Nightfall

by Shannon Messenger

  “I can help,” Fitz offered, tightening his hold on her hand when he noticed the way Sophie had started shaking. “We all can. We’ll write it up like a script that you just have to memorize and deliver. I’m sure it’ll only take us a couple of days to get it all worked out.”

  “That’s an excellent suggestion,” Mr. Forkle told him. “But . . . I’d like to ask a favor. I want to be there for every stage of Prentice’s healing—especially the first one, when he’ll be the most vulnerable. And with Foxfire resuming session, I have too many responsibilities as Magnate Leto for me to be anywhere other than my office for at least the next week. I can still work on these,” he promised, tapping the journals. “But I can’t be sneaking away to where Prentice is staying. I’m sorry—I know it’s an incredibly selfish request. If I could still be two places at once . . .”

  His voice cracked and he turned away, shaking his head.

  Tiergan moved closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “It’s not selfish. We all want to be there for this. And I’m sure the more time Sophie has to prepare for the conversation, the better. So how about we wait until everyone survives the first week of Foxfire? And in the meantime, we’ll focus hard on these other projects.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “But I think we need to tell Wylie today,” Linh added quietly. “He should know what we’ve learned about his mom—and that we’re scheduling his father’s healing—in case he wants us to wait.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Tiergan agreed.

  “Do you think Cyrah told him anything about the starstones, or gave him the missing one?” Sophie had to ask.

  “I feel like he would’ve mentioned it,” Tiergan told her. “Especially after the Neverseen interrogated him. But I still intend to double-check. I was planning to head there now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Linh offered. “In case he needs cheering up.”

  Tam glared at his sister. “Oh sure. Leave us in research torment while you go hang out with your friend.”

  “Uh, hello,” Biana told him, pointing to herself and Fitz and Sophie, “you’re hanging out with us.”

  “Yeah, but . . . in a library.”

  Biana laughed. “It’s too bad Keefe isn’t here—you two could have a contest to see who whines the most.”

  “I’d win,” Keefe said from the doorway.

  Time seemed to stop—or maybe it was Sophie’s heart as she watched him stride into the room.

  Keefe managed not to look at her as he folded his arms and flashed his famous smirk, telling everyone, “That’s right—I’m back!”

  Sixty-one

  WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Sophie asked.

  Keefe’s smirk widened as his eyes finally found their way to hers. “It’s good to see you too, Foster—though yowza, that’s a lot of emotions to hit a guy with all at once. In case you need help deciding, I’d go with the part of you that wants to run over here for an epic Team Foster-Keefe hugfest, and not the part that wants to rip off my arms and smack me with them.”

  She looked away, blinking hard, trying to figure out how to respond.

  Keefe closed the distance between them, but still stood a few careful feet away as he added, “In case you’re wondering, I’m all healed.”

  He stretched out his arms and waved them around in a weird little dance without even the slightest wince.

  “Elwin took me off bed rest last night. And you can barely see the scar. I’d show you to prove it, but it’d probably be weird to take my shirt off right now.”

  “It would,” Grady agreed.

  Keefe nodded. “I’ve also been eavesdropping outside—plus, Forkle hailed me this morning and caught me up on everything that’s been happening. So I already know about the giant beast things my mom made, and how we have a drugged Alvar in custody, and how all that boring stuff from Lady Cadence’s report about bacteria turned out to have something to do with flowers, and how there’s apparently another Nightfall in Atlantis that’s not part of my legacy, and that’s where we need to go to get your parents. Oh, and my mom wants us to steal from it and destroy it—which totally kills the fun, but I’m still game for blowing a Neverseen hideout off the planet.”

  “When Elwin let me know that Keefe was back on his feet,” Mr. Forkle explained, “I figured it’d be easiest if I got him up to speed, so that he wouldn’t slow us down today with a ton of questions.”

  “Oh, I still have questions,” Keefe said. “Lots of them. But I’m only going to ask one—for now.”

  His eyes shifted back to Sophie, and he struggled to swallow before he asked, “How much groveling am I going to have to do before you trust me again?”

