Thank you for doing this, Linh told her.
You don’t have to thank me I’ll do anything I can to help you and your brother—I hope you know that.
I do. And I want you to know that this is my choice—what you’re doing right now, and what I’m asking you to do if this works. If any part of this backfires, I won’t blame you.
Let’s hope we won’t have to think about that, Sophie transmitted, squeezing her eyes tighter as the humming inside her mind turned crackly, like static—or maybe a better analogy would’ve been like a wave crashing toward the shore. She could feel her consciousness get swept up in the inertia, surging forward, forward, forward…
Brace yourself! she warned. This next part will be loud.
Linh nodded under her fingertips, and they both sucked in a breath as Sophie shoved the energy out of her mind in a blaring transmission.
TAM! PLEASE DON’T IGNORE ME!
PLEASE!
PLEASE!
PLEASE!
She repeated the call again and again, each transmission like a mental river, carrying her plea along with the rush, churning farther, farther, farther. But no matter how far the words flowed, only silence followed.
Do you think it would help if I call for him? Linh offered.
He won’t be able to hear you until he lets me connect with his mind. Unless…
Unless what? Linh asked when Sophie didn’t finish the thought.
I have a weird idea—and I don’t know if it’ll work, but… can you think his name for a minute? Just his name—and give it your whole concentration, like it’s the only solid thing in your head.
Linh did as Sophie asked, and Sophie gathered up the sound, wrapping her consciousness around it until it felt like she’d formed an airtight bundle, with Linh’s voice echoing softly inside.
A thought bubble of sorts.
Here goes nothing, she told Linh, letting her strange mental creation drift out of her mind, like a message in a bottle, floating through the space between her and Tam, drifting across the vast nothingness.
CAN YOU HEAR WHO I’M WITH? she transmitted, shoving Linh’s plea farther and farther. LINH NEEDS TO TALK TO YOU. IT’S IMPORTANT.
More silence surrounded them, and Linh’s disappointment was almost tangible as Sophie tried to edge her consciousness away from the headache looming ahead—a mental waterfall that would drag them both down into the pain if she didn’t sever their connection before she reached it.
PLEASE, TAM—TAKE THE RISK.
TAM!
TAM!
TAM!
TAM!
TA—
A shadow darkened Sophie’s mind—the rush both icy and eerie.
Linh gripped Sophie’s wrists. Tam?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THIS IS??? Tam shouted.
The words were cold black stones.
Sinking through Sophie’s consciousness.
Crashing into the darkness lingering below.
But Sophie focused on Linh’s laughter, refusing to let the echoes stir.
It’s nice to hear from you, too, Linh told her brother. Good to know you’re still as stubborn and surly as ever.
Tam’s thoughts seemed to stumble over themselves—stunned by the sound of his sister’s voice.
But he recovered quickly, his consciousness tangling into another dark storm that battered around their shared minds as he thought, SERIOUSLY, LINH—WE CAN’T TALK LIKE THIS! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
Actually, I do, she assured him. I know it’s a risk. But I had to talk to you—and I need you to listen carefully. I need you to tell me if it’s safe to swim in the ocean.
THE OCEAN? Tam repeated—though Sophie could feel his thoughts swarming around each of Linh’s words, beyond just those few. And several seconds later he asked—very carefully—HOW WOULD I KNOW?
Linh sat up straighter. Can’t you dip your toe in for me?
The words hung there, and Sophie held her breath—feeling Linh do the same.
And for a moment, the cold shadows turned warmer and lighter.
But the blackness came crashing back before Tam finally answered. And he simply told her, NO.
Tam, you—
NO! Tam’s shout was louder than thunder, and it drowned out every syllable of Linh’s argument. STAY OUT OF THE WATER.
I can’t, she told him. You know I can’t.
WELL, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO.
Tam—
NO, LINH. YOU DON’T GET IT. I LIKE IT HERE. DO YOU HEAR ME? I. LIKE. IT. HERE.
