**Chapter 52 – The Storm Queen's Birthday**
**July 19th , 2029 – Hot Springs National Park, midnight**
I am eighteen today.
The sky knows it.
Lightning keeps writing my name in violet across the clouds like it's proud of me.
Remy planned everything (of course he did).
He blindfolded me at dusk, drove me up the mountain in his beat-up truck with the coyote sticker on the dash, and told me if I peeked he'd make Kayo sing karaoke for punishment.
When the blindfold came off, the entire ridge above the old quarry was lit up.
Thousands of paper lanterns floating in the trees like captured stars.
A long table made from old doors on sawhorses, covered in every food I've ever loved:
Grandma's tamales, Seras's burnt-edge brownies, Kayo's suspiciously perfect strawberry mochi, Rowan's attempt at peach cobbler that somehow isn't poisonous.
They're all here.
Seras in the armor but soft-glowing, crimson streak braided tonight with tiny gold bells that chime when she laughs.
Lucian wearing an actual button-down shirt (miracle) and holding a cake that is definitely on fire in a controlled, decorative way.
Kayo in a yukata covered in tiny blackbirds she definitely embroidered herself.
Rowan pretending he's not tearing up behind his glasses.
Remy stands at the head of the table in the same black tank and braids, barefoot because it's sacred ground, holding a small wooden box carved with coyote tracks.
Everyone goes quiet.
**Remy (voice rough, like he's been practicing this):**
"Storm queen,
eighteen years ago the sky cracked open and decided the world needed more thunder shaped like a girl.
We've been chasing your lightning ever since."
He opens the box.
Inside is the ring his grandmother gave me weeks ago (silver coyote track, black opal flashing lightning).
But now there's a second band beside it: matte black iron, inlaid with a single drop of stormglass that moves like living water.
**Remy:**
"One for the promise I made when we were fourteen and stupid.
One for the promise I'm making now that we're eighteen and only a little less stupid."
He drops to one knee.
The lanterns flicker.
Thunder rolls overhead like it's holding its breath.
**Remy:**
"Celeste Valentina Morau ,
will you keep letting me run beside your storm for the rest of our lives?"
I can't speak.
I just nod (hard, fast, tears already falling).
He slides both rings on my finger.
They fit like they were forged in the same breath I took the day I was born.
Seras whoops so loud the mountain echoes it.
Kayo tackles us both into a group hug that smells like foxfire and cinnamon.
Lucian claps Remy on the back hard enough to stagger a lesser man.
Rowan takes approximately nine hundred photos and definitely cries.
Later, when the cake is gone and the lanterns are drifting down to the lake like fireflies, Remy pulls me away from the others.
We stand on the edge of the quarry, water black and endless below us.
He laces our fingers (ring to ring).
**Remy (quiet):**
"Happy birthday, storm queen.
The sky's yours tonight.
Want to break it?"
I grin.
I raise my free hand.
The storm answers instantly (one perfect, world-shaking crack of lightning that forks into the shape of a coyote and a blackbird entwined).
The thunder that follows says forever.
Best birthday ever.
And the summer still has thirty days left.
**The Night the Lake Remembered**
**August 19, 2029 – Lake Ouachita, 2:47 a.m.**
The lake remembers everything.
Tonight it decides to remind us.
We're all half-asleep on the big floating dock (blankets, empty peach-cobbler tins, Kayo using Lucian's wing as a pillow).
The moon is a thin silver scar.
Remy's head is in my lap, braids loose and spread across my thighs like spilled ink.
Seras is curled against Lucian's side, armor dismissed, just a girl in an oversized hoodie with one glowing crimson streak.
Then the water starts singing.
Not metaphorically.
Actual voices (hundreds of them, layered like chords from drowned bells).
The surface ripples outward in perfect rings from the center of the lake.
Something rises.
Not a monster.
Worse.
It's us.
Six figures made of black water and starlight, exact copies of the six of us, standing on the surface like it's solid ground.
Water-Celeste tilts her head, eyes empty sockets of stormclouds.
Water-Remy's braids drip moonlight.
Water-Seras's crimson streak is liquid fire frozen mid-flame.
They speak with one voice that sounds like every secret we've ever buried.
**The Lake (through all six mouths):**
"You burned the sky.
You claimed the sun.
You bound thunder and fire and trickster and fox.
Now pay the toll.
One summer.
One memory.
One truth you never said aloud.
Give it freely, or we take everything."
Seras sits up first, hoodie sleeves sliding down her fists.
**Seras (quiet):**
"This is about the night I almost didn't come back from Atago, isn't it."
The Water-Seras smiles (too wide, too knowing).
Remy's already on his feet, claws half-out.
**Remy:**
"Name your price, old man.
But you don't get to scare them."
The lake laughs with our own voices.
**The Lake:**
"Truth for truth.
One from each.
Speak it here, where the water keeps no secrets."
Silence thicker than humidity.
I step forward first.
The dock creaks under my bare feet.
**Celeste:**
"I'm terrified that when summer ends I'll have to choose between this life and whatever comes after.
And I'm more terrified I already know which one I'll pick."
Lightning flickers across the sky (my heartbeat made visible).
Remy's hand finds mine without looking.
**Remy (voice raw):**
"I still have nightmares that one day I'll wake up and the coyote will have taken too much.
That I'll hurt you.
And you'll finally see the monster everyone warned you about."
His fingers tremble in mine (only I feel it).
Seras stands beside us, hoodie sleeves pushed up, fire licking her wrists.
**Seras:**
"I keep the armor on at night because I'm scared if I take it off I'll disappear again.
Like the girl I was before the mountain never actually existed."
Lucian's wings unfurl slow, sheltering all of us.
**Lucian:**
"I was ready to let the world burn if it meant keeping her warm.
I still am."
Kayo's tails flare, nine golden spears.
**Kayo:**
"I chose this family over the mountain that raised me.
Some nights I wake up tasting pine ash and wondering if they'll ever forgive me."
Rowan (quietest of all, voice cracking):**
"I'm only human and I'm still here.
Sometimes I think that makes me the bravest or the stupidest."
The water versions of us shimmer, faces softening.
**The Lake (gentler now):**
"Truth paid.
Memory kept.
Summer is yours.
All of it."
The figures dissolve into liquid starlight that rains upward, rejoining the sky.
The lake goes still.
Just water again.
We don't move for a long time.
Then Seras laughs (shaky, wet, perfect).
**Seras:**
"Well.
Therapy bill just went cosmic."
Remy pulls me down into the blankets, arms tight around me like he's anchoring us both.
**Remy (whisper against my neck):**
"Still not letting go, storm queen."
I kiss the coyote fang at his throat.
**Celeste:**
"Good.
Because I'm keeping all of you.
The lake can cry about it."
Above us, the stars rearrange themselves into one quiet sentence written in light:
SUMMER ISN'T OVER YET.
Eleven days left.
We're just getting started.