Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 8)

by Shannon Messenger

  Thousands of glimpses of Lady Gisela.

  Smiles.

  Scowls.

  Glares.

  Laughter.

  Though something about her always looked a little… calculating. Especially when she gazed at her son.

  You see that too, Lord Cassius noted, and Sophie realized she’d transmitted that observation.

  It just seemed so… obvious.

  Hindsight brings a strange sort of clarity, doesn’t it? Lord Cassius asked her. It’s so easy to hate yourself for missing something so glaring. But every moment has shades of meaning, and how we interpret it comes down to the knowledge we have in that instance. Like now, for example—you sit there stewing in your disgust for me, convinced I’m cruel and callous because that is the information you have. Just as I saw a wife and mother who was as determined as I was to help her son find success and reach his maximum potential—which, I suppose, IS still who she was. She just had a very different vision for his future, apparently.

  Sour dread mixed with Sophie’s other emotions, and she couldn’t tell if it came from her or Lord Cassius.

  And I’m assuming you have no idea what she means when she talks about Keefe’s legacy? she asked.

  I don’t—and I wish I did.

  She could tell he meant it. Which was why she decided to answer when he asked again for the specific words Lady Gisela said to Keefe in London—and she didn’t just tell him. She filled his mind with her memory of the conversation, letting him watch the scene play out for himself.

  And when they got to the part where Lady Gisela told Keefe to “embrace the change or it will destroy you,” something shifted in his mind again.

  A soft quiver that grew stronger and stronger.

  A mental earthquake that drove a deep rift through his consciousness.

  And three new memories emerged, each one crackly and scratched, like watching a projection of a ruined piece of film—the same way Keefe’s recovered memory had looked. The sound faded in and out, and the scenes sometimes played too fast or slow or dropped away altogether. But Sophie soaked up every detail she could pull from the damage.

  In the first memory Lord Cassius found his wife nearly convulsing on their bed—with five empty vials strewn across the floor. Her mouth had a strange glow as she murmured to herself, “Embrace the change,” over and over, and Lord Cassius scooped her into his arms and sprinted for Candleshade’s vortinator to get her to a physician. The scene faded out after that, and faded back in when he was standing under the Leapmaster, with Lady Gisela begging him to take her back—to let her rest—swearing it was nothing he needed to concern himself with. She told him it was a treatment that took a few minutes for her body to accept. And he’d felt how strongly she meant the words—how desperate she was to be alone—so he’d brought her back to bed.

  The second scene was much harder to watch.

  There were five vials again, this time flickering and glowing on the bedside table. And Lord Cassius sat next to his wife on the edge of their bed as she tried to convince him to drink them.

  The memory distorted most of their conversation, but Lord Cassius didn’t seem to find anything familiar about what she was suggesting, so his other memory must’ve already been taken. And the soundtrack sharpened again as Lady Gisela promised, “This treatment will make you powerful in ways you can’t even imagine. You just have to embrace the change.”

  She’d whispered something else Sophie couldn’t hear, but whatever it was, it convinced Lord Cassius to gulp down each of the vials.

  And then there was pain.

  Burning and freezing and stabbing and tearing and crushing and twisting and writhing.

  Unending.

  Unsurvivable.

  Except somehow, he did.

  Somehow, when he stopped fighting it, he became the pain.

  And then everything faded into a black, dreamless oblivion.

  The third memory was the shortest.

  Lady Gisela leaned in and licked a silver panel on a glittering crystal wall, and a small compartment popped open, with two tiny bottles inside. The glass was blacker than anything Sophie had ever seen—as if the bottles had been carved out of the void—and Lady Gisela seemed to be giving Lord Cassius a long list of vital instructions.

  The memory only preserved three scattered pieces of what she said.

  “When the timing is right.”

  “Embrace the change.”

