Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(88)

“Not at all,” Della said. “It’s exhausting, of course, and there are a few moments where it’s difficult to find a comfortable position. But then they hand you your beautiful baby, and the baby gazes up at you and says hello, and your heart just melts.”

“It talks?” Sophie asked, then remembered Alden telling her months earlier that elvin babies spoke from birth. It sounded even stranger now that she could picture it.

“Your speaking caused quite the uproar,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though luckily no one could understand the Enlightened Language, so they thought you were babbling. I spent the majority of your infancy inventing excuses for the elvin things you did.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, wishing he’d stop with the weird-info overload. “But what I mean is . . . I’ve been counting my age from my birthday.”

Mr. Forkle didn’t look surprised.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“How could I? Humans built everything around their birthdays. As long as you were living with them I had to let you do the same. And since you’ve been in the Lost Cities, we’ve had so little contact. I assumed someone would notice, since your proper ID is on your Foxfire record—and in the registry. But I don’t think anyone realized you were counting differently.”

“Alden wouldn’t have thought to check,” Della agreed. “Neither of us knew humans didn’t count inception.”

“So wait,” Biana jumped in, “does that mean that by our rules Sophie is—”

“Thirty-nine weeks older than she’s been saying,” Mr. Forkle finished for her.

Fitz cocked his head as he stared at Sophie, like everything had turned sideways. “So then you’re not thirteen . . .”

“Not according to the way we count,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Going by Sophie’s ID, she’s fourteen and a little more than five months old.”

Keefe laughed. “Only Foster would find a way to age nine months in a day. Also, welcome to the cool fourteen-year-olds club!”

He held out his hand for a high five.

Sophie was too stunned to return it.

“Please try not to stress, Miss Foster. Nothing has actually changed. You’re the exact same girl you were a few minutes ago. You’re simply learning the proper way of counting.”

She knew he was right—but it felt so much huger than that.

Especially when Biana said, “Huh, so you’re older than me.”

Based on their IDs, Biana was a little more than thirteen-and-a-half. Dex was also thirteen, but he would be fourteen in a few weeks. Keefe was less than a month away from turning fifteen, and Fitz was about two months away from turning sixteen.

“So, you’re kind of in the middle,” Dex said. “But you and I are still the closest in age.”

He was right—though now she was six months older than him. And the gap between her and Keefe and Fitz had narrowed significantly.

“Wait—was I in the wrong level in Foxfire?” Sophie asked.

“Your age falls in the middle of the grade level brackets,” Mr. Forkle said. So you could’ve started as a Level Two just as easily as a Level Three. And given how behind you were from your human education, you needed the time to catch up.”

“I guess,” Sophie said, still fighting to squish all this huge information into her already full brain.

So . . . she was fourteen—as far as elves were concerned. Almost halfway to fifteen.

“Why do humans count age differently?” Biana asked.

“I suspect it’s partly because their bodies do not have such a clear indication of the moment of inception the way ours do,” Mr. Forkle said. “And partly because their pregnancies are much more uncertain. Humans miscarry all the time, at any stage of the pregnancy.”

Della clutched her stomach, like the very idea pained her.

“I know,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Sophie’s mother lost five babies before she sought my help. And while I was working at the clinic I met hundreds of women like her. The most heartbreaking part was that I could’ve fixed them all with a few elixirs—much like I did with your mother. She had no trouble having your sister after you, right?”

Sophie nodded. “So why didn’t you help them?”

“Because humans lost the right to our assistance when they violated our treaty and prepared for war. We even tried to help them secretly afterward. But they took the gifts we gave them and twisted them into weapons, or bargaining chips for their political agendas, or soggy, chemical-filled Twinkies. So I understand why we had to stop. But it was hard to watch.”

“I bet,” Della said, still holding her middle. “Humans are such temporary creatures.”

“They are indeed,” Granite said. “I’ve often pondered what it would be like to live each day knowing you only have seventy or eighty years on this planet. I wonder if that’s the real reason they wait those nine months and begin their timeline at birth. Once their clock starts ticking, there’s no turning it back.”

“That was one of the most striking things I noticed during my years living among them,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Each generation dumps their problems on the next because they simply do not have enough time to deal with them. I suspect that if they could see a bigger picture, they would not destroy themselves and their planet the same way.”