**Chapter 48 – The First Date (That Almost Ended the World)**
Friday, November 7, 2028 – 6:47 p.m.**
We are all on high alert.
Tonight is Seras and Lucian's first official date.
Location: the Ohio Club (Al insisted).
Dress code: "Fancy, but ready to evacuate if necessary."
Emergency plan: Rowan on standby with a portal key, Kayo with a fire extinguisher the size of a bazooka, Remy and me on "please don't burn down the speakeasy" duty.
Al has strung fairy lights that are actually tiny captive stars.
Holly is singing something slow and smoky.
The ghosts are on their best behavior (mostly).
Seras walks in wearing a red dress that looks like liquid lava poured over her curves.
Lucian is in all black (suit tailored like he was born in it, dragon-scale cufflinks glinting when he moves).
They stop in the doorway at the exact same second and just… stare.
The air temperature jumps fifteen degrees.
A wine glass on the bar cracks from thermal shock.
**Al (muttering):**
"Kid, you break my bar, you buy my bar."
Seras recovers first.
**Seras (voice a little breathy):**
"You clean up terrifyingly well, dragon boy."
**Lucian (offering his arm like it's the 1800s):**
"And you, my sun, could start religions."
Remy makes a gagging sound beside me.
**Remy (whispering):**
"I give it twenty minutes before the building is ash."
**Celeste (whispering back):**
"Ten. I took the under."
They sit at the best table (the one Al usually reserves for mobster ghosts).
Holly starts "La Vie en Rose" on purpose.
Lucian pulls out Seras's chair.
Seras actually blushes (her flames go soft pink, I have never seen that color on her).
Conversation starts polite (favorite foods, worst almost-apocalypses, preferred ways to destroy cities).
Then it gets real.
**Seras:**
"So when did you know?"
**Lucian (quiet, no thunder, just truth):**
"The moment you dropped the belay rope in PE and looked at me like I was the storm you'd been waiting your whole life to dance in."
Seras's flames flare so bright the chandeliers flicker.
**Seras (barely a whisper):**
"Same."
Remy leans over to me.
**Remy:**
"They're gonna kiss.
We're all gonna die."
They do kiss.
It's slow.
Careful.
Perfect.
And the only thing that catches fire is a single red rose in the centerpiece (it blooms brighter, then settles into harmless embers).
Al wipes a ghostly tear.
**Al:**
"That's the most romantic arson I've ever seen."
The song ends.
They pull apart, foreheads still touching, smiling like idiots.
Seras looks over at us (at me) and mouths two words:
**Thank you.**
I grin and flip her off with love.
Remy exhales like he's been holding his breath for centuries.
**Remy:**
"Okay.
I officially approve.
But I'm still watching you, dragon."
Lucian lifts his glass toward us.
**Lucian:**
"To the storm queen and her coyote.
Thank you for teaching fire it's safe to burn bright."
We all drink (ghost whiskey, enchanted sweet tea, and two very happy idiots in love).
Senior year is still ridiculous.
But tonight, love won again.
And nothing caught fire that wasn't supposed to.
(Well… almost nothing.)
** The Winter Dance That Wasn't Supposed to Be Magic**
Friday, December 13, 2028 – Hot Springs High gymnasium**
They called it "Winter Formal: A Night Under the Stars."
We called it "the one school dance we swore we'd survive without incident."
We lied.
The gym is transformed: ceiling enchanted to look like the actual Milky Way (Rowan's "anonymous" donation), snow falling gently but never touching the floor (Kayo's fox-fire trick), and a live band that is 60 % human, 40 % ghost jazz legends.
I'm wearing a deep storm-purple dress that shifts to ocean teal when I move, new Vans swapped for silver heels that I'm already regretting.
Remy is in a black suit with subtle coyote-paw cufflinks and the locket shining at his throat.
He hasn't taken his eyes off me since I walked down the stairs.
**Remy (quiet, reverent):**
"You're gonna ruin me for every other night of my life, Celeste Morua-Tsatoke."
**Celeste (smiling so hard it hurts):**
"Good. Mission accomplished."
Seras and Lucian arrive like they stepped out of a myth:
Seras in a dress made of actual living flame that somehow doesn't burn anything, Lucian in midnight blue that looks like someone cut the sky into a suit.
They walk in holding hands and the temperature rises exactly five degrees (perfect dancing weather).
Kayo is here with a girl from the robotics club who is 100 % human and 0 % aware that her date has nine tails hidden under illusion.
They're adorable and I'm taking mental blackmail photos.
Aki and Riku are the DJs tonight (oni strength means they can lift the entire sound system themselves).
They've promised "no death metal before 10 p.m."
The first slow song starts.
