“Not really. After they said the thing about Nightfall, the house got super quiet. I waited another couple of minutes to make sure it was safe, and then I ran for Mom’s phone and called 911. I was scared the police would take me if they knew I was here alone, so I said I was walking by the house and saw men dragging two people away. I hid in the trees when the cops showed up—but maybe that was a bad idea. I heard them say they thought my call was a prank, since there were no signs of robbery. One of them said something about following up in a few days, but so far, I haven’t seen them.”
“How long ago was that?” Fitz asked.
Her chin wobbled. “Five days.”
Keefe looked like he was trying hard not to swear. Sophie felt like doing the same—or punching the walls and screaming as loud as she could.
“You don’t think it’s too late, do you?” her sister whispered. “You don’t think they’re . . . ?”
“No.” Sophie let the word echo around her mind until she believed it. “The Neverseen need them alive.”
“Who are the Neverseen?” her sister asked. “What do they want with Mom and Dad?”
“I wish I knew,” Sophie admitted. “But they won’t kill them.”
At least not yet.
The Neverseen had been trying to control Sophie since they’d first learned she existed, so she was sure they’d use her parents as the worst sort of blackmail. But there had to be more to it. Otherwise they would’ve let her know the second they had their prisoners.
At least the Neverseen didn’t know her sister heard them say they were going to Nightfall. All they had to do was find that door—and Sophie was pretty sure she knew how to do that.
She just wished it didn’t involve trusting one of their enemies.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Keefe told her. “And I’m in. All the way.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Fitz said, pointing toward the windows, where the sky was fading to twilight. “First, we need to get out of here. They probably have someone watching this place, waiting for us to show up.”
Sophie nodded to her sister. “Go pack a bag as quick as you can. You’re coming with me.”
“Uh, that’s way too dangerous,” Fitz warned. “If the Council found out—”
“They won’t,” Sophie interrupted. “As soon as we get back, I’ll hail the Collective.”
The Black Swan—the rebel organization that created Sophie—had an extensive network of secret hideouts. And they’d always come through when Sophie needed their help.
Then again, that was before Mr. Forkle was . . .
This time, she couldn’t stop her brain from finishing the sentence with “murdered.”
She pressed her palm over her chest, feeling for the new locket under her tunic, which held the last task Mr. Forkle had entrusted her with before he took his final breaths.
When an elf passed away, they coiled their DNA around a Wanderling seed and planted it in a special forest. But Mr. Forkle had asked Sophie to hold on to his seed, claiming she’d somehow know when and where to do the planting. He’d also asked that his body be removed from the rubble before anyone saw it, which meant only a handful of people knew he’d been killed. But the rest of their world would find out soon enough. The Council had extended Foxfire’s midterm break in light of the tragedy in Lumenaria—but school was scheduled to restart in less than two weeks. And one of Mr. Forkle’s secret alter egos had been principal of the academy.
Keefe moved closer, leaning in to whisper, “I’ll take care of your sister, Foster. The place I’m crashing in is small—and it smells like sasquatch breath mixed with rotting toenails. But I guarantee no one will find us.”
Keefe had been living on the run ever since he’d fled the Neverseen—and his offer wasn’t a horrible suggestion. But Sophie wasn’t letting her sister out of her sight.
“She’s coming with me to Havenfield. We’ll figure out the rest once we get there.”
“Uh, I’m not going anywhere with a bunch of strangers,” her sister informed them.
The last word stung more than Sophie wanted to admit, but she did her best to shrug it off. “Do you really think you’re safe here? Even if the Neverseen don’t come back, the police might. Do you want to end up in foster care?”
Her sister bit her lip, leaving indentations in the soft flesh. “What about Marty and Watson? Who’s going to feed them?”
Sophie’s eyes prickled. “You still have Marty?”
The fluffy gray cat used to sleep on her pillow every night, and it had broken her heart to leave him behind. But she’d figured her family would need him. And Watson must’ve been the dog she’d heard barking when they’d first arrived. Sophie had asked the elves to move her family somewhere with a yard big enough to allow them to finally get the puppy her sister had always wanted.
“I guess we’ll bring them with us,” Sophie decided. “Get Watson on a leash and put Marty in his carrier.”
“Okay, seriously, we can’t do this,” Fitz said, reaching for Sophie’s hands to force her to listen to him. “You don’t understand how dangerous this is.”
“It’ll be fine,” Sophie insisted. “The Black Swan will keep her hidden.”
“The Black Swan,” her sister whispered. “Wait. I think . . . I think they said something about that. Everything was happening so fast, it’s hard to remember. But I think one of them said, ‘Let’s figure out why the Black Swan chose them.’ ”
Sophie shared another look with her friends.
“I take it you guys know what that means?” her sister asked.
“It . . . might be about me,” Sophie said. “It’s part of that long story I have to tell you—but we should get out of here first.”
She tried to reach for her home crystal, but Fitz wouldn’t let go of her hands.
“You’re not understanding what I’m saying,” he told her. “Do you have any idea how risky it is to light leap with a human?”
He’d kept his voice low, but her sister still snapped, “What do you mean a human?”
