**Chapter 53 – The Tide's First Wave**
**July 30th, 2029 – Lake Ouachita, 4:47 p.m.**
The lake betrays us on a perfect summer afternoon.
We're out on the houseboat (rented with Rowan's endless credit line), sun high and merciless, water the color of melted emeralds.
Seras is in the armor, showing off by walking on the surface like it's concrete, making tiny waves bow when she passes.
Lucian's wings are out, drying in the sun after a dive.
Kayo's tails are trailing in the water, catching minnows like lazy fishing lines.
Remy's shirtless, braids wet, laughing as he pulls me onto a floatie shaped like a giant blackbird (his idea of a joke).
Everything is perfect.
Until the water goes still.
Not calm still.
Dead still.
The kind of still that happens right before the Gulf decides to speak.
A single bubble rises in the center of the lake.
Then the entire surface erupts.
Not steam (actual eruption).
A massive column of black water shoots two hundred feet high, and riding it like a god on a chariot is a figure in armor made of living coral and drowned gold, holding a trident that crackles with blue lightning.
Atlantis didn't send an envoy.
They sent a prince.
**Atlantean Prince (voice like crashing waves):**
"Queen of Land and Storm.
You have stolen the Deep Script from our blood.
Return it or drown with your toys."
The houseboat rocks hard enough to throw Aki off the deck (he shifts mid-fall and lands on all fours, growling).
Riku's horns flare red.
**Riku:**
"Toys? Try that again."
The prince levels the trident.
The lake answers.
Waves rise like walls, crashing toward us.
I'm on my feet, symbols igniting under my skin, crown spinning wild.
**Celeste:**
"NO."
I speak one line of the Deep Script (the forty-third, the one that means **the sea bows to mercy**).
The waves freeze mid-crash, then bow—literally bow—turning into perfect arches of glittering water that frame the prince like a mocking throne room.
He staggers on his water-column.
**Atlantean Prince (furious):**
"You dare speak our tongue with a land-born mouth?"
**Celeste (stepping onto the water, Vans not even wet):**
"I dare a lot of things.
Like telling you to go back to your drowned bathtub and tell your grandpa I said thanks for the homework."
The prince charges.
Seras meets him first (Blazing Wukong roaring into existence, staff swinging like a solar eclipse).
Lucian's wings snap wide (thunder-dragon form, lightning weaving with Seras's fire into a storm of gold and white).
Kayo's tails lash, nine golden portals opening to pull water from the lake itself and redirect it back at the prince like a tidal boomerang.
Remy shifts full dire-coyote, leaps the railing, and swims straight for him (claws cutting through waves like butter).
Rowan just sighs, snaps his fingers, and the prince's trident suddenly weighs a thousand tons.
I walk forward slow, speaking the forty-first line (forgiveness of the tide).
The prince drops to his knees in the water, trident sinking, eyes wide with something that looks like awe mixed with terror.
**Atlantean Prince (hoarse):**
"You… are not what we expected."
**Celeste (stopping an arm's length away):**
"Good.
Expect more of that.
Now go home.
Tell Atlantis the Deep Script stays with the girl who learned it from a god who knew better than to hoard mercy."
I offer my hand (open, choice).
He stares at it.
Then, slowly, he takes it.
The water calms.
The column sinks.
He bows (deep, real) before vanishing beneath the waves.
The lake goes back to normal, like nothing happened.
Seras collapses the Wukong form, panting.
**Seras:**
"That's two rude awakenings in one summer.
We're on a roll."
Remy shifts back human, swims to the boat, and pulls himself up dripping.
**Remy:**
"You okay?"
**Celeste (grinning):**
"Better than okay.
The ocean just learned manners."
Rowan retrieves the trident from the lake bottom with one casual snap (he keeps it).
**Rowan:**
"Atlantis will send more.
But that prince? He's going back changed.
You just made mercy look like the scarier choice."
Kayo floats on a tail like a raft.