A shudder rocked Linh’s shoulders, as if she’d been physically struck. You don’t mean that.
I DO, he assured her. I REALLY, REALLY DO. I’M EVEN MAKING FRIENDS. SO FORGET YOUR PLANS AND YOUR CODES. I DON’T NEED THEM. I DON’T EVEN WANT THEM.
But—
NO! SOMEDAY YOU’LL UNDERSTAND, he told her.
I really, really won’t, Linh countered, and Sophie wondered if she was intentionally mirroring his phrasing.
WELL… THAT’S NOT MY PROBLEM! Tam insisted, and his words formed a wall, shutting out everything else Linh tried to tell him. Leaving his mind so bitingly, painfully cold that Sophie knew they couldn’t stay any longer.
Come on, Linh, Sophie thought, letting her consciousness slowly ebb away.
NO! Linh shaped her next thought into a tidal wave and slammed it into the darkness. What am I supposed to do without you?
Sophie didn’t expect Tam to answer.
But he told Linh, GO BACK TO CHORALMERE.
Tam—
GO BACK TO CHORALMERE AND STAY THERE, he thundered. AND DON’T EVER CALL FOR ME AGAIN.
Then the shadows faded and Sophie’s mind brightened and warmth poured in, like rays of dawn melting away the night—snuffing out the stirring echoes and leaving her head still and steady and silent.
“He’s gone,” Sophie said out loud, severing the final threads of the connection in case Gethen had somehow found a way to eavesdrop on that pocket of mental conversation.
“I know.” Linh’s voice sounded both watery and wobbly, and when Sophie’s eyes came into focus, she found Marella and Maruca pulling Linh into a hug.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked, knowing it was a pointless question. “I’m sure Tam only said that stuff because he was trying to protect you. He did the same thing last time—”
“No, he meant it.” Tears streamed down Linh’s cheeks, and she let them fall as she added, “I didn’t realize how hard it would be to hear him like that.”
“Like what?” Marella asked.
“So… stubborn and hopeless.”
“Hopeless?” Sophie repeated.
Linh stared at the sky. “I think he’s giving up.”
Maruca hugged her tighter. “Didn’t he understand that you were ready to rescue him?”
“He did. But… he didn’t want me to. He told me to ‘stay out of the water,’ which wasn’t part of our code—but it’s what he said a lot when I first manifested and he knew I was about to make a mess of everything.”
She dried her tears with her sleeve, but more replaced them immediately.
“You didn’t make a mess of everything,” Sophie tried to tell her.
Linh just looked away. “We can’t reach out to him again. He won’t respond—and he’ll never cooperate. He doesn’t want me to find him.”
Sophie kept her face angled down, trying to hide her relief.
Even with Maruca’s force fields, she couldn’t see how any rescue attempt would end in anything other than disaster, nor could she imagine any possible scenario where Sandor would let them try.
“Why would he want you to go to Choralmere?” Sophie wondered, recognizing the name of the Song family’s estate.
Tam had almost as many mommy and daddy issues as Keefe did—and he’d always been very opposed to the idea of giving his parents a single second of their time, now that he and Linh were free of them.
Linh stumbled to her feet, swiping at her smudged
eyeliner. “He doesn’t. That was the code.”
“The code for when he’s in danger?” Marella asked.
Linh shook her head. “No. The code for when I am.”
TWENTY-TWO
DO YOU THINK TAM WAS just trying to scare you?” Sophie asked as she watched Linh pace around Calla’s Panakes tree, taking slow, meticulous steps—as if Linh were trying to match her previous footprints with each revolution. “That way you’d abandon your rescue plan for him? Or to make sure you wouldn’t risk reaching out to him again?”
“Or maybe those things are why he thinks you’re in danger?” Maruca suggested. “And he was trying to tell you to lay off, so you’ll be safe again.”
