James’s frantic voice rose above the sound of crashing rock and ringing bells, and I darted out of the carnival, covering my head instinctively. The ground shook beneath me, but there were no signs of the fallen stars. I smacked into James. “What’s going on?” I said, unable to keep the panic out of my voice. “I don’t know.” He wrapped his arm around me, and together we hurried back to the fire. “Whatever it is, I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The flames in the fire shook with each crash that echoed through the cavern, but the rocks weren’t landing in the field or the forest or anywhere near the carnival. Ava and Persephone stared upward into the sky, wearing identical expressions of alarm. If it wasn’t happening here, then where— Without warning, the world dropped out from around me, and I was on the surface again. Instead of the dense forest that surrounded Eden, I stood on a cliff overlooking the bluest water I’d ever seen as wave after wave rolled to the white shore.