  “Hopefully a lot,” Tam jumped in.

  “I second that,” Biana added. “And I don’t even know exactly what happened.”

  Keefe’s focus didn’t shift from Sophie. “Your call, Foster. I totally get why you ousted me. I was being—”

  “An idiot?” Fitz suggested.

  Keefe shrugged. “I was going to go with ‘a sparkly poop head.’ ”

  Sophie’s lips twitched at that. “I should get you a T-shirt that says that.”

  “I’d wear it.” Keefe leaned slightly closer. “I’m sorry, Sophie. Really. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. That’s why I stayed in bed, even though I knew my mom had to be dragging you into a million dangerous things. I wanted to prove that I could do the right thing. Well, that and Ro threatened to tie me down and cover me in flesh-eating bacteria if I didn’t, and I could tell she meant it.”

  “That’s right,” Sophie said, standing on her tiptoes to scan the room. “Where’s Ro?”

  “Outside, messing with Sandor. Who knew she could do a killer impersonation of his bunny voice?”

  That time Sophie’s smile broke through.

  “She also figured out how my mom snuck past all the security here within about three seconds,” Keefe added. “And she spent the entire time I’ve been eavesdropping pointing out a ton of other things the goblins are doing wrong—so I’m pretty sure there’s going to be an ogre-goblin rumble any minute now.”

  “Nah, I don’t feel like messing up my hair,” Ro said, sauntering into the house, patting her tiny pigtails.

  Sandor, Woltzer, Grizel, and Cadoc scrambled in after her, taking up defensive positions around the room.

  Ro flashed a smile that emphasized the points of her teeth. “You guys are hilarious. I told you, I’m here under a bunch of boring ‘don’t kill anyone’ orders. Plus, I just painted my nails.”

  She held up her hands to show off her claws, which were a deep, shiny blue.

  Sandor gripped the hilt of his sword.

  Ro didn’t seem to notice. “Now here’s a shock—another elvin house decorated with sparkles! But at least this place has dinosaurs. And it’s not as ridiculous as that towering monstrosity he grew up in.” She pointed a blue claw at Keefe. “That place screams ‘overcompensating.’ ”

  “You’ve been to Candleshade?” Sophie asked.

  “Only because he told me I could break stuff.” Ro swung her arms, as if she were mentally bashing things with a baseball bat.

  “I sent Ro to search for whatever my mom left behind,” Keefe explained. “That way at least something was getting accomplished while I was stuck in bed.”

  “Uh, we accomplished a ton of stuff without you,” Fitz reminded him.

  “Yeah. I know.” Keefe’s smile faded and his eyes lowered to Sophie’s hand—which she realized was still entwined with Fitz’s.

  “I found it, by the way,” Ro said. “The thing his mom hid. It looks like junk to me—but it shut him up, so that’s all that matters. Plus, it was awesome shattering that ugly crystal desk to get to it. If any of you guys need stuff smashed, let me know.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Sophie told her, turning back to Keefe. “What did she find?”

  He pulled four pieces of metal out of his pocket, two silver and two gold—each with va
riations in their curved edges.

  “Okay . . . ,” Sophie said. “What are they?”

  Keefe held up one finger—an order to wait—before he selected one of the gold pieces, checked the edges a couple of times, and slipped it into the curve of one of the silver parts.

  “He’s going to show off now,” Ro told them, “and pretend like he’s a genius. But this took him days to figure out.”

  Keefe shrugged. “Or I had time to kill, and I knew you hated the noise.”

  He knocked the loose pieces together with his other hand, creating a surprisingly loud Plink! Plink! Plink!

  Ro snarled.

  Keefe smirked and went back to flipping the connected pieces, twisting them a few times before he slid the other silver piece into the arrangement and twisted again.

  “Okay, this is the part that’s tricky.” He rotated one of the pieces, and then adjusted them to three different heights before he tilted the final gold piece and tried slipping it in.

  No go.

  It took several back-and-forths—and a whole lot of muttering—but eventually the piece slid in. And once it did, the other pieces snapped together, creating a two-tone square about the size of an Imparter, but twice as thick.

