Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(113)

“You’re not planning on cooking me for dinner, right?” Sophie asked.

Calla laughed, and Sophie got a glimpse of why Keefe hid behind humor. Telling the joke had knocked loose the lump in her throat.

She followed Calla into the forest to a wide, bulbous tree dripping with flowering vines in every imaginable color. Nestled up against it was a small cooking area.

“Is this where you live?” Sophie asked as Calla started a fire within a circle of stones.

“I live among the forests. But this is where I rest.”

She hung a silver cauldron over the flames and brought Sophie a basket of vegetables. Some of them Sophie recognized. Most she didn’t. But Calla showed her how to slice them and add them in a specific order.

The air filled with familiar scents—caramelizing onions, simmering garlic, spicy peppers—and deeper earthier fragrances that made Sophie’s mouth water.

“Gnomes don’t eat much,” Calla said, ladling in water in slow intervals. “But when we do, we want it to count.”

She disappeared into her house and returned carrying two baskets, one overflowing with fresh herbs, the other filled with vials of colored powders. She made Sophie memorize each one, and the order it was added in. By the time she was done Sophie’s stomach was growling.

“Final ingredient,” Calla said. “The most important one.”

The starkflower could’ve won the prize for ugliest flower, between its curled, shriveled black petals and gray speckles.

“For centuries we ignored them,” Calla said. “But one day a blossom landed in my cooking pot, and this happened.”

She dropped the flower into the stew, and Sophie watched as all the color leeched out in streams of shiny black.

“Shadowvapor,” Calla explained, fishing out the blossom with the ladle to show her how it had turned gleaming white. The petals had also plumped, making the flower lush and hearty.

Looking at the pristine, shadowvaper-free flower reminded Sophie of the gleaming leaves of the Psionipath’s shielded tree.

Had it looked so bright and healthy because the plague was feasting on its shadowvapor?

“You look pale,” Calla said. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Of course,” Sophie promised. “I’m just getting hungry.”

She tried to smile as Calla served up heaping bowls of stew for everyone, and even remembered to invite Calla to join them for dinner.

But all she could think about was that she’d had the person causing all this pain trapped in a force field right in front of her.

And she’d let him get away.





FIFTY-FIVE


LET’S SEE WHAT torture Exillium has for us today,” Keefe said as they arrived on top of a blustery mesa. The desert basin below was nothing but cactus and scrub brush—no sign of the plague.

They made their way to the campus, and Sophie barely recognized the place.

New tents.

New mats.

Shiny new tables filled with . . .

“Is that breakfast?” Fitz pointed to the platters heaped with pastries covered in pink jam.

“Yes,” a voice said behind them, and they turned to find Sophie’s purple Coach. “We’ll be starting each day with a meal. And our lunch supply has vastly improved as well. I’ve also been told that six new Coaches are being chosen to assist us, as well as a team of goblin bodyguards for protection. Plus this.” She held up her new pendant—a leaping crystal with three glittering facets. “Our access to the Lost Cities is limited, but we as Coaches are no longer completely banished, to give us a better channel of communication. It appears the Council has decided to pay more attention to our program.”

She leaned closer to Sophie and added, “And I hear we have you to thank, Miss Foster.”

“You know my name?” Sophie asked.

“It will be impossible to forget a Wayward with friends on the Council—especially one who triggered these changes. I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years I’ve been here.”

“How many years is that?” Sophie asked, taking her small opportunity.

“Coming up on fifty. Seems too long, doesn’t it?”

Her Coach let out a wistful sigh, and Sophie tried to sound casual as she asked, “So does that mean you were one of the Coaches who ejected a rebellious Psionipath a few years ago?”

Her Coach’s back straightened. “Why?”

“I need to find him.” She moved closer and whispered. “He’s involved with what’s happening to the gnomes.”

Her Coach didn’t move.

Sophie wondered if she was still breathing.

“You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?” Sophie asked.

“I might,” her Coach whispered. “But he was ejected. That’s where my knowledge ends.”

“What about his name?” Sophie pressed. “You know mine now. Did you know his?”

“I’m sorry,” her Coach said. “I can’t help you.”

“Do you know someone who can? Maybe the other Coaches?”

“I can ask them. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“I have to,” Sophie told her. “Hope is all we have left.”


When she got home from Exillium, Sophie used the afternoon to study the maps Lord Cassius had found. She hadn’t told Keefe where they came from—and she didn’t want him asking too many questions—so she hid in her bedroom and spread them across the floor.