THREE YEARS AGO, Celine didn't arrive on Earth by choice.
She fell.
She was the Crown Princess of a world where the sky stayed silver and the flowers hummed with light. But a bloody coup had forced her to flee through a rift in space. She had crashed into the quiet backyard of the Millers.
With her were three "servants"—General Kael, who now posed as her father; the Royal Scholar, who acted as her mother; and her handmaid, posing as an older sister. To the neighbors, they were just a quiet, wealthy immigrant family.
For three years, Celine was homeschooled, hidden away while she learned the strange customs of Earth. But as her final year of high school approached, she made a quiet plea.
"I want to be human for a while," she whispered. "Before the past catches up to me."
Now, she was the "Mute Beauty" of Silverwood High. She sat in the back of her classes, never speaking, never looking up, letting everyone believe she was a girl without a voice. She heard the whispers about the school's king, Damon Thorne, the heir to the country's greatest fortune. But to her, he was just another danger to avoid.
The school day ended hours ago. Celine had lost track of time in the public library, buried in books about human history. When she finally stepped outside at 8:00 PM, the sky was a bruised charcoal color, and a heavy, gloomy downpour had turned the streets into rivers of gold and shadow.
There were no taxis. The air was thick with the scent of wet asphalt. Most people would have been miserable, but Celine felt a surge of rare, rebellious joy.
She stepped out from under the library's awning and into the middle of the empty street. Closing her eyes, she let the freezing rain soak through her clothes. Then, thinking she was alone, she began to move.
It wasn't a human dance. It was the graceful, flowing movements of the Star-Courts—a dance of light and wind. She spun, her arms tracing patterns in the misty air, laughing a clear, bell-like sound as she kicked at the puddles. For the first time in years, she wasn't a runaway princess.
She was free.
A sleek, black Maybach slowed to a crawl a few yards away.
Inside, the atmosphere was suffocating. The passenger—a young man with sharp, cold features and piercing blue eyes—rested his head against the leather seat, staring out at the miserable weather. He was the crown prince of this city, a guy who had everything but felt absolutely nothing. He was bored of the wealth, the fawning girls, and the gray world.
Then, he saw her.
Under the harsh glow of a flickering streetlight, she looked like an angel who had forgotten how to fly and decided to dance instead. Her laughter, though he couldn't hear it through the glass, looked like the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
His blue eyes, usually cold and calculating, widened in a daze as his heart gave a strange, violent thud against his ribs.
"Stop the car," he said, his voice low and urgent.
"Sir? It's a literal storm—"
"I said stop!"
He leaned forward, his palm pressed against the window, his gaze locked on the girl. She was spinning, her face turned toward the dark clouds, a radiant smile on her lips.
"Who are you?" he thought, his pulse racing. "And how is it that you're the only thing in this world that doesn't look gray?"
Inside the car, he felt a magnetic pull he couldn't explain. He didn't just see a girl; he saw a glitch in his perfectly curated, boring world. He didn't wait for his driver to open the door. He shoved it open himself, stepping out into the freezing downpour.
His expensive clothes was ruined in seconds, but he didn't care. His blue eyes were locked on the girl dancing in the street.
Celine was mid-turn, her arms outstretched like wings, when she felt it—that prickly sensation on the back of her neck that told her she was no longer alone. She stopped abruptly, the water splashing around her ankles.
She spun around, her wet hair clinging to her face, and her heart stopped.
She recognized him instantly.
Damon Thorne!
Every girl in school knew that face, but seeing him here, under the dim, flickering streetlights, he looked different. Darker. More intense. The rain slicked his hair back, making the sharp angles of his face look like they were carved from ice.
Panic flared in Celine's chest. "Did he see me? Did he see the dance?"
In her world, being seen was dangerous. Being noticed meant being caught. If a guy like him started looking into her, her "family's" secrets wouldn't last a day.
He took a step toward her, his hand reaching out as if to catch a dream before it faded.
"Wait," he called out, his voice barely audible over the roar of the storm.
Celine didn't wait.
The joy on her face vanished instantly, replaced by a look of pure, wide-eyed terror. She didn't think. She didn't breathe. She spun on her heel and bolted into the darkness.
"Wait!" he shouted louder, beginning to run after her.
But Celine knew these streets better than she let on. She dived into a narrow alleyway, her heart drumming a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She was faster than any human girl should be. By the time he reached the mouth of the alley, she was gone. Only the sound of falling rain and the distant splash of footsteps remained.
He stood at the edge of the shadows, drenched to the bone. He looked down and saw something shimmering on the wet pavement. He reached down and picked it up. It was a hair ribbon, soaked and heavy, but even in the dark, it felt like no fabric he had ever touched. It felt like moonlight.
He gripped it tightly in his fist, his blue eyes searching the darkness where she had disappeared.
Eventually, he went back to the car, ignored his driver's worried questions, and sat in the silence. He didn't know her name. He didn't know she sat four rows away from him in English class every morning. He only knew that for one minute, he had seen something real.
And he would find her again.