Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(118)

All Sophie could do was stare at her feet.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Fitz whispered to her.

“Dude, you don’t get to ask that,” Keefe told him.

“If you want to read the note we can go right now,” Sophie told Keefe. “I have it hidden in my room.”

Keefe shook his head. “Just tell me what it says.”

“It says, ‘Dear Keefe, I’m doing this for you. Love, Mom,’?” Mr. Forkle told him when Sophie hesitated.

Keefe mouthed the words to himself, over and over and over. Finally he asked, “Doing what for me?”

“She didn’t say.” Sophie tried for his hand again and he jumped off his toadstool and backed away. “No—you lied to me.”

“I know,” Sophie whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough!”

“Come on, it’s not her you’re mad it,” Fitz said. “I know—I’ve been there.”

“Have you? Because I seem to remember you having a bummer few weeks and then everything went back to perfect Vacker-land. So where’s my perfect fix? Why does it just keep spiraling and spiraling and spiraling?”

“How can we help?” Sophie asked as he covered his face with his hands.

“Right now? You can leave me alone.” He turned and stalked away.

The glowing mushrooms turned to a blur in Sophie’s eyes.

Her tears felt cold.

Everything felt cold.

“Come on,” Fitz said, draping his arm around Sophie’s shoulders. That was when she realized she was shaking.

He’d only led her a few steps before Sophie stopped and turned back to Mr. Forkle.

“If you let Lord Cassius join the Black Swan, I’m out.”

“Me too,” Fitz said.

“It’s not about who we want to work with,” Mr. Forkle told them. “It’s about putting aside differences for the greater good.”

“I don’t care!”

“I understand your anger, Miss Foster. I feel the same way every time I see Ms. Vacker sitting at Prentice’s bedside. But I still let her sit there.”

“My mom had nothing to do with what happened to him.”

“I know that in my head, but not my heart. Emotion isn’t logical. All I can control is how I act. Remember the oath you each swore when you joined us? You swore to do everything in your power to help your world. That includes relying on those we do not like, if they can help with something we need.”


Sophie gave Fitz the note from Keefe’s mom. He promised to slip it under Keefe’s door if he didn’t answer. Sleep felt impossible, so Sophie checked on Silveny, watching the alicorn’s memories of when Silveny told Greyfell he was going to be a daddy.

The joy that sparked in Greyfell’s eyes was one of the purest, most beautiful things Sophie had ever seen. It made her wonder what Lord Cassius had looked like when he discovered Lady Gisela was pregnant with Keefe.

Could a tiny bit of that spark have been there?

She hoped so.

She tossed and turned for another hour, then wandered to her window. She knew Keefe didn’t want to talk to her, but when she saw his lights on she couldn’t walk away.

It cost her three pairs of shoes to get his attention, and he refused to open the window. Fortunately, she’d prepared for that with a premade sign.

I’M HERE.

Time seemed to slow down as Keefe stared at the words.

He didn’t look at her as he turned away, and her heart crashed like stone. But he turned back a second later, holding his blanket and a pillow. No smile, but it was still an invitation.

Sophie raced to grab hers, and they both set up for another window slumber party, each leaning against the glass.

The distance between them had never felt so enormous.

But Sophie was willing to settle for “close enough.”





FIFTY-EIGHT


KEEFE WAS SILENT at breakfast, and the meal became awkward with a side of miserable. Dex and Biana were smart enough not to ask what was going on.

Keefe disappeared into his room the second he was done eating. The rest of them moved to the boys’ common room to work. Dex was hammering tiny stone wheels—apparently he and Blur had decided that was the best way to add them to the Twiggler. Biana and Calla worked by the windows, testing to see how long Biana could fool Calla’s eyes. And Fitz and Sophie plopped into the boulder beanbag chairs for another Cognate exercise.

The next assignment was called Trigger Cues, a trick to make them more efficient at probing memories. Apparently each elvin mind was filled with tiny threadlike trails, and Telepaths could learn to follow them to something called a “cue.”

The more uncomfortable the trail felt to navigate, the more the person had tried to hide the truth at the end. Their assignment was to follow a difficult path and say the cue out loud. The shock of hearing it was supposed to trigger some sort of mental reaction that would uncover the secret to the other person.

Fitz let Sophie go first, and she chose a trail that felt like crawling through an itchy wool sweater. Waiting at the end were two words: Barcelona, Spain. When she spoke them, Fitz’s mind filled with a boy’s startled face—obviously a human boy, based on his clothes. He shouted, “?Imposible!” and chased Fitz through the busy streets.