“I’m sorry. The door was locked, and I’ve been assigned a session in here.”
His skepticism was obvious as she handed over her schedule, but his lips twisted into a smile when he read the tiny scroll. “You’re the prodigy Lady Cadence was forced to return for?”
Forced?
That didn’t sound like a good sign.
Neither did his sigh as he pulled the door open with a clank of metal on metal and said, “Well, this is going to be interesting. I’m Master Leto—the Beacon for the Silver Tower. Welcome to the elite, Miss Foster. We’ve been waiting for you.”
THIRTY-NINE
I’M IN CHARGE OF ENFORCING the rules,” Master Leto explained, pointing to an official-looking badge pinned to his silver cape. “I’m happy to let you in today, but in the future you should access the tower by submitting your DNA here.” He pointed to a silver strip set into the door about a foot over her head. “Oh, you’re too short to lick it. Hmm. I suppose that means I’ll have to open the door for you twice a week.”
Great—because that wasn’t going to be embarrassing.
Then again, the idea of a shared DNA access strip made Sophie want to gag. She still got grossed out licking the one on her locker, and she was the only one who used it.
“Wait—twice a week?” she asked, checking her schedule again. Sure enough, her inflicting session with Bronte was also in the Silver Tower.
Awesome.
Master Leto motioned for her to come in, but blocked them as Sandor started to follow. “Only approved prodigies may enter.”
“I’ve been charged by the Council to protect Miss Foster wherever she goes.”
“And I’ve been charged by Dame Alina to only admit approved prodigies.”
Sandor reached for his weapon, but Sophie grabbed his arm. The last thing she needed was to be the Girl Whose Bodyguard Threatened the Beacon. Even if she had no idea what a Beacon was—and thought it was stupid that she had to call him “Master.”
“Is this the only way in or out of the towers?” she asked Master Leto.
“It is.”
“Then if you station yourself out here,” she told Sandor, “you’ll still be protecting me from everything. Right?”
Sandor looked like he wanted to argue, but Sophie pleaded with her eyes until he nodded and stepped back. Master Leto moved aside to let her pass.
“A goblin escort,” he mumbled as they entered a cramped, low-ceilinged room. Blue balefire sconces provided dim lighting, and the only decoration was a statue of the Level Eight mascot, a silver unicorn staring at them with glittering black eyes. Master Leto placed his palm against the wall next to the door, which made a loud click, like the door had just latched. “Is that the popular new accessory these days?”
He laughed like his joke was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and it pretty much cemented for Sophie that she wasn’t going to like Master Leto.
“Actually he’s there to make sure no one tries to kill me again.”
“Yes, I realize. And it’s a good thing you left your problems at the door. The elite towers are a place for study and private contemplation. Everything else must be set aside. It’s why we’re sequestered away from all distractions and worries. To clear the mind for true enlightenment.” He crossed to the far wall and placed his badge against a small black sensor, opening a compartment filled with silver cloaks. He handed one to Sophie. “No one may progress farther without wearing the noble color.”
Sophie tied the cape over her shoulders, scowling when at least a foot of it dragged along the ground.
“I suppose we aren’t properly prepared to have a . . .” He made a strange series of crackly sounds, and it took Sophie a second to realize he’d called her a “wonder child.”
She blushed.
“So you can understand my dwarven,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Then clearly the problem’s not there.”
“Problem?”
“Yes. We’ve all been trying to guess why Lady Cadence would need to be forced back to Mentor you. Most were assuming there’s some problem with your education that needs to be fixed. You were raised by humans, weren’t you?”
He walked away before she could answer—not that she had anything she wanted to say to that.
The room had no doors except the one they’d entered through. But when Master Leto pressed his palm against the left wall, a panel hissed open, creating a doorway.
He motioned for her to go first. “Your session is this way.”
She forced her shaky legs to work, entering a round stadium-size sitting room. Silver chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and chrome bookshelves packed with books thicker than Sophie’s head covered the curved walls. The massive space was broken up with plush silver armchairs grouped around crystal tables filled with balefire, which reflected off the silver floor and painted the room with soft blue light. Everything looked sleek and modern and immaculate. A place where the best of the best went to mingle among other greatness. But at the moment it was empty, save for a few silver-cloaked prodigies who rushed past without so much as glancing at Sophie.
“Tardiness is a serious offense,” Master Leto said, leading her to a spiral staircase that wound its way up from the center of the room. He explained that everything in the tower went vertical, not horizontal, and as they passed floor after floor after floor, Sophie wished the tower had an elevator. Especially since the staircase bent sideways and slantways and upside down—leave it to the elves to defy gravity—as the tower itself twisted around the Gold Tower.
They had just passed floor number seven when Master Leto paused. He turned around and gestured for her to do the same.
“This is the Hall of Illumination,” he announced as he led her into a round room lined with mirrors. At least twenty Sophies stared back at her—but each reflection was slightly different, kind of like funhouse mirrors, though instead of making her look stretched or warped, the changes were much more subtle. Some had different shadows, or parts of her were blurred, or places were blasted out by light.