  “Ta-da!”

  “Told you they wouldn’t applaud,” Ro said when everyone stared at the square, waiting for it to do something.

  “Is it a gadget?” Sophie asked.

  Keefe tapped it a few times. “It doesn’t seem to be. Honestly, I have no idea what it is—but at least I figured out how to piece it together, right?”

  Their murmured agreement was halfhearted at best.

  Keefe sighed. “Tough crowd. I must’ve made it look too easy.”

  “I’m sure it is easy,” Tam said, snatching the square from Keefe and snapping the pieces apart. But when he went to pop them back together . . .

  “How’s that working out for you, Bangs Boy?” Keefe asked.

  Tam scowled.

  No amount of twisting, flipping, or rotating the pieces could get any of them to connect, and Ro cringed at all the plink, plink, plinking.

  “Oh man, this is the greatest present you could’ve ever given me,” Keefe told him.

  “Whatever. It’s stupid,” Tam muttered.

  “Can I try?” Biana asked.

  She managed to fit two pieces together, but the last two refused to snap in.

  No one could do any better. Not Fitz. Not Linh. Not Mr. Forkle, or Grady, or Alden. Even the goblins tried, and Grizel looked ready to crush the pieces into dust—which made Ro laugh so hard she snorted.

  “Think you can do better?” Keefe asked Sophie. “Or are you afraid you’ll have to admit I’m the real talent in this group?”

  When he put it like that . . .

  Sophie snatched the bits of metal and set to work. “So you really don’t have any theories about what this is?”

  “Nope. But remember how my mom said something like ‘You finally solved that puzzle’ when I told her I’d found something? This has to be what she meant. You’re doing that wrong, by the way. You have to end with a gold piece.”

  Sophie held up the three pieces she’d fitted together—both gold and one silver. “Then how come I’ve gotten farther than everyone else?”

  “Because you can be wrong and still smarter than these guys,” Keefe told her with a grin.

  “Or, I could ignore you and . . .” She tilted the last silver piece one way—then another—and finally twisted it around and click!

  “Now that deserves applause,” Ro said. “I love this girl so hard.”

  Keefe snatched the puzzle from Sophie, turning it around in his hands. “I don’t get it. The way I do it has the silver splotches curving out and the gold circling in.”

  “So maybe you do it wrong,” Tam suggested.

  “It’s a puzzle,” Keefe argued. “The pieces should only fit together one way.”

  “Not if that’s part of the challenge,” Sophie countered. “Maybe it’s not just about solving it, but solving it a specific way?”

  “If that’s true,” Fitz said, “how will we know which way is right?”

  Sophie had no idea, but she took back the puzzle, examining it from every angle before she pulled the pieces apart and tried solving it again. Keefe moved in to help—and while there was a whole lot of bickering, they managed to get three out of four clicked into place in another new arrangement.

  “You have to twist the last one the other way,” Keefe said as she wrestled with the gold piece.

  “No, if I tilt it . . .” She angled the piece—then twisted the others and plink!

  “Uhhhh, anyone else think it looks exactly the same?” Ro asked.

  “It’s pretty similar, but now the gold bits are all connected,” Tam noted.

  “Is that better?” Ro asked.

  Biana sucked in a breath. “Yes! Don’t you guys see it?”

  Everyone squinted at the square.

  Fitz caught it first. “There’s a rune.”

  “And not just any rune,” Biana said, tracing her finger across the golden shape. “It means ‘Archetype.’ ”

  Sixty-two

  SO . . . THIS MUST be the key,” Sophie said, cradling the metal square so, so carefully to make sure the pieces stayed together. “Lady Gisela said the Archetype is locked—and I guess it makes sense that she’d keep the key and the book separate.”

  “But how is a metal square a key?” Tam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sophie admitted. “But I’m assuming it’ll make more sense once we have the Archetype.”

  “Perhaps I should hang on to that in the meantime,” Mr. Forkle suggested, “and have our Technopath check it for trackers or listening devices.”