Linh ignored Wynn and Luna as they trotted up beside her—even when they made some seriously adorable squeaky whinnies. “If any of that were Tam’s reasoning, he would’ve just reminded me of the Neverseen’s threats. Using the code means he doesn’t want the Neverseen to know he’s warning me. So I’m pretty sure that means they really are planning to come after me, either to kill me or capture me—or maybe to injure me the way they did to you and Fitz.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that Sophie couldn’t decide if she should be impressed by Linh’s bravery or worry that her friend was in shock.
Shock seemed to be the answer when Linh casually added, “I just hope they don’t send Tam to do it.”
Sophie jumped in front of her, blocking her path. “Tam would never do any of those things.”
“I know.” Linh tilted her head back to stare at the sky. “And that’d be so much worse—seeing how they punish him.”
“It’s never going to come to that,” Sophie promised. “I won’t let it.”
“Neither will I,” Marella added.
“Same,” Maruca agreed.
Linh’s eyes brimmed with tears and she turned her face away. “I guess we’ll see how it goes,” she said as she broke her pattern of footprints to step around Sophie.
“We will see!” Sophie called after her. “And right now, we need a plan to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting!” Linh reached up and pulled a pin from her hair, letting the long, silver-tipped strands fly free with the afternoon breeze. “I need to go back to Choralmere.”
Sophie glanced at Marella and Maruca, glad to see they were equally as confused by that statement.
“Why?” Maruca asked for them.
“Yeah, that seems like the last place you should go,” Marella added. “Isn’t that the one place the Neverseen know to look for you?”
Linh shrugged, bending the clasp of her hairpin back and forth. “It’s not like I’m hiding right now—or when I go home to Tiergan.”
“No, but you should be,” Sophie argued, “now that Tam gave us this warning. I’m sure the Black Swan or the Council can find somewhere—”
“I have to go to Choralmere,” Linh interrupted. “Otherwise the Neverseen will suspect that Tam’s words had another meaning, and that’ll put him in even more danger.” Her voice thickened when she met Sophie’s eyes and added, “I should’ve listened to you. You warned me that reaching out to him was too dangerous.”
“We had to try it,” Sophie told her.
Linh wouldn’t have been able to stop wondering whether they were missing their chance to save her brother.
“And hey, Tam’s probably relieved that he finally got to pass along that warning,” Sophie added. “Who knows how long he’s been carrying it around, trying find a way to reach you? Now we just need to figure out a plan to keep you safe.”
“I’ll be fine at Choralmere,” Linh assured her.
“Will you, though?” Marella jumped in. “I mean, even without it being a super-obvious place for the Neverseen to find you, it’s… not like you have an awesome relationship with your parents.”
Linh stopped pacing. “I can handle my mother and father.”
Sophie, Marella, and Maruca shared another look.
“Okay, but—” Sophie started to say, but Linh cut her off.
“I’m going to Choralmere!” She added a foot stomp for emphasis, then turned her face to the wind and closed her eyes. “And I’m going to stay there, just like Tam wanted.”
“So… you’re moving back home?” Sophie had to clarify.
Linh nodded. “It’s the best thing I can do for Tam. Please don’t try to talk me out of it.”
“I won’t,” Sophie promised, not sure what else to say.
Marella and Maruca seemed pretty stumped too.
But Sandor stalked closer, towering over Linh as he told her, “If that’s your decision, you’ll need protection.”
“I have dwarven bodyguards,” Linh reminded him.
“I’m aware.” Sandor glanced at the ground, looking slightly skeptical that the dwarves were actually there. “But I think a more visible deterrent might be better, given the threat you’re presently facing. I’ll need time to arrange something more permanent, but for the moment I’m sure Bo would be willing to accompany you, provided Miss Foster agrees to stay here, where she’s less likely to need his protection.”
“Or I could go with Bo and Linh,” Sophie countered, “help her get settled in and—”
“I appreciate the offer,” Linh interrupted. “But it’ll be better if I go alone. I doubt my parents know that Tam has been taken—I certainly haven’t told them. And that conversation will go smoother without the complication of an audience.”