“Each reflection is designed to teach us something about ourselves,” Master Leto explained, “and one of the requirements for commencement is to learn what all of them mean.” He pointed to a mirror directly across from them. “That’s the one everyone always solves first. Any guesses?”
Sophie stepped closer, hating to admit she didn’t see anything different about it. But maybe that was the lesson. “To be true to yourself?”
He frowned and moved to her side. “This is a human mirror. Their mirrors invert and reverse everything as they reflect it back. Look at the F on my badge.”
She wanted to roll her eyes and tell him she was familiar with how human mirrors worked. But . . . how had she not noticed that elvin mirrors were different?
“So what’s the real lesson?” she asked.
“That’s for you to figure out. Master them all, and you’ve achieved true wisdom. In the meantime, we’d better move along.”
She turned to follow him back to the stairs, but light reflecting off one of the mirrors flashed straight into her eyes. She braced for a headache, but instead she felt a strange pull, and a hum of energy started to build under her skin—a warm simmer that grew hotter by the second, until she felt like her insides were on fire.
“Are you all right?”
Sophie blinked, and it took tremendous effort to step back. Once she had, her head cleared. But the hum of the warmth lingered, buzzing in her mind like a swarm of bees—not that she wanted Master Leto knowing that.
She plastered on her best smile and said, “Of course.”
Master Leto opened his mouth to say something, but a tinkling chime, like the clinking of hundreds of water glasses, reverberated through the tower.
“That’s the warning bell. It means you have two minutes to get to session or you’ll be late. Lady Cadence will be most unpleased.”
“What’s she like?” Sophie asked as she followed him up the stairs.
&nb
sp; “Tremendously talented.”
Not exactly the information she’d been hoping for, but it was all he said as they climbed past several more floors. Between the humming in her head and the topsy-turvy staircases, Sophie was incredibly dizzy when they finally stopped at a narrow platform that sloped at a strange angle. Two silver unicorns stared at her with deep black eyes from the center of a room lined with doors.
Master Leto pointed to one marked with a rune she couldn’t read. “That one’s you.”
When she didn’t move, he nudged her forward, and she tripped on her too-long cape and slammed against the door, which swung open and sent her toppling into the room.
She could hear Master Leto snickering as a Mentor with raven black hair and midnight blue eyes leaned over her and said, “This is going to be far worse than I imagined.”
“HOW WAS YOUR FIRST DAY?” Grady asked after Sophie leaped into the Havenfield pastures. He was up to his armpits in dinosaur fluff, giving Verdi her weekly bath.
“I lived.”
Grady smiled. “That bad, huh?”
Sophie shrugged. Her topple-through-the-door had turned out to be the high point of her linguistics session, which basically consisted of Lady Cadence pummeling her with phrases in other languages and muttering “so pointless” when Sophie translated them correctly. It was the first time she’d gotten in trouble for being good at something.
It hadn’t helped that the strange humming in her head had lingered the entire session. She’d almost considered having Elwin check her—but she knew Keefe would tease her mercilessly if she went to the Healing Center on her first day. Plus, the sound was fading. Only a hint of it remained now that she was home, and she was sure the rest would be gone by morning.
Verdi thrashed, spraying them both with soggy feathers that smelled like dirty lizard. But Sophie didn’t mind. She actually liked seeing Grady back to his regular job. It felt like things were still normal.
“The Councillors are easing me into my new position,” Grady said, like he knew what she’d been thinking.
“Is it as bad as you thought it would be?”
“It’s different. But right now everyone is still so shocked by what happened that we’re all scrambling a bit.” He glanced over his shoulder, to where Silveny was trotting back and forth along her fence. “Which is actually something I need to talk to you about. The Council is hoping to be able to move up the celebration they’ve been planning for Silveny’s introduction into the Sanctuary. Significantly.”
“How soon?”
“Soon. I realize it’s going to be challenging for you, but I agree with their reasoning. Our world is going to desperately need something happy once the news of Alden’s tragedy breaks.”
“Have they decided when they’re planning to tell people?”
“This Saturday.”
If hearts could sink, Sophie’s would have.
“There’ll be an announcement sent to all residences in the morning,” Grady said quietly. “And the afternoon will have a planting in the Wanderling Woods.”
“But Alden’s not dead!”
Grady swiped the feathers off his tunic and wrapped an arm around her. “I know it’s hard to let him go, but we have to. That’s why the Council decided to treat it like he’s passed away. We all need to grieve, and then move on.”
The others could move on if they liked. She wasn’t giving up on him.
“But that’s why they want to move Silveny to the Sanctuary on the coming total eclipse.”
“The eclipse in three weeks?” She couldn’t imagine how she would get Silveny ready so soon. “Can’t they give me at least a month?”
“No, it has to be that night. Every time there’s a total eclipse, Orem Vacker—one of the Ancient members of the Vacker family—uses his incredible talent as a Flasher to put on a spectacular light show called the Celestial Festival. It’s one of our world’s grandest traditions, but Alden’s loss will surely put a damper on the occasion—and that’s the last thing the Council needs. They need everyone to feel calm and happy, assured that our world is safe and stable—”
“But it isn’t,” Sophie interrupted. “It won’t be until they catch the kidnappers.” And she doubted they expected to catch the kidnappers in the next three weeks.
