The nightmares return.
Elara jolts awake, drenched in sweat, her sheets tangled like vines around her legs. Her chest heaves as if she's been running. Again, the same dream: standing in the middle of the forest, branches clawing at her skin, a voice whispering her name from behind the trees — but when she turns, no one's there. Just eyes. Watching.
She blinks in the darkness of her room. 2:43 AM. The silence feels loaded. Too quiet.
Then she hears it. Soft. Faint. A scrape against her window.
Her breath catches. Slowly, she turns her head.
Nothing.
But she gets up anyway. Crosses the room. Pulls the curtain back.
Nothing but wind.
Still, her nerves are shot. She doesn't sleep again that night.
The next morning at school, Jace isn't in class.
Not in English. Not at lunch. Not even at their shared locker where he usually leans, waiting, smirking like he's been there forever.
Something's wrong.
Elara spends most of the day half-distracted, staring out windows, chewing the end of her pen until the plastic splits. By last period, she's had enough. She sneaks out before the bell, grabs her bike, and rides. Not home.
To the cliff.
The wind howls like it's trying to speak.
The path to the cottage feels longer this time. Trees twist and lean. The air feels heavier. Off.
When she finally pushes open the door to the ruined stone house, she finds a single scrap of paper sitting on the floor where the lockbox had been.
A note.
Scrawled in jagged handwriting:
"They know. Stop digging. Trust no one—not even me."
Her heart plummets.
Before she can even process what it means, the door creaks again — behind her.
She spins.
It's not Jace.
It's Ezra.
Ezra's not supposed to be here. He's a sophomore, lives on the other side of town, and barely knows her. But he's standing in the doorway of a place only she and Jace knew about.
"Elara," he says, voice low. "You shouldn't have come alone."
Her instincts flare. She steps back. "How do you know about this place?"
"I followed Jace once," Ezra says. "I didn't mean to, not at first. But when he disappeared down that trail, I got curious. And... I saw him hiding something here."
She doesn't speak.
Ezra kneels, tapping the empty floorboard. "The box was here, right? It's gone now."
"You've been watching us?"
"I had to," he says. "You don't understand what he is."
"What are you talking about?"
"He's not from here," Ezra says. "And I don't just mean he moved. I mean — he's not supposed to be here. He doesn't belong in this time."
The room spins.
"What?"
"I heard him talking one night," Ezra says. "Out loud. To no one. He said something about 'resetting the cycle' and 'not letting her remember.' And I swear, Elara — he said your name like it meant more than just... you."
Back home, Elara locks her bedroom door.
She pulls out her sketchbook. She's filled pages now — Jace's face, the cottage, the storm, the figure outside her window, always there but never clear. But tonight, her hands shake too badly to draw.
Instead, she pulls out her laptop. She searches Grayridge's town archives. Types in names. Dates.
Then she tries E.M. — the initials on the box.
Dozens of results.
But one catches her eye.
"Elias Monroe, 17, went missing 20 years ago. Last seen near the cliffs outside Grayridge. Presumed dead."
Seventeen. Same age as Jace.
She clicks the image.
Her blood runs cold.
It's him.
Or at least — it looks like him. Same eyes. Same smirk. The only difference is the old, grainy quality of the photo.
Elias Monroe is Jace Rowen. Or some version of him.
Her hands tremble.
The message he left her replays in her mind: Trust no one. Not even me.
At school the next day, he's back.
Sitting at their desk like nothing happened.
Elara doesn't sit. She stares at him. He looks up, his expression unreadable.
"You saw the note," he says quietly.
She nods.
"Then you know what I am."
She shakes her head. "No. I know what you were. Elias Monroe. You disappeared twenty years ago."
"Not disappeared," Jace — Elias — says. "Erased. On purpose."
"Why?"
He stands, takes her hand, leads her out of class without asking. The hallway stretches around them like a tunnel.
"Because," he says, "I loved someone I wasn't supposed to."
They end up back at the cliffs. The wind is fiercer. The ocean churns below like it's angry.
Elara hugs herself. "You were here before. You're here now. Why?"
"I was sent back," Jace says. "To fix something. But every time I get close, it resets. And I lose her again."
"Lose who?"
He looks at her like she's the answer.
"You."
Elara's mouth goes dry.
"I've lived this life before," he says. "Different faces. Different versions of this town. But always the same girl. Always you. And every time, you find out too much. Every time, you die."
Her knees buckle.
Jace catches her.
"But this time's different," he whispers. "This time I remembered before it was too late. I thought if I stayed away, you'd be safe."
"Ezra knows," she says. "He's watching you."
Jace's face darkens. "Ezra's not what he seems."
"He said you were dangerous."
Jace steps back. "He would."
"Why?"
"Because he's the one resetting the loop."
Silence.
Elara feels the earth shift under her feet.
"He's trying to fix a mistake," Jace says. "But he's gone too far. He's not doing it to save anyone anymore. He's doing it to stay in control."
Elara swallows. "And what am I?"
"You're the key," Jace says. "To stopping him."
"How?"
Jace pulls something from his coat pocket — a pendant, silver, shaped like a crescent moon.
"You wore this once. Before everything burned. It helped you remember. I've kept it through every reset."
He presses it into her hand.
The metal pulses warm.
Memories flicker behind her eyes — a fire, a scream, a promise whispered beneath stars.
Elara gasps.
Back home, she stares at herself in the mirror.
Same face.
New fear.
The pendant hangs around her neck.
Outside, thunder rumbles again.
The cycle is starting over.
But this time, she's ready.