**Kayo:**
"Summer's not over yet.
Who's up for s'mores?"
We laugh until it hurts.
The lake is quiet again.
But somewhere below, Atlantis is whispering my name.
Not in anger.
In fear.
And that's the best summer souvenir ever.
** The Sky Opens Its Mouth**
** August 27, 2029 – 11:11 p.m., the football field of Hot Springs High**
We're trespassing on school property at midnight because of course we are.
The goalposts are still up, the turf still smells like cut grass and teenage regret, and the scoreboard is dark except for the number 11:11 frozen in red LEDs (Rowan's doing).
We're lying in the middle of the fifty-yard line in a loose circle, staring up at the clearest sky Arkansas has ever given us.
No clouds.
No light pollution.
Just the Milky Way poured across black velvet like someone spilled diamonds.
Remy's head is on my stomach, one braid curled around my wrist like a tether.
Seras is using Lucian's wing as a blanket, armor dismissed, hoodie sleeves chewed because she's nervous.
Kayo is on her back with all nine tails fanned out like a golden sunburst.
Rowan sits cross-legged, quietly sketching sigils in the air that turn into tiny shooting stars and burn out before they hit the ground.
We have four days left of summer.
None of us have said it out loud yet.
Seras breaks first.
**Seras (small):**
"College letters came today."
The air changes.
Remy's fingers tighten on my shirt.
**Remy:**
"Which ones?"
**Seras:**
"Tokyo U, full ride from the shrine board.
MIT wants Lucian for 'applied atmospheric anomalies.'
Kayo got accepted to whatever secret kitsune academy exists in the clouds.
Rowan… already enrolled at Oxford last year, the bastard just forgot to tell us."
Rowan shrugs, not looking sorry at all.
**Rowan:**
"I was waiting for the rest of you to catch up."
I sit up slowly. Remy moves with me, arms sliding around my waist from behind like he's bracing us both.
**Celeste:**
"And me?"
Silence.
Seras finally meets my eyes.
**Seras:**
"Everywhere.
Every single one.
They're terrified to say no to the girl who made the Gulf kneel."
I laugh, but it cracks in the middle.
**Celeste:**
"So that's it.
Summer ends, we scatter.
Just like everyone said we would."
Remy's voice is low thunder against my spine.
**Remy:**
"No."
One word.
Absolute.
Lucian's wings rustle.
**Lucian:**
"We made a promise the night the lake tried to take our truths.
We're keeping it."
Kayo sits up, tails curling tight.
**Kayo:**
"Family isn't a place you leave when the season changes."
Rowan closes his sketchbook of starlight.
**Rowan:**
"Then we don't leave."
He stands, walks to the center of the field, and draws one perfect circle in the turf with his toe.
Inside it he he writes six names in glowing script (ours).
Then he slams his palm down.
The ground answers.
A ring of pure white fire erupts around the circle, shooting fifty feet high, then collapses inward and sinks into the earth like it was never there.
Only the burned names remain (permanent, smoking gently).
**Rowan:**
"Oath circle.
Old magic.
Older than colleges, older than countries.
We walk out of this circle together, or we don't walk out at all."
Seras is already on her feet, armor flaring to life around her like she was born in it.
**Seras:**
"I'm in."
Lucian follows, wings spreading until the shadow covers the entire end zone.
**Lucian:**
"Always."
Kayo's tails ignite, nine suns in a row.
**Kayo:**
"Try and separate us. I dare the universe."
Remy stands, pulling me with him, braids swinging, eyes molten gold.
**Remy:**
"Coyote Club rule number three:
Pack stays pack.
End of discussion."
He steps into the circle first.
The burned letters flare gold around his name.
One by one we follow.
Seras.
Lucian.
Kayo.
Rowan.
I'm last.
I step over the line and the ground hums under my bare feet like it recognizes its queen.
The sky answers.
A single bolt of perfect, soundless lightning strikes the circle dead center.