“The Council realizes that, Sophie. And they are working on it. But in the meantime they have to try something else to calm the unrest. Unrest leads to rebellion, and rebellion leads to tragedy.” He kicked the ground, and she knew he was thinking of the Black Swan—but all he added was, “We need to make people feel comfortable again. And what better way to do that than by celebrating the creature that will reset the timeline—and the girl who discovered her? The girl everyone has wondered about.”
Sophie snorted. What Grady should’ve said was, the girl everyone is afraid of.
“Our world needs this, Sophie. More than you realize. I’ll do everything I can to help, but we need to make this happen. If you don’t think you can handle it, the Council would be willing to reassign Silveny to the Hek—”
“No,” Sophie interrupted again. No way was she letting that happen. “What do I need to do?”
“Better go inside and change. You and Silveny need to practice flying.”
FORTY
SOPHIE HAD HOPED THAT—THANKS to her enhanced concentration—maybe this would be the year she finally wouldn’t be a disaster in PE. But after hours of flying with Silveny and using muscles she hadn’t known existed, even walking felt like a tremendous effort.
At least she’d figured out how to steer Silveny by teaching her simple commands like left and right and if you dump me into another pile of sparkly manure, I will clobber you. But the Council expected her to whisk into the Sanctuary on Silveny’s back, circle the crowd a few times, and then land in the center of the Councillors. And Silveny still bucked and thrashed whenever anyone besides Sophie got too close to her.
Between the bruises from getting thrown from the back of a terrified alicorn and an entire morning of stumbling and falling because her tired muscles couldn’t keep up with the other prodigies, Sophie finally swallowed her pride. She skipped the cafeteria and used her lunch break to visit the Healing Center.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the picture of her hanging above the bed she was currently sitting on. Or, more accurately, the picture of her in her humiliating mastodon costume in the middle of an awkward dance step at the Opening Ceremonies.
Elwin snort-laughed. “Figured this year I should pay you proper tribute. Just be glad I didn’t take Keefe’s suggestion and rename this place the Foster Center.”
Sandor laughed from his spot in the corner and Sophie glared at both of them. But it was hard to stay mad after Elwin handed her a vial of Achey-Break, and the cooling serum rushed through her muscles and made the pain go away.
She’d just have to steal that photo later.
“You seem like you’re sleeping better,” Elwin said, studying her face. “Glad to see that. I was afraid you might be worse, what with . . .”
Sophie stared at her hands.
She shouldn’t be sleeping so soundly—she should be working round the clock trying to find another clue to get to the truth about the Black Swan. But she couldn’t block Silveny’s transmissions, and the alicorn’s emotions were so irresistibly soothing. No matter how hard she fought to stay awake, sleep always pulled her under. And it was such a relief to have sweet, happy dreams after so many weeks of nightmares.
But she was letting Alden down.
Every second she wasted was a second she left him trapped in the darkness.
“Hey,” Elwin said, jostling her shoulder. “You’re not giving in to any guilt, right?”
She shook her head, trying not to shiver at the reminder.
“Good. Keep it that way. But still.” He snapped his fingers, flashing a bright yellow orb around her face.
The bright light hit her eyes and pain exploded in her mind.
“What�
�s wrong?” Elwin asked, but all she could do was curl up in a ball and focus on breathing. Something wet touched her lips and she readily swallowed the sweet serum—not even caring if it was a sedative. She just wanted the pain to stop.
Fortunately it did.
She took several more breaths before she chanced opening her eyes.
“Thank goodness,” Elwin said as he wiped the sweat off her brow. “Do you have any idea what you just put me through?”
“Sorry. That migraine came out of nowhere.”
“It was more than a migraine,” Tiergan said, and Sophie turned her head, surprised to see him there. “Elwin sent Sandor to get me when you wouldn’t wake up. Do you remember anything about the last hour?”
“Hour?” She had no idea the pain lasted that long.
“Do you really not remember me calling your name or shaking your shoulders or trying to get you to swallow different elixirs?”
“I guess I blacked out.” But she didn’t remember blacking out. She thought she’d been awake.
Elwin ran his hands through his already mussed hair. “Do you see any problems, Tiergan? Because I can’t find anything physically wrong.”
Tiergan squinted at Sophie and shook his head. “I can’t get past her blocking—but I assume that’s a good sign.”
“A good sign for what?” Sophie asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
“If your mind were”—Tiergan shook his head like he couldn’t say it—“I’d think I’d be able to slip through the cracks. But your thoughts are as silent as ever.”
Sophie pulled herself up, moving her head different ways, checking for any remnant of the pain. “I feel fine now. I think it’s just all the stress—it’s been a rough few days.”
No one could argue with that, and she was relieved, even though her stomach was churning and her heart was racing and her brain kept remembering all the times the light had affected her weirdly. She’d gotten better for a few days, but it seemed worse than ever now.
But if Elwin and Tiergan didn’t see anything wrong, she had to believe that she was fine. She couldn’t worry about one more thing.
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