“Linh—”
“I’ll be fine, Sophie,” Linh insisted. “I know how to handle my parents.”
Sandor cleared his throat when Sophie fell silent. “That may very well be. But it’s all the more reason I’m going to insist that you take Bo with you.”
“I’m okay with that,” Linh agreed, “as long as Sophie doesn’t need him.”
“She won’t,” Sandor assured her, “because she’s going to remain here with Flori, Nubiti, and me, right?”
Sophie nodded, and Sandor marched off to find Bo and explain the new arrangement.
“My father’s going to hate having an ogre patrolling the property,” Linh said quietly, “so that will be fun, at least.”
“You’re sure about—” Sophie tried to ask.
But once again, Linh cut her off. “I’m sure.”
“Yeah, well… I don’t like this plan,” Marella said, shrugging when Linh turned toward her. “Someone had to say it.”
“I agree,” Maruca added. “Maybe I should go with you—that way I can shield you if anything goes down.”
“I’ll be fine,” Linh repeated for what felt like the millionth time, and the weariness in Linh’s voice made Sophie leave it alone.
After all, Linh had started her day thinking she’d found a way to rescue her brother. And instead, she was now stuck moving back in with the people who’d failed her over and over, because they’d been ashamed that she was a twin. Plus, she’d picked up an abundance of new worries for herself and for Tam.
“We’re going to get him back,” Sophie promised, pulling Linh into a hug—which Maruca and Marella quickly turned into a group squeeze.
Linh nodded against Sophie’s shoulder.
But there were tears in Linh’s eyes when she ended the embrace, and she wouldn’t look at anyone as she fished out a small, round home crystal that Sophie never realized she carried.
No one broke the painful silence, until Bo marched over to Linh and barked a bunch of orders about letting him take the lead and sticking by his side. And Sophie tried to think of something encouraging to say as Linh held her crystal up to the sun.
But every promise sounded so empty. So she went with the same assurance that Linh had said when she first found out that Tam had left with the Neverseen.
“Tam can take care of himself.”
“I hope so,” Linh whispered as she let the light carry her and Bo away.
Marella and Maruca left soon after—though not before Maruca made it clear that she would be talking to the Collective
about joining the order. And Sophie didn’t try to stop her.
If Tam’s warning had proven anything, it was that they needed all the protection they could get.
Though it wasn’t nightmares about cloaked figures coming for Linh—or coming for any of Sophie’s friends—that had Sophie building another makeshift bed under Calla’s Panakes that night.
It was Tam’s voice, replaying in her head.
Shouting over and over, I LIKE IT HERE. I’M EVEN MAKING FRIENDS.
* * *
“We need to have a serious discussion about your leadership skills, Miss Foster,” Bronte’s sharp voice barked the next morning, jolting Sophie out of the dazed, half-sleepy state she’d been lingering in since sunrise. “And perhaps also about your strange choices for sleeping location.”
Some part of her brain had been telling her that she needed to get up and get ready for a big day of super-important stuff.
The other part had decided that all of that stuff could wait a tiny bit longer.
And then a tiny bit longer after that.
And a little more after that.
As if she’d found some sort of strange mental snooze button—which she was happy to keep hitting as long as it let her stay surrounded by baby alicorns and Calla’s soothing songs instead of having to face reality.
And now her entire brain was telling her that the best solution to her current situation was to pull her blankets over her head and wait for Bronte to go away.
The only problem was… Bronte was right.
Part of the stuff she had to do that day was the rather important task of going to Loamnore with Grady and the rest of Team Valiant to meet with King Enki and examine the dwarves’ security. And she’d planned to check in with Dex, Biana, Wylie, and Stina the day before, to make sure they were ready.
But then there was the chaos with Wynn and Luna and the gorgodon—and Maruca, Marella, and Linh showed up with their risky plan, and there was all the drama with Tam and…
It totally slipped her mind.
She also still hadn’t followed up with Wylie and Stina about their meeting with Lady Zillah—despite her vow not to get sidetracked from that again.
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