“Exactly what you think he means,” a slightly deeper, even crisper voice said from the doorway.
Everyone whipped around to find the three others who’d insisted on joining Sophie, Keefe, and Fitz on this hastily planned—and highly illegal—excursion to the Forbidden Cities. Fitz’s father, Alden, who looked like an older, more regal version of his son. And Sandor and Grizel, who instantly triggered a massive amount of screaming.
“It’s okay,” Sophie promised. “They’re our bodyguards.”
That only seemed to make her sister scream louder.
To be fair, both Sandor and Grizel were seven feet tall and gray, with flat noses and massive amounts of rock-hard muscle—plus gigantic black swords strapped at their sides.
“Wh-what are th-they?” her sister stammered.
“Goblins,” Sandor said in his unexpectedly high-pitched, squeaky voice.
“And we mean you no harm,” Grizel added in her huskier tone.
A hysterical laugh burbled from her sister’s lips. “Goblins. Like from the bank in Harry Potter?”
Fitz grinned. “She sounds like Sophie did when I first told her she was an elf.”
The word triggered another round of hysterical laughter.
“Okay, so two things,” Keefe jumped in. “One: How is she understanding us? I just realized we’ve all been speaking the Enlightened Language, and she has too.”
“I gave her—and her parents—a basic understanding of our language before we relocated them,” Alden explained. “In case something like this ever happened. Communication can be a powerful weapon, and an essential defense.”
“What is he talking about?” her sister shouted. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BRAIN?”
“That’s the second thing,” Keefe said, fanning his arm the way he always did when he was reading emotions through the air. “I’m betting your sister is about three minutes away from a meltdown of epic proportions.”
/>
“I’d wager it’ll be sooner than that,” Alden said through a sigh. “This is exactly the kind of worst-case scenario I hoped we’d never have to face. Fortunately, I came prepared.”
“What are you doing?” Sophie asked, yanking her hands free from Fitz as Alden reached into the inner pocket of his long blue cape. She’d been afraid he’d pull out a vial of sedatives. But the round silver disk he tossed at her feet was much more terrifying.
Sophie had used the same gadget the day she’d drugged her family so the elves could erase her. And as the world spun to a blur, she realized she should’ve held her breath the second the disk hit the floor.
“Please,” she begged when her sister collapsed. “She’s going to need me. You can’t erase me from her life again.”
Keefe lunged to help Sophie, but only lasted a second before he went down. Fitz followed a second after that.
Sophie’s knees gave out, but she crawled for her sister, pleading with Alden to change his plan. He’d always been so kind to her—a loyal, trustworthy advisor. Almost a father figure. But his face was sad and serious as he released the breath he’d been holding. “Don’t fight the sedatives, Sophie. You can’t beat them.”
He said something else, but she couldn’t understand him. Her ears were ringing, and the light kept dimming.
She hated this feeling—hated Alden for putting her through it. But she couldn’t focus enough to rally any of her defenses.
“Please,” she said again as her face sank against the carpet. “Please don’t take my sister away from me. Not again.”
Through her hazy eyes she saw Alden crouch beside her, his lips mouthing, I’m sorry.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
Two
WAKE UP, SOPHIE.”
The words floated around her mind, starting out muffled and growing louder and louder. Sophie wanted to shove the voice away—wanted to curl up within herself and never be dragged back to face whatever reality was waiting for her. But then the voice added, “There’s no reason to worry,” and she rushed back to consciousness in a wave of fury.
She only knew one person who used that expression. The same person she wanted to punch as hard as she could—which was pretty darn hard, thanks to the Sucker Punch gadget clamped around her wrist.
A pale blue glow stung her corneas as she ripped open her eyes and found herself in a dimly lit sitting room filled with fancy furniture that was so pristine, it looked like it had never been used. Alden sat across from her in a plush silver armchair, and his hair and clothes were uncharacteristically disheveled.
“Where’s my sister?” Her head felt like a T. rex had been chewing on it, and her mouth might as well have been covered in fur.
“Sleeping peacefully in the next room,” Alden promised. “Grizel brought Fitz and Keefe back to Everglen. And Sandor—of course—insisted on staying by your side.”
Sandor nodded from the shadows in the corner.
“As for your sister’s pets,” Alden added, holding up his arms to show her the shredded sleeves of his tunic. “We brought them with us—though they were not happy about it.”
“At least they could put up a fight,” Sophie muttered.
“I thought that might be your response. So let me assure you that your sister’s memories have not been altered.”
She waited for him to say, yet. When he didn’t, she relaxed her grip, realizing she’d been squeezing a velvet cushion from the long black sofa she lay stretched out on.
Alden handed her a bottle of Youth—the special water that elves drank for its unique enzymes. “You must be thirsty.”
“Yeah, that happens when someone drugs you.”
She was tempted to dump the bottle over his head. But her throat felt like it had been lined with crumpled paper, so she sat up and chugged a huge gulp, letting the cool sweetness clear her foggy mind.
