Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(98)
“Can you boost my concentration? It might clear my head.”
“Done,” he said as warmth trickled into her mind.
The extra energy snapped everything into focus. “He’s that way,” she said, pivoting in midair and running toward the densest part of the woods.
They sank lower as they moved, until their feet were skirting the tops of the withered trees.
“Down there,” she whispered, pointing to a small clearing.
The speckled leaves made a sickening squish as they touched down.
“He’s here somewhere—I can feel it,” she said as they combed the ground, kicking up the fallen leaves.
Several agonizing minutes passed before Fitz shouted, “I found him!”
Sophie raced to his side, feeling her stomach lurch when she saw the body lying in the shadow of the tallest, most shriveled tree.
The frail gnome’s eyes stared blankly ahead, and his skin was covered head to toe in the same speckles as the leaves.
“What do we do?” Fitz asked, shaking the gnome gently by the shoulders. “He’s breathing—but only barely.”
Sophie’s brain felt like it was trying to run in sixteen directions at once.
She took a breath. “Okay, we need to get him to the physician. Maybe he has some medicine that would make the gnome stronger. And then we’ll have to figure out how to get him to the quarantine in Lumenaria.”
“So back up the cliff?” Fitz asked.
“Yeah, is your levitating strong enough for that?”
“No idea.” Fitz scooped up the unconscious gnome. “When I jumped I just focused on your mind and followed your lead, like our Cognate training.”
“Well . . . I guess we should do the same thing again, then.”
Her panic fueled her push as she shoved against the forces in the air and launched straight up, with Fitz keeping pace beside her. The shouting grew to a deafening roar as they landed on the cliff’s ledge and faced the gathered crowd.
“We need the physician,” Sophie said, running toward the small tent.
The purple Coach blocked her. “You’re exposing us all.”
“The plague only affects gnomes and plants,” Sophie said, but she noticed the other Waywards were still scrambling away from her. “Please, this gnome needs help—it’s not going to hurt anyone.”
“Stay right there,” the physician called, shoving his way through the cluster of onlookers with the help of the red Coach. He helped Fitz set the gnome on the ground and checked the gnome’s pulse. “I’m not familiar with gnomish medicine. Even if I had a full apothecary, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Then we need to get him to Lumenaria—quickly,” Sophie told Fitz.
“That’s impossible,” the red Coach called from the front line of Waywards. “All of us are banished from the Lost Cities.”
“Who cares?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah, do you seriously think the Council will arrest us for delivering a sick gnome?” Fitz added.
Councillor Alina probably would, but Sophie decided not to mention that.
“Even if the Council would spare you,” the blue Coach said. “You’re forgetting that none of us have crystals to leap you there.”
“We don’t need a crystal,” Sophie told him.
And she was tired of wasting time.
She turned to Fitz, glad to see he was already ahead of her.
He lifted the gnome over his shoulder and carried him to the cliff’s edge.
“Lumenaria’s on the other side of the world,” the purple Coach told them. “You can’t levitate there.”
“No,” Sophie said, reaching for Fitz’s hand. “But we can teleport.”
They jumped without another word, holding tight to each other as thunder crashed and they slipped into the void.
Sophie started to envision Lumenaria, but all she could picture was the burly goblin guards, blocking the city’s gates with their deadly swords.
“Do you think the Council will have us arrested?” Sophie whispered.
“I don’t know,” Fitz admitted. “I want to say no—especially since we still have the cache. But last time we were around them it didn’t go so well.”
His hand moved to his chest, rubbing where the arthropleura barb had pierced him.
Sophie decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
She’d also realized there was a safer place they could take the gnome, where he could get medical treatment, and they could count on a few allies.
“Change of plans,” she said, then pictured their destination so vividly that white light cracked the darkness.
They launched out of the void and Sophie focused on the force of their fall, using her newfound levitating skills to make her first gentle landing.
Their feet touched down on the soft purple grass outside the glass pyramid in the center of the Foxfire campus.
FORTY-SEVEN
SOPHIE HAD NEVER thought she could feel more conspicuous than she had on her first day at Foxfire, when Dame Alina had literally shined a spotlight on her to introduce her to the other prodigies.
But as she and Fitz clomped through the glittering main building in their crazy Exillium uniforms, she felt like they might as well be carrying a sign that said WE DON’T BELONG HERE!