  “Wait,” Fitz said as Sophie helped Mr. Forkle wrap the puzzle into a handkerchief. “Lady Gisela knows we have this, right? Keefe told her he found it?”

  “So?” Keefe asked.

  “So . . . then she has to know we’re going to use it as soon as we get our hands on the Archetype, doesn’t she? Which doesn’t make sense. I’d figured the reason she didn’t give us some big threat about what would happen if we refused to turn the book over was because she knew we couldn’t open it.”

  “So did I,” Sophie admitted.

  “Well, but this is my mom we’re talking about,” Keefe reminded them. “She probably thinks I’m too dumb to put the key together the right way.”

  “Actually, she doesn’t underestimate you the way your dad does,” Sophie told him. “Every time I’ve talked with her, she’s been frustrated that you weren’t there.”

  “Only because she can’t mess with my head,” Keefe mumbled.

  “Or maybe she doesn’t care if we read the Archetype,” Biana suggested. “Maybe she thinks it’ll make us want to work with her.”

  “She did say something like that,” Sophie admitted.

  But Keefe’s mom had to know their truce was only temporary, and that they were never going to trust her.

  Which meant she had to have a plan for when it fell apart.

  “What’s especially strange is that she already handed over the journals,” Mr. Forkle added. “Mind you, she’s still leaving the bulk of the work of finding Nightfall to us. But that doesn’t change the fact that we currently have no reason to return the Archetype or the key to her. So either she’s become an incredibly poor negotiator—or we’re missing her next trick.”

  “Unless she’s still counting on what she said to me before we went into the first Nightfall,” Sophie said, hating the reminder. “About how I’d be desperate to cut another deal because I’d need her to restore my parents’ sanity. She made it sound like this new Nightfall is super creepy.”

  Keefe glared at Mr. Forkle. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

  “Because I’m not convinced it’s a valid threat—and even if it is, we can fix any damage done to Sophie’s family by altering their memories.”

  “You still should’ve told
me!” Keefe took Sophie by the shoulders. “Don’t let her get in your head, Foster. Remember, this is all just a game for her. And she’ll say or do anything to win.”

  Sophie’s mouth still tasted sour.

  “All I know is that my parents have been gone for . . .” She stopped, deciding she didn’t want to count how many days had passed. “We have to get them out of there.”

  “We will,” Keefe promised. “Soon.”

  “Only if we get to work,” Mr. Forkle said, gathering up the journals. “I’ll start translating these, while the rest of you head to Eternalia, and then we’ll exchange notes tonight.”

  Keefe sighed. “Come on, Forkle—you have to know I’m not going to waste time reading boring books.”

  “It’s not a waste,” Mr. Forkle argued. “We need—”

  “Yeah, I caught your speech about why we need more information,” Keefe interrupted. “And I’m not saying you’re wrong. But do you really think it’s smart to have five of us”—he pointed to himself, Fitz, Tam, Biana, and Sophie—“cooped up in a library looking for the same thing—especially since there’s a good chance it’s not even there?”

  “Don’t forget about me,” Linh added. “I can start helping tomorrow—or maybe even tonight, depending on how long it takes with Wylie.”

  “Okay, so now we’re up to six,” Keefe corrected. “Six of us sitting in a stuffy archive flipping through ancient scrolls. You really think that’s the best way to go about this?”

  “I’m assuming you have another suggestion,” Tiergan said.

  “Yeah. We split up—some of us stuck in Boringville, and some of us in Atlantis searching street by street. I know it’s a lot of ground to cover, but at least we know it’s there, instead of just hoping we’ll find something in a dusty old book. And I know you’re worried about the Neverseen seeing us, but if we keep the group small, and make sure we do something normal while we’re there—like buying stuff for Foxfire—it should throw them off.”

  “And I’m assuming you expect Sophie to come with you?” Grady asked.

  “I don’t expect Sophie to do anything,” Keefe said, turning back to her. “I’m not trying to take control again, Foster—I promise. If you want to hit the books, go ahead. But I’m heading to Atlantis, okay? I’ll go stir-crazy in the library. I won’t be able to concentrate.”