When the light fades, six symbols are carved into the turf around our names:
- Blackbird
- Coyote
- Rising sun
- Thundercloud
- Nine-tailed fox
- Open book dripping starlight
They glow soft and steady, like heartbeats.
Rowan smiles (small, fierce).
**Rowan:**
"Colleges can wait.
The world can wait.
We've got one more summer to burn the sky down right."
Above us, the Milky Way shifts.
The stars rearrange themselves into one quiet, blazing sentence:
YOU WERE NEVER LEAVING.
We stay on the field until dawn, laughing, crying, planning a year that belongs to no campus, no kingdom, no prophecy.
Just us.
Four days left of summer?
Good.
We're going to need every second.
** The Last Night of Summer**
August 31, 2029 – 11:59 p.m., the ridge above Hot Springs**
We saved the last night for the place where it all began.
The same ridge where Remy kissed me for the first time under a blood moon when we were fifteen and stupid.
The same ridge where Seras first set the sky on fire by accident.
The same ridge where Lucian landed in dragon form and nearly gave the entire town a heart attack.
Tonight there is no moon at all.
Just stars, and us, and the low embers from a mesquite fire that refuses to die.
We're in a loose circle again, but this time nobody's lying down.
We're standing.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Seras in full Armor of Inferno, helmet off, space buns glowing soft gold.
Lucian half-shifted (wings out, eyes electric).
Kayo with all nine tails fanned like a battle standard.
Rowan in the center, sleeves rolled up, chalk and blood on his fingers from the final circle he just drew around all of us.
Remy beside me, braids loose, wearing the black tank I stole from him sophomore year and never gave back.
He's holding my left hand.
I'm holding Seras's right.
Seras is holding Lucian's.
Lucian is holding Kayo's.
Kayo is holding Rowan's.
Rowan is holding Remy's.
A perfect ring.
Rowan speaks first, voice steady.
**Rowan:**
"Tonight the calendar ends.
Tomorrow the world will try to pull us apart.
So we do this one last time, while the sky is still ours."
He lifts the small iron bowl in his free hand (inside it, six drops of blood, one from each of us, mixed with lake water and starlight).
He tips it into the circle.
The chalk lines ignite violet-white.
**Rowan:**
"By blood and fire,
by storm and sun,
by trickster and thunder,
by foxfire and page,
we bind what was never meant to break."
The ridge answers.
Wind howls up from the valley like it's been waiting its whole life for permission.
Lightning forks overhead (silent, perfect, forming a crown above my head and a coyote silhouette over Remy).
Seras's armor blazes so bright we have to look away.
Lucian's wings spread until they blot out half the sky.
Kayo's tails spin into a single golden halo.
Rowan's eyes go pure starlight.
And then, quiet, so quiet only we can hear it, the sky opens its mouth.
Not a roar.
A whisper.
**The Sky (in all our voices at once):**
You kept the summer.
Now keep each other.
Forever starts tonight.
The fire flares once, white-hot, then dies to nothing.
When the light fades, six matching marks glow on the inside of our left wrists:
A tiny blackbird in flight, carrying a single burning sun, wrapped in coyote tracks, circled by nine fox tails, framed by open wings and an open book.
Permanent.
Painless.
Ours.
Remy turns to me first.
**Remy (voice rough, smiling through it):**
"Happy last night of summer, storm queen."
I kiss him until we forget how to breathe.
When we break apart, the others are already piled together (Seras laughing into Lucian's chest, Kayo on Rowan's back like a triumphant kitsune backpack).
Midnight strikes somewhere far away.
August 31 becomes September 1.
Summer ends.
We don't.
We stay on the ridge until sunrise paints the sky the exact color of Seras's armor at full burn.
Then we walk down the mountain together.
Six shadows stretching long and unbroken behind us.
The world can try to separate us tomorrow.
It's going to learn the same lesson the lake did.
Some things don't end with the season.
Some things just begin.