All Chapters of Moonbound: Chapter 211 - Chapter 220

Nobody spoke.For one impossible heartbeat, Emily forgot how to breathe.Michael stood beneath the golden tree exactly where he had always stood whenever the family needed someone to make the world feel ordinary. His clothes were the same. His face was the same. His hands were the same hands that had held Emily as a child, the same hands that had fixed broken toys, carried boxes, planted flowers beside Sarah, and wiped tears from Emily's face when she was too young to understand why she was hurting.But his eyes were silver.Not the pale silver of Luna.Not the reflective silver of Nova.Not the impossible silver of the girl standing beside Kael.These were older.They looked like the first light that had ever existed.Emily whispered his name."Dad?"Michael looked at her.And his expression broke.The silver disappeared from his eyes.For a moment, he was simply Michael again.Her father.The man who had made pancakes on Sunday mornings.The man who had taught her how to ride a bike

:Emily could not move.The little girl stood on the other side of the doorway, holding the silver crescent between both hands.She looked about six years old.Her hair was dark, almost black, but threaded through it were tiny strands of silver that caught the nonexistent light around them. Her eyes were Emily's eyes. Not merely similar. They carried the same warmth, the same stubbornness, the same strange ability to look at something impossible and refuse to be frightened by it.But there was something else.Something Emily had never seen in her own reflection.Loneliness.The kind that came from waiting for something for so long that you began to wonder whether it would ever arrive.Emily took a step forward."Who are you?"The girl smiled."I told you."Her voice was soft."I'm the daughter you haven't chosen yet."Kael moved closer to Emily."That doesn't make sense."The girl looked at him."Neither did you."Kael stopped.Hope laughed quietly.Emily glanced at her."You know her

The universe moved.Not metaphorically.Not like the stars shifting or worlds turning.The universe itself moved.Emily felt the ground disappear beneath her feet as the entire new creation seemed to inhale. The golden tree bent toward the darkness. The silver branches twisted together. Every world Evelyn and Eli had created drifted closer to the center, as though something outside existence had reached through the fabric of reality and pulled everything toward a single point.Kael grabbed Emily."Hold on."Emily grabbed Selene with one arm and reached for Evelyn with the other.Aria caught Luna.Michael pulled Sarah close.Ethan reached for Nova.Eli grabbed Hope's hand.The First Daughter shouted something, but the sound disappeared beneath the roar of the collapsing sky."What is happening?" Luna cried.Eli looked upward.His face was white."The future is moving."Tomorrow shook his head."No."Eli looked at him.Tomorrow's eyes were filled with terror."It's not the future."He p

Emily forgot about the darkness.She forgot about the final memory, the future Evelyn, the black star, and the terrible possibility that one day every person she loved might become nothing more than a memory.Because standing in front of her was Sarah Carter.Not the woman who had raised her.Not the mother who had tucked her into bed, packed her lunches, and held her through nightmares.This Sarah looked barely twenty. Her dark hair fell past her shoulders, her face was free of the lines Emily had come to associate with home, and her eyes held a light that had been absent from them for as long as Emily could remember.She looked young enough to be Emily's sister.But her expression was unmistakable.It was the expression Sarah wore whenever she was about to tell Emily something she had kept hidden for far too long.Emily crossed the distance between them."Mom?"Young Sarah smiled, but tears already shimmered in her eyes."Hello, sweetheart."Emily stopped breathing.Nobody had calle

Emily couldn't look away from the vision.Future Evelyn stood beneath a sky filled with broken stars, her silver crown casting shadows across a painfully familiar face. Beside her, Gabriel held out his hand, and Evelyn took it as though she had been waiting for him her entire life.Then the vision disappeared.Emily stared at the empty space where it had been.“No.”Gabriel tilted his head.“Still refusing to believe what you see? You really are your mother's daughter.”“That's not my future.”“Isn't it?”“No!”Emily's voice sent a shockwave through the darkness. Silver light burst from her fingertips, and the black star shuddered.Gabriel's smile faded.For one brief moment, Emily saw something flicker behind his eyes.Fear.It vanished almost immediately, but not before Kael noticed.He moved closer to Emily, positioning himself between her and Gabriel.“Whatever game you're playing,” Kael said quietly, “you've made one mistake.”Gabriel glanced at him.“And what would that be?”“Yo