp, full of a low hum like electricity right before a storm. The sky overhead wasn’t really sky anymore—just layers of light and darkness tangled together.
I stumbled back, staring. “Okay. That’s new.”
The same guy leaned against one of the trees, perfectly at ease in the not-forest, like we’d just stepped from one room into another.
“I liked the garden better,” I muttered. “Less… creepy.”
“You’ll adjust,” he said.
“Bold of you to assume I’m coming back.”
His silver eyes tracked my face, too perceptive. For a half-second, something like confusion crossed his expression—like he was trying to line up a memory with what he saw and couldn’t make them match.
Then the cocky smirk slid back into place.
“You’re not scared,” he observed.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You keep looking around like you’re trying to find the camera,” he said. “Like you’re expecting someone to pop out and tell you you’ve won a prize.”
“Did I?” I asked. “Because if the prize is trauma, I’d like to return it.”
He huffed a laugh. “Sharp tongue.”
“Comes standard with abandonment issues.”
He watched me for a moment, head tilted, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear.
“You always talk like this?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re making jokes before anyone else can decide how to hurt you.”
I went very still. The hum in the air seemed to press closer.
“Wow,” I said lightly, even as my heartbeat picked up. “Therapy and a British accent? Multitalented.”
He pushed off the tree and stepped closer, closing the space between us until I had to tilt my head back to keep watching his face. Up close, the silver in his eyes wasn’t flat. It had depth, like there were storms moving behind it.
“Who are you?” I asked, because it was easier than dealing with the way his proximity was doing unspeakable things to my pulse.
He studied me, the arrogance thinning for a fraction of a second. “Names are… complicated.”
“Everything is complicated. That’s not an answer.”
He glanced past me, at the trees, at the glowing leaves. Then back.
“For now,” he said slowly, as if picking the word up for the first time, “you can call me Arien.”
Arien. The name felt… right and wrong at the same time. Like a word you know in another language but can’t quite translate.
“Arien,” I repeated.
His lips curved. “Better.”
The hum threaded tighter through the air, brushing against my skin.
“Where are we?” I asked. “And don’t say ‘In your mind,’ because that’s cliché and I’ll be forced to hit you.”
His gaze flicked briefly to my right hand, like he was remembering something. “I’m not him,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Who?”
He shook his head once, dismissing the thought. “This is… a seam,” he said instead. “Between things that pretend they aren’t connected. You shouldn’t be here yet.”
“Yet?” The word lodged in my chest. “Am I—am I dying? Is this a coma thing? Because if this is the afterlife, the decor is a choice.”
He smiled again, but something behind it looked fragile, like the smile was armor instead of expression.
“You’re not dying,” he said. “You’re dreaming.”
“That’s what people say right before they admit it’s not a dream.”
He stepped closer, and the forest leaned in with him. The silver light in the leaves brightened.
“I’ll make you a deal, little star,” he said softly.
My breath hitched. “Don’t call me that.”
He blinked, surprised. For a second, the mask slipped entirely and something raw and aching looked out of him.
Then the smirk returned, neat as a closed book.
“Fine,” he said. “Nyssa.”
Hearing my name in his mouth did something weird to my insides. Rude.
“What deal?” I managed.
“If this is only a dream,” he said, eyes never leaving mine, “you won’t remember any of it in the morning.”
“That’s not how dreams work.”
“If you do remember,” he continued, “you don’t tell anyone. Not yet. Not until we figure out why you’re here. It might… attract the wrong attention.”
A shiver ran up my spine. “What wrong attention?”
The hum in the air dipped, low and uneasy. Somewhere deeper in the forest, something moved fast and big, all sharp edges and hunger. I felt it more than saw it, like a thought brushing against the back of my teeth.
Arien’s jaw tightened. “Later,” he said. “We’ll argue about it later.”
“How do you know there’ll be a later?”
His smile turned small and almost sad. “Because I’ve been waiting for one.”
Before I could ask what that meant, the forest lurched. The trees stretched, the light stuttered, and my vision tunneled, collapsing down to a bright, silver point.
“Wake up,” Arien said, voice distant and sharp. “Nyssa—”
The world shattered.
⸻
I woke with my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribs.
The guest room was dark except for the thin stripe of streetlight sneaking past the curtains. My funeral dress was twisted around my thighs. My pillow was damp.
Dream. It was a dream. Just a really, really extra one.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes until the phantom glow of silver leaves faded.
“Brain,” I muttered, “we need to talk about your coping mechanisms.”
British forest guy. Arien. Little star.
I remembered all of it.
That didn’t mean anything. Grief does weird things, right? People talk about seeing their dead loved ones in dreams; my subconscious had just gone, You know what’ll help? A hot man with issues and a lighting budget.
I rolled onto my side and stared at the cross on the wall.
“I am not telling anyone about that,” I informed it. “Ever.”
Somewhere in the house, floorboards creaked. The HVAC sighed to life. Ordinary sounds in an ordinary world.
I was alone.
No, a quieter part of me whispered. You’re not.
I told that part to shut up.
And then someone knocked on the front door. It was a small, polite sound. Three knocks, evenly spaced. Not the frantic hammering of an emergency, not the light tap of a neighbor with more condolences.
I glanced at my phone. 9:47 p.m.
The Washingtons went to bed early. I’d heard their door close an hour ago.
Every hair on my arms stood up.
The knock came again. Same pattern. Same patience.
I slid out of bed, the floor cool under my feet, and crept down the hallway. The house was dark except for the dim glow from the streetlight outside.
“Pastor?” I called softly. “Mrs. Washington?”
No answer.
My pulse thudded in my ears as I reached the door. I hesitated, fingers hovering over the deadbolt.
Normal people do not open the door at nearly ten at night for strangers, I told myself. Normal people look through the peephole.
So I did.
A woman stood on the porch. Mid-forties, maybe. Dark hair streaked with silver pulled back into a low bun. Her posture was straight but not stiff, wrapped in a long dark coat despite the mild air. She held a folder under one arm, like she’d come directly from a meeting you’d usually see on TV with ominous background music.
When she looked up at the door, her eyes were a sharp, startling gray-blue. Not silver, not like the man in my dream—but close enough to do something uncomfortable to my stomach.
She saw me through the peephole. I knew it, even though that wasn’t how peepholes worked.
“Nyssa Kade?” she called quietly, voice clear and warm in a way that made it feel like she already knew me.
Every alarm bell in my head rang at once.
I should wake the Washingtons. I should pretend I’m not here. I should crawl back into bed and let this be a problem for morning.
Instead, I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.
Because apparently, I don’t know how to do anything but step through when a door appears.