“I know you’re angry,” Alden said, “and you have every right to be. But your sister was seconds away from a breakdown, and it would’ve been impossible to leap her in such a frantic state. Fitz wasn’t exaggerating when he said that light leaping with humans is risky—even under ideal circumstances. Not only is their concentration weak, but they tend to panic as their bodies split apart and their instincts tell them to fight our assistance. So given her hysteria, the only way to move her safely was to render her unconscious.”
“That doesn’t explain why you drugged me,” she argued.
Alden leaned back in his chair. “Tell me this: Do you think your sister would’ve ever willingly taken a sedative?”
“Probably not.”
“I agree. And who do you think she’ll be more likely to forgive after being sedated without her permission? A sister who was drugged right along with her? Or a sister who stood by and let it happen?”
Sophie really hated that he’d made a good point.
“And what happens now?” she asked, studying the dim room again. Most of the elvin houses she’d seen were bright and airy, with tons of windows and chandeliers. But the only light came from a single sconce set onto the crystal wall, flickering with a small flame of blue balefire.
“Now we wait for your sister to wake up—which should be soon—and then you’ll explain all the arrangements I’ve made. It took me most of the night to get everything settled.”
“Wait—how long was I unconscious?”
“A little more than fourteen hours.”
FOURTEEN HOURS?!
“Don’t worry,” Sandor said from the corner. “I let Grady and Edaline know you’re safe and that I’ll be bringing you home later.”
“Thank you,” Sophie told him, glad to hear her adoptive parents weren’t worrying. “But why didn’t someone wake me up sooner? I could’ve—”
“Done what, exactly?” Alden interrupted. “Contacted Keefe’s mother?”
Sophie refused to flinch, even if she was surprised that he’d guessed her plan. “Lady Gisela’s the only one who knows where Nightfall is.”
“Indeed. And I believe she warned you that the next time you contacted her, you needed to use her son’s blood.”
Keefe’s mom had altered his Imparter, adding a listening device and a special sensor that accessed a secret channel when smeared with Keefe’s blood. Dex had bypassed the blood sensor once, but Keefe’s mom had made it clear during their brief conversation that she wouldn’t answer again unless they reached out the creepy way.
“I have no doubt that Keefe will do anything to help,” Alden continued. “But that request does not bode well for what her assistance will cost. Let’s also not forget that there’s a good chance the abduction of your family was part of her original plan.”
“I know,” Sophie mumbled, choking down the sourness in her throat. “I’m still figuring out what to do about all of that. Maybe I would’ve made more progress if I’d been able to talk to my friends, instead of being drugged for the last fourteen hours!”
Alden fidgeted with his shredded sleeves. “I truly am sorry for the lost time. But I didn’t want to wake you until I had your sister settled. I know you wanted to hide her with the Black Swan, since you’ve grown to rely on their order—”
“I’m part of their order,” Sophie corrected, holding up the swan-neck monocle she’d earned when she swore fealty several months earlier. “So are your son and daughter. And your wife.”
“Which makes me very proud of my family,” Alden said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that the Black Swan is in turmoil. After losing Mr. Forkle”—he paused, as if mentioning the name merited a moment of silence—“the remaining Collective members need time to put into practice whatever contingency plan he mentioned. I reached out to Tiergan tonight, and he assured me that the Black Swan will work tirelessly to help you find your human parents. But he also agreed that the order is currently incapable of providing any sort of stable home.”
“If Tiergan doesn’t think my sister should stay with the Black Swan, I wouldn’t have argued.”
> “And what about when I tell you that the only reasonable alternative is to place her somewhere that will be very difficult for you to visit?”
He pointed to the crystal set into an etched silver loop in Sophie’s choker-style necklace—an elvin registry pendant, which tracked and recorded her every move. “The Black Swan’s Technopath has scrambled our signals for the next few hours. But we can only pull that trick so many times, and this apartment is an incredibly valuable secret. Tremendous lengths were taken to keep this fifty-first floor concealed—and how long do you think it would take before the Council came to investigate why you’ve been frequenting this building?”
“If you think I’m going to leave my sister alone—”
“Of course not,” Alden interrupted. “I’ve arranged for her to live with guardians—temporary guardians,” he clarified when Sophie cringed. “None of these arrangements are meant to be permanent. I’m simply trying to create a safe, stable environment for your sister until we reunite her with her parents.”
“And then what happens?” Sophie had to ask. “Are you going to wash their minds again?”
“I haven’t planned that far ahead. And neither should you.” He reached for her hand. “I know how painful it was for you to let yourself be erased last time, so I understand why you don’t want to live through that again. But—”
“This isn’t just about me,” she jumped in, pausing to chase down the words to explain what she was slowly realizing. “My family is a part of this—whether we want them to be or not. And I think they need to know that. Maybe they would’ve done something differently when they heard the Neverseen in their house if they’d known that someone might come after them. Think about it. My sister found a way to keep her thoughts quiet enough that Gethen couldn’t find her—and the only reason she was able to do that is because you gave her a way to understand what they were saying.”
“Yes, but allowing them to have a subconscious knowledge of our language is a very different thing than leaving them consciously aware of our world. Do you really think they could keep that kind of secret and go about life as normal? Or that they’d be okay with the fact that someone else has adopted their daughter?”