  And “the beginning of our legacy.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  SOOOOOOOOO… I’M ASSUMING THE crazy emotional spike I just felt means you guys had a breakthrough,” Keefe said as Sophie’s mind snapped back to the present. “And I’m also assuming it wasn’t good news, seeing as how Foster’s now as white as the armchairs, and Daddio reminds me of the way Ro looked after she ate those amoebas. In fact, we might wanna give him some room, so we’re not in a splash zone if he goes projectile, like she did.”

  “If you think we’re ready to joke about that,” Ro called from the doorway, “you are sorely, sorely mistaken, Hunkyhair. But you can relax, Blondie,” she added as Sophie jumped to her feet. “I don’t hold you responsible for the Keefster’s extremely poor life choices. Why do you think your bodyguard let me in?”

  Sandor tilted his head in and nodded as Ro sauntered closer, tossing her pigtails—which were now a bright fire-engine red—as she leaned over Keefe’s armchair and pinched Keefe’s chin with her red-clawed fingers, smushing his lips into a fish face. “You can relax too, my foolish, foolish boy—for now. Because when I pay you back? You’ll never see it coming. Count on that.”

  “I will,” Keefe assured her, his voice distorted by the fish face.

  “Good.” Ro held him like that a second longer, squeezing his face even tighter before she dropped her hand and turned to Sophie. “So, what’s this I hear about a breakthrough?”

  “And don’t try to sugarcoat it, Foster,” Keefe added, rubbing his jaw, which now showed tiny dents from Ro’s claws. “I agreed to this because I trusted you to tell me everything.”

  Sophie reached for her eyelashes. “I know, but—”

  “We both know my imagination is probably fifty times worse than the reality,” Keefe cut in.

  Which was probably true. But she still had to warn him, “This is a lot to handle.”

  “Yeah, well… what else is new?” He forced a rather sad smile. “I’m serious, Foster. I don’t care if it’s a lot. I just want the truth.”

  Sophie studied him for a long second before nodding. “It’ll be easier if I show you what we saw.”

  “Are you going to show him our entire conversation?” Lord Cassius jumped in.

  The warning in his eyes tempted Sophie to say yes. But… Keefe didn’t need his father’s warped views on love distracting him from these new revelations.

  Lord Cassius deserved to sweat a little, though, so she kept her answer vague. “I’m going to show Keefe everything that I think is important.”

  “Works for me,” Keefe told her, leaning back in his armchair. “Hit me with all the creepy family stuff you want—it’s not like it’ll be a surprise.”

  Sophie hated how true that was as she reached for his forehead, making sure she had permission to open her thoughts to his before she pressed her gloved fingers against his temples.

  I can handle this, Foster, he promised when his mental voice flooded her mind.

  You have to, she told him. The trust here works both ways. You’re trusting me not to coddle you, and I’m trusting you to lean on your friends and let us help you through this.

  His mind got a whole lot quieter when he asked, So it’s that bad, huh?

  Sophie was about to say yes—but then she took a look at the thoughts flashing all around her. And Keefe was right: His imagination was worse than the reality. His head was a horror show of theories that felt very Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with Keefe turning into some sort of evil, murderous monster at Lady Gisela’s beck and call.

 
Your mom told us she didn’t mess with your DNA, Sophie reminded him.

  Uh, yeah, and my mom lies, Keefe countered.

  I know, but… you’re past manifesting age, right? And you still only have one ability.

  Right, but I’m also supposed to “embrace the change”—remember?

  Sophie felt herself flinch at the words and sucked in a deep breath, needing that extra second to work up the courage to tell him, Those were the words that triggered the broken pieces we found of your dad’s erased memories. You’re SURE you want to see them?

  A tiny voice in the back of his mind said, No. But the rest of him told her, Bring it on, Foster.

  When she still hesitated, he added, It’s not like I can hide from this.

  He couldn’t.

  No matter how much she wished she could protect him.

  Okay, here goes, she warned, filling his head with the memories one by one, sharing them in the same order she’d seen them with Lord Cassius.