Remy pulls me onto the floor.
We sway under fake stars that suddenly feel real.
**Remy (mouth against my temple):**
"Senior year.
No hidden cities.
No gods trying to cut your heart out.
Just this."
**Celeste (tears pricking):**
"Just this."
Across the gym, Seras and Lucian are slow-dancing like gravity is optional.
Her head is on his shoulder, his wings (visible only to us) half-unfurled around her like a cloak of storm clouds.
Kayo spins her date under twinkling lights, laughing bright enough to rival the snow.
Rowan is in the corner, drinking spiked punch and pretending he's chaperoning while actually texting someone with a heart-eyes emoji.
(We're all pretending we didn't see that.)
The song ends.
The lights dim.
Aki grabs the mic.
**Aki:**
"Alright, weirdos.
This one's for the queen who made the mountains kneel and still showed up to prom in Vans."
The opening chords of RASE's "Ridică-te din Noapte" blast through the speakers (our song, the one we played when we stormed Shambhala).
The entire senior class loses its collective mind.
Remy grabs my hand.
**Remy:**
"Dance with me, storm queen."
We jump into the center.
Seras and Lucian join.
Kayo drags her date in.
Even Rowan gets pulled onto the floor by Holly.
We dance like the world ends at midnight (because once upon a time it almost did, and we never forgot how to celebrate surviving).
Fake snow falls harder.
Real stars outside the windows lean closer.
And for one perfect night, we're just seventeen.
In love.
Unstoppable.
Unbreakable.
The crown above my heart spins once (slow, warm, content).
This is what we fought for.
Not the kneeling mountains.
Not the drowned empires.
This.
A high school gym full of magic pretending to be normal.
And every single person I love safe under one roof.
Senior year is magic.
And nobody had to bleed for it.
(Well… almost nobody. My feet are dying in these heels.)
Worth it. Graduation Leak. Friday, May 23, 2029 – 2:47 p.m.**
They posted the final schedule on the bulletin board outside the gym.
Graduation rehearsal: Monday
Senior prank deadline: Tuesday midnight
Caps, gowns, and existential crisis pickup: Wednesday
Commencement: Saturday, 7 p.m. on the football field
I'm staring at it like it's written in Atlantean.
Remy comes up behind me, arms around my waist, chin on my shoulder.
**Remy (quiet):**
"We made it."
**Celeste (voice cracking):**
"We actually made it."
Seras appears beside us, already crying glitter tears that evaporate before they hit the floor.
**Seras:**
"I'm not ready.
I want six more years of high school and bad cafeteria pizza and almost dying every semester."
Lucian wraps an arm around her, wings flickering invisible to everyone else.
**Lucian:**
"You'll have eternity for chaos, my sun.
Let's survive one mortal milestone first."
Kayo shows up holding five different college acceptance letters and a bottle of champagne she definitely stole from Rowan.
**Kayo:**
"Group toast in the parking lot after rehearsal?
I bribed the security cameras with fox mochi. They're legally blind for the next hour."
Rowan walks past, coffee in one hand, a stack of detention slips in the other that spontaneously combust into confetti.
**Rowan (deadpan):**
"I was never here.
Also, congratulations, brats.
You didn't destroy the timeline.
I'm proud and mildly terrified."
We all end up in the senior parking lot at sunset (same spot where Remy first kissed me two years ago).
Someone brought a portable speaker.
Someone else brought ghost whiskey.
Al Capone himself materializes on the hood of Remy's SUV with a cigar and a grin.
**Al:**
"To the class that made gods kneel and still turned in their library books (mostly) on time."
We drink.
We cry.
We laugh until we can't breathe.
Seras climbs on top of the Suburban and screams into the Arkansas sky:
**Seras:**
"WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL AND WE STILL GRADUATED!"
The valley answers with a warm gust of geothermal steam that smells like home.
Remy pulls me close.
**Remy (whisper):**
"Whatever comes next (college, hidden cities, dragon weddings, whatever),
We did the impossible first.
We grew up."
I look at my court (fire and storm and fox and dragon and monk and ghost and coyote).
Seventeen became eighteen became almost-grown.
The crown above my heart gives one final, gentle spin.
**Celeste:**
"Yeah.
We did."
The sun sets purple and gold behind the mountains that once knelt to me.
And for the first time in my entire life,
The future isn't a fight.
It's a promise.
We're graduating.
We're unstoppable.
We're going to be okay.
(And next Saturday, the football field is going to see the loudest, proudest, most magically chaotic graduation Hot Springs has ever known.)
See you under the caps and gowns, world.
The storm queen is walking across that stage.
And she's bringing her whole ridiculous, perfect family with her.