Seraphine Vale's POV
The explosion threw me ten feet forward.
I hit the ground hard, ears ringing, lungs screaming for air. Heat roared behind me like a living monster.
But I was inside. I'd made it through the door before Morgana's bomb went off.
"ECHO!" I screamed. My voice barely cut through the roar of flames. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
Smoke filled the theater. I couldn't see three feet ahead. The building groaned—old wood and metal twisting in the heat.
I had minutes. Maybe less.
"Top floor, east wing," Morgana had said. But which way was east?
In my first timeline, I'd come to this theater once. A lifetime ago. I'd auditioned here at twenty-three, failed miserably, and never returned.
Think, Sera. THINK.
The stage had been to the left. Which meant east was... right. Up the stairs.
I ran, coughing, eyes burning. The stairs were already weakening. Each step creaked dangerously.
"ECHO!"
"SERA?" A faint voice from above. "SERA, HELP!"
Relief crashed through me. She was alive.
I climbed faster. The second floor was an inferno—flames eating through walls, ceiling sagging.
"Keep talking!" I yelled. "I'll find you!"
"I'm in a dressing room! The door's locked from outside!" Echo's voice cracked with terror. "There's smoke coming under the door! I can't breathe!"
Third floor. The heat was unbearable now. My skin felt like it was melting.
I found the hallway. Five doors. All closed.
"Which room?" I pounded on each door. "ECHO!"
"HERE! I'm here!"
The middle door. I grabbed the handle and screamed—the metal was burning hot.
I wrapped my jacket around my hand and tried again. Locked. A chair was jammed under the handle.
Morgana had made sure Echo couldn't escape.
"Stand back!" I kicked the door. Once. Twice. My ankle—already injured from before—exploded with pain.
The door splintered but held.
Behind me, I heard something crack. The ceiling. It was coming down.
I kicked again with everything I had. The door burst open.
Echo stumbled out, face covered in soot, coughing violently. I grabbed her and pulled her close.
"I've got you," I gasped. "We're getting out."
We ran back toward the stairs. But when we got there, the staircase was gone—collapsed into flaming rubble.
"Oh God," Echo whispered. "We're trapped."
No. No no no. I didn't come back in time just to die the same way—in fire, alone, failing everyone.
"The roof," I said suddenly. "There's a fire escape on the roof. I remember from my audition."
"That was years ago! What if it's not there anymore?"
"Then we die. But at least we tried."
We found another stairwell. Narrower. Older. The flames hadn't reached it yet.
We climbed. My lungs felt like broken glass. Echo leaned on me, barely able to walk.
"Why?" she gasped. "Why did you come for me? You barely know me this time around."
This time around. The words hung between us.
"What do you mean 'this time'?" I asked, still climbing.
"Don't play dumb, Sera. I know." Echo coughed hard. "I time-traveled too. Six months back. I died at twenty-four—pills and vodka after Cassius destroyed me. When I woke up at twenty-two again, I thought I was going insane."
I stopped climbing. Turned to stare at her. "You... you came back too?"
"Yeah. And the first thing I did was research everyone in the industry. That's when I found your videos. 'PhoenixRising.' I recognized your voice immediately—older, sadder, but still you." Tears cut through the soot on her face. "You died at thirty-eight, didn't you? Alone and broken. Just like me."
My chest tightened. "Echo—"
"I was going to warn you about Morgana. About Cassius. But then I saw you at that audition and I knew—you already remembered too. You were fighting back." She grabbed my hand. "So I waited. I watched. And I prayed you'd save both of us."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was scared! What if you thought I was crazy? What if—" She coughed again, harder. Blood flecked her lips. "What if you died trying to save me anyway?"
We reached the roof door. I slammed into it with my shoulder.
Locked.
"No," I whispered. "Please, no."
I kicked it. Punched it. Screamed at it.
Behind us, flames climbed the stairwell. We had seconds.
Then a gunshot cracked the air.
The door lock shattered.
Kade stood on the other side, gun smoking, face streaked with ash. He'd somehow survived the explosion and climbed up the outside of the building.
"Move!" he yelled.
We burst onto the roof. Fresh air hit my lungs like a miracle.
But we were four stories up. No fire escape. Just empty roof and flames below.
"There!" Echo pointed. The building next door was only six feet away. Flat roof. Safety.
"We have to jump," Kade said.
Echo looked at the gap and laughed hysterically. "Are you insane?"
"Yes." I grabbed her hand. "But we're jumping anyway. On three. One—"
"Wait!" Echo pulled back. "Before we do this, you need to know something. About Morgana."