  She offered no commentary, letting Keefe process everything himself. And he replayed each of the memories three times before his brain could form any coherent words—most of which were things he’d probably get in trouble for saying.

  Please tell me it wasn’t a mistake to show you that, Sophie begged when his brain started its fourth memory replay.

  It wasn’t, he assured her. I’m fine.

  No, you’re not. Sophie dropped one of her hands from his temples and reached for him, tangling their fingers together.

  He didn’t argue. Just clung to her as tightly as he could as they watched a fifth replay together.

  Three things, Sophie told him as Keefe’s Dr. Jekyll theories reared back with a vengeance. First: Your mom talks about this being THEIR legacy—not yours. So it might not have anything to do with you—and I know you’re going to argue with me on that, but you have to admit it’s at least possible. Second: Whatever this was… your parents are fine. I mean, they’re pretty awful people—but they were that way before any of this. So it’s not like this changed them in any way that’s noticeable. And third—and most important: This isn’t triggering any new memories for you, right?

  She checked his nearby thoughts for any flashes of pain or glimpses of glowing vials.

  No, he admitted, but that might just mean my mom did a better job of burying it.

  I don’t know, Sophie argued. I don’t think you can bury something THIS traumatic—especially when you’re being given such a clear, direct trigger. You should’ve felt how fast it worked on your dad—and all it took for him was me sharing the memory from London of your mom telling you to “embrace the change.” As soon as he heard those words, it set off this, like, mental earthquake, and his consciousness actually cracked as these memories came crashing through. So… if there was something in your past like this, I feel like you’d have gotten back at least the damaged pieces of it by now. And you haven’t.

  The more she thought about it, the easier it was to breathe.

  But Keefe didn’t seem nearly as convinced.

  His palm felt shaky in hers, and his thoughts were darting in so many directions, she couldn’t keep up with them—except one.

  One part of his mind stayed fixated on those eerie black bottles in the final memory.

  There were only two of them, she pointed out, adding that to her list of reassurances.

  Yeah, but—

  “Are you ever going to bring me back into this conversation?” Lord Cassius interrupted. “Given that these are my memories, it seems like I should be a part of the discussion.”

  “I dunno—do you have anything useful to add?” Keefe asked as Sophie severed their mental connection and blinked her eyes back into focus on the present. “I mean, if you have any idea what that ‘treatment’ was—or what was in any of those vials—feel free to share,” Keefe told his dad. “Otherwise, not sure what we need you for.”

  “Uh… that doesn’t sound good,” Ro noted. “Can someone maybe clue the bodyguards in?”

  “Oh sure,” Keefe told her. “Basically, it looks like Mommy Dearest definitely did experiment on me.”

  “No—she experimented on me!” Lord Cassius shouted, jumping to his feet and stalking toward his son. “You don’t get to make this all about you.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t get to make this all about you, either!” Keefe snapped back. “Because I have a pretty strong hunch this all happened around the time Mom got pregnant with me, right?”

  Lord Cassius reluctantly nodded.

  “You’re sure?” Sophie had to ask. Both of Keefe’s parents looked exactly the same in the memories as they did now—and it wasn’t like there’d been a calendar in the background.

  “I’m sure,” Lord Cassius agreed quietly. “The room in the first two memories is a room we only shared for a brief time. Once Gisela discovered she was pregnant, we separated ourselves.”

  The set of his jaw made it clear there’d be no further discussion on that topic—and Sophie was definitely good with that.

  Keefe ran a hand down his face. “I’m guessing you don’t know where the room in the third memory was?”

  Lord Cassius shook his head. “Only that it was somewhere in Candleshade.”

  “Great,” Keefe muttered.

  “If you need me to go back there and smash more things, I’m happy to,” Ro generously offered.

  “Smashing would be bad,” Keefe said. “We don’t want to break those vials.”

  “You think they’re still there?” Sophie asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s possible. My mom said, ‘When the timing is right’—and I haven’t fulfilled my legacy or whatever yet.”

