Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(16)

“Please,” she whispered, “you have to protect your mind, Keefe. We both do.”

“Okay,” he said after a painful silence. “So we catch these guys and make them pay for what they’ve done.”

“Can you really do that?” Sophie asked. “I mean . . . it’s your mom. I know you think it won’t matter, but—”

“It won’t. She used me. Tried to kill me. Tried to kill my friends—and don’t say she saved Biana on Mount Everest—”

“But she did! They would’ve rolled off that cliff if she hadn’t stopped them.”

“Right, so she was saving herself, and Biana was lucky enough to benefit.”

Sophie wanted to argue, but she could tell it wouldn’t help.

Plus . . . maybe Keefe needed to hold on to his anger. Anger was safer.

“If you ever need to talk,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” he whispered back, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. His arms tightened ever so slightly, making her heart switch to hummingbird pace.

“Listen, Sophie, I—”

“You’re still wearing your Sucker Punch,” Dex interrupted as his eckodon caught up with them. “If he’s annoying you, just knock him off with a good backhand.”

“Man, one second you’re sharing your air with a dude, and the next second he’s trying to get you punched in the face,” Keefe mumbled.

“Isn’t that pretty much what everyone wants to do after they meet you?” Fitz asked as he and Biana swam up beside them on their eckodons.

“Keep it up, dude. You’re just adding to my list of reasons to punish you,” Keefe warned.

Fitz shrugged. “Bring it on.”

“You guys are ridiculous,” Biana said, staring at the glinting rocks of the cave above them. “Does anyone know where we are?”

“Yes,” Mr. Forkle called from up ahead. “Your new home.”





SEVEN


THE DWARVES CALL this cavern Alluveterre,” Mr. Forkle said as he slowed his eckodon to let Sophie and her friends catch up. “Which in dwarven means—”

“The sands of dawn,” Sophie translated.

Keefe laughed. “Always gotta show off.”

Mr. Forkle ignored him. “The dwarves view this place as a testimony of our planet’s power to re-create itself. Above us is a barren wasteland of human pollution and destruction. But look what has surged to life in the safety below, thanks to a little light and a little peace. The dwarven king brought me here when I revealed the existence of our organization. He thought it would be the perfect place for us to make a fresh start.”

“So King Enki is on our side?” Della asked.

“He’s not against the Council, if that’s what you’re wondering. But he has felt for some time that the Councillors’ methods are not working. Many dwarves have offered their assistance—though at the moment most have returned to their cities. They need time to mourn their friends who fell in the battle on Mount Everest, and to treat their wounded.”

Sophie tried to remember how many dwarves had died that day—was it three? Four?

She hated that she didn’t know—hated how easy it was to focus only on the people she knew, and forget that there were dozens of others risking their lives for the Black Swan’s cause.

Before she could ask how the injured dwarves were doing, Mr. Forkle said, “Here are your new residences.”

He pointed ahead, to where an arched bridge with a black gazebo in the center connected two enormous trees standing on either side of the river. Their trunks had been wrapped in wooden staircases that wound up to the tallest branches, where two massive tree houses overlooked the entire forest.

“The residence on the east is for the girls. And the west is for the boys. The bridge in the center has a common area for you to share meals together.”

“See, I think a group party house sounds way more fun. Who’s with me?” Keefe asked.

Nobody agreed—though Dex looked like he wanted to. So did Biana.

The eckodons crawled ashore, and Sophie transmitted, Thank you, as she and Keefe slid off her plesiosaur’s back. Three gnomes popped out of the bushes to greet them, flashing wide, green-toothed smiles and shaking the leaves off their earth-toned skin as they set a bucket of nasty wriggling things in front of each eckodon. Sophie had thought the sludgers she fed Iggy, her pet imp, were disgusting. But these looked like the evil spawn of scorpions and maggots.

“Larvagorns,” a gnome with long braided hair said as the eckodons gobbled the creepy-crawlers up like candy. “Believe it or not, the dwarves consider them a rare delicacy.”

Sophie was very glad to be an elf. The squisssssssssssssh-CRUNCH alone made her gag.

“I thought we trained animals to be vegetarians,” Biana mumbled.

“Only the ones we keep at the Sanctuary,” Della said. “It would be pointless to bring them there for preservation, only to have them hunt each other. But those in the wild are free to choose their own diets.”

“So these things seriously live around humans?” Sophie asked as the eckodons licked the bug slime off their chops and waded back into the river.

“Technically,” Mr. Forkle said, “they live in underwater caverns. And they swim far too fast for humans to spot them or catch them. Still, we make sure they’re safe and undetected. And one of these days we will catch that tricky lake dweller who keeps making headlines.”