"Later—"
"No, NOW!" Echo's eyes were wild. "She's not just a time traveler. She's something worse. I heard her on the phone last week. She was talking to someone about 'the others.' She said, 'We have five now. Soon we'll have enough to change everything.'"
My blood turned cold. "Five what?"
"Five time travelers." Echo's voice dropped to a whisper. "Morgana's been collecting us. Everyone who came back—she finds them. She gives them a choice: join her or die. I think... I think she's building an army."
The roof groaned beneath us. Flames burst through the doorway.
"THREE!" Kade yelled and shoved us forward.
We jumped.
For a moment, I was flying. Falling. The ground spinning below.
My hands caught the edge of the other building's roof. Echo landed beside me. Kade crashed down on my other side.
We pulled ourselves up, gasping, sobbing, alive.
Behind us, the Starlight Theater collapsed inward with a roar like a dying dragon.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Fire trucks. Police. Too late but coming anyway.
Kade pulled me close. "You're insane. Beautiful and insane."
"You jumped into a burning building," I pointed out.
"So did you."
"I had to save Echo."
"So did I. To save you." He kissed my forehead. "Don't ever do that again."
But I wasn't listening. I was staring down at the street below.
Morgana stood there, phone to her ear, looking up at us.
Even from four stories up, I could see her smile.
She'd lost this round. Echo was alive. We'd escaped.
But she didn't look worried. She looked... satisfied.
Like this was exactly what she'd wanted.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Congratulations. You passed the test. Welcome to the game. Meet me at Obsidian Records tomorrow, 8 AM. All three of you. We have much to discuss about the other time travelers. And about your son. —M
My hands shook so hard I almost dropped the phone.
"What is it?" Echo asked.
I showed her the message.
"She knows about Lyric," I whispered.
"Who's Lyric?" Kade asked.
I looked at this man who'd saved my life twice tonight. Who'd kissed me. Who'd jumped through fire for me.
And I realized I had to tell him the truth.
"Lyric Ashcroft. The idol. He's my son." The words felt like broken glass leaving my mouth. "I gave him up when I was nineteen. I never told anyone. But Morgana knows. And if she tells him, if she ruins his career—"
"She won't," Kade said firmly. "Because tomorrow we're meeting her. And we're ending this."
"You can't just—"
"Watch me." His amber eyes blazed. "I lost my mother to this industry. I lost you in my first timeline. I'm not losing anyone else."
Echo cleared her throat. "Um, guys? There's something else you should see."
She held up her phone. The news was already reporting the fire.
But the headline made my stomach drop:
BREAKING: Anonymous Source Claims Tonight's Theater Fire Was Intentional. Three Suspects Identified: Seraphine Vale, Kade Thorne, and Echo Winters. Police Investigating Possible Terrorism Connection.
Below the headline was a photo of us jumping between buildings.
We looked like criminals fleeing a crime scene.
"She set this up perfectly," Echo breathed. "Even saving me makes us look guilty."
My phone buzzed again. Another text from Morgana:
Forgot to mention—I have security footage of you three entering the building before the explosion. And recordings of Kade buying the explosive materials last week. Fake, of course. But very convincing. See you tomorrow. Don't be late. —M
Kade read over my shoulder and cursed.
"She's framing us for terrorism," he said flatly.
"Worse." I looked up at him. "She's forcing us to join her. Show up tomorrow and become her servants, or spend the rest of our lives in prison for a crime we didn't commit."
Echo sat down hard on the roof. "So we lost anyway."
"No." I stood up, brushing ash from my clothes. "We didn't lose. We just learned the rules of her game."
"What rules?" Kade asked.
I smiled, and it felt sharp and dangerous. "Morgana has five time travelers. But she said 'soon we'll have enough.' Which means she doesn't have enough yet. She needs us. Specifically."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But tomorrow we're going to find out." I looked at both of them—Echo with her bruised face and fierce eyes, Kade with his wounded shoulder and protective rage. "And then we're going to destroy her. From the inside."
"That's suicide," Echo whispered.
"Maybe." I thought of Lyric. My son. The boy I'd abandoned but never stopped loving. "But it's the only way to save everyone."
Kade's phone rang. Maven's voice exploded through the speaker: "KADE! Turn on the news! NOW!"
He did. We all watched the screen.
A press conference. And standing at the microphone, looking young and handsome and scared, was Lyric Ashcroft.
"I'm here to make a statement about my mother," he said to the cameras.
My heart stopped.
"Her name is Seraphine Vale. And I just found out she's wanted for terrorism."