  “But it wasn’t about your legacy,” Lord Cassius reminded him. “She said ‘our’—hers and mine.”

  Ro groaned. “Now you have a separate legacy? Is anyone else getting really sick of that word? Because I swear, every time I hear it, I wanna stab something.”

  “Right there with you,” Sandor agreed quietly.

  “Oh, I’m there too,” Keefe agreed as well, tearing his hands through his hair. “The good news is—I’m pretty sure all the legacies are the same. Think about it—she talked about their legacy right around the time they made me, so…”

  “Wait,” Sophie said, leaning forward in her armchair. “You’re saying you think those treatments were, like…” She wasn’t even sure how to word it—and she really hoped she was wrong when she finished with, “An elvin fertility thing?”

  “No, I think they were a mess-with-our-future-baby kind of thing,” Keefe corrected.

  But Lord Cassius shook his head. “Actually, I think Sophie might be onto something. Your mother was very concerned about getting pregnant. She went to a number of physicians beforehand, and I never understood why, because it seemed to happen quite quickly and easily—but maybe this is why. Maybe it seemed fast to me because she erased these memories.”

  “FYI, I really don’t want to hear about Lord Hunkyhair’s creation,” Ro whined.

  “That makes two of us,” Sandor added.

  And Sophie waited for Keefe to agree.

  But he just leaned his head back against his armchair, staring at the ceiling.

  “Sounds like I need to talk to some physicians,” Lord Cassius decided. “See if any of them have heard of this kind of treatment.”

  “You should start with Elwin,” Sophie told him. “Those vials almost seemed like they were filled with light—which doesn’t really make sense since you can’t drink light, but…”

  Her voice trailed off as a sickening new thought occurred to her.

  “I guess they could’ve been quintessence,” she whispered, deciding to throw the theory out there.

  The conversation couldn’t necessarily get any weirder.

  “I mean… the vials looked a little different than the vials of quintessence I’ve seen before,” she added quietly. “But… there were five of them. And there are five unmapped stars. And each vial was different. And the pain the
y caused…”

  Lord Cassius wrapped his arms around himself. “I’ll hail Elwin and find out where he is.”

  “And you’ll tell us what he says,” Keefe said as he stood, making it clear it wasn’t a request. “Feels like this is a good time for us to stop keeping secrets from each other, doesn’t it?”

  Sophie frowned when Lord Cassius agreed.

  “You don’t want to be there when he talks to Elwin?” she whispered.

  Keefe shook his head. “I’m going to Candleshade to see if I can find that compartment.”

  “Oh.” Sophie stood up to join him, trying to be supportive—and telling herself to be glad that his plan was something safe. But she still had to remind him, “It’s just… Candleshade is huge—and there was nothing recognizable about that wall in the memory, was there?”

  “Not the wall,” Keefe told her. “But there was… a feeling. You probably didn’t notice it, since you’re not an Empath. But every time I replay that memory, I get this, like, prickly sense right here”—he brushed his hands down his arms—“and I think it’s triggered by whatever is in those vials. So if I search for that feeling at Candleshade, I should be able to follow it to that compartment.”

  “Assuming the vials are still there,” Lord Cassius noted.

  Keefe shrugged. “It’s worth checking, right?”

  “Um, just so I’m clear,” Ro jumped in as Keefe dug an old home crystal out from one of his cape pockets, “your plan is to go room by room in a two-hundred-story tower, searching for some random elf-y feeling that might not even be there anymore because the thing causing it might be long gone?”

  “It’s either that or go with my dad and listen to him and Elwin chat about fertility stuff,” Keefe reminded her.

  Ro groaned again. “Fine. But I’m adding this to the list of things I’ll be paying you back for.”

  “You do that,” Keefe told her—and that seemed to settle it.

  Sandor sighed as Sophie reached for Keefe’s hand, and grumbled something about needing patience as he joined the light leaping chain.

  And she honestly wasn’t any happier about the project ahead of them.