Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 3)

by Shannon Messenger

  “So when are the Councillors going to decide on my punishment?” Sophie asked, stopping Grady at the Leapmaster before he could leave for his latest assignment.

  Now that the Council was back in session, they wanted him crawling through tunnels, searching for the missing dwarves again. Which meant she might not see him for days.

  Grady adjusted his heavy cape, looking particularly uncomfortable as he told her. “I’m still waiting for word on that myself. King Dimitar’s deadline is only a few days away, so I expect it will happen rather swiftly. But it depends on how quickly they agree.”

  “How will I know when they’ve decided?”

  “No one has told me that, either. But I promise, Alden and I are both staying on top of it. We’re as eager to have this settled as you are.”

  He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head as he whispered, “In the meantime, stay safe. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  She watched him glitter away, then headed back to her room to hail Keefe. His dad was back on assignment too, which meant he was finally free to brainstorm meeting options for the Black Swan—and just in time, since the deadline they’d given the Black Swan was that day.

  She’d expected Keefe’s ideas to be complicated and crazy—and there were definitely a few like that in the mix. One even involved forcing the Black Swan to visit five of the places on Keefe’s Stinkiest Spots in the World list before coming full circle back to the cave. But in the end, Keefe surprised her with what he pushed for:

  We meet tomorrow at sunset.

  Outside my old home.

  You bring the answers.

  We’ll rearrange the gnomes.

  “You don’t think we should at least push for them to meet us at that window in Italy—that way we can find out where it is?” Sophie asked.

  “Nah, we can find it ourselves. Plus, then we’d have to tell them we know about it. Why give away a secret if we don’t need to? Trust me—San Diego’s perfect. This Forkle dude has just as much history there as you do, which should throw him off his game. And it’ll make it way easier to nag him about what happened the day he activated your telepathy, and about the Boy Who Disappeared, and anything else you’ve been stressing about, since it all happened right there.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “What do you mean you ‘guess’? Of course I’m right—I’m a genius, remember?”

  “A genius who’s dressed all fancy,” Sophie pointed out, grinning when Keefe blushed.

  She was used to Keefe’s untucked school uniforms, wrinkled tunics, and loose-fitting pants—which he still somehow always managed to look good in. But now he was all . . . tailored. His fitted jerkin showed broad shoulders Sophie hadn’t realized he had, and his pants, cape, and undershirt were all expertly cut and made of thick, expensive fabric. Even Fitz would look sloppy next to him.

  “My mom took me shopping,” he mumbled. “Said it was time I started dressing like a Sencen. At first I was like, dude, this is lame. But then I was like, but I look good. And I do, don’t I? Admit it, Foster—you’ve been checking out the Keefster. And maybe even . . . the keester.”

  He turned and did some sort of wiggly dance until Sophie tossed a pillow at his head.

  “Don’t we have a note to leave?” she asked when he scooted across the room to start his dance again.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to lead the way. Unless you’d rather I go first so you can admire the view.”

  Sophie flung another pillow.

  Sandor rolled his eyes at both of them as Keefe chased her down the stairs and out the door and all the way down to the cliffs.

  Their laughter echoed off the cave as they tucked the note into place.

  “Come and get it!” Keefe shouted, tossing a handful of sand like confetti. Then he stood there waiting, like he expected a dwarf to pop out of the ground any second.

  “A watched pot never boils,” Sophie told him.

  “Wow. That might win the prize for most boring expression ever.”

  Sophie tossed sand at his head and he chased her back up to the house, earning more eye rolls from Sandor, and amused stares from Edaline.

  Sophie spent the rest of the afternoon organizing Edaline’s office while Keefe ran down to check the caves every fifteen minutes.

  No reply came.

  Not until the next morning, when Sophie dragged Sandor down to the beach at the crack of dawn, after another long night with very little sleep.

  A tiny black pillbox held the shortest note the Black Swan had ever given her. It simply said:

  Okay.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  CONVINCING THE BLACK SWAN TURNED out to be far easier than convincing Grady to let her go.

  He had quite a lot to say about Sophie illegally teleporting to a Forbidden City when she was already in so much trouble. But eventually he agreed, so long as Sandor went with them—a detail he absolutely would not budge on, no matter how many ways Sophie explained the impossibility of disguising a seven-foot-tall goblin from humans.

  Edaline finally found the solution, turning one of her lacy capes into a shawl and showing Sandor how to walk hunched over with a makeshift cane. Anyone who got close would surely notice that he was one buffed-out, armadillo-looking grandma. But from a distance he appeared to be a sweet, albeit rather lumpy looking, little old lady.

  Keefe laughed for five straight minutes when he saw him.

  Sophie, meanwhile, was battling a major sense of déjà vu.

  Not only had she put on the same jeans and yellow shirt with brown stripes that she’d worn on the day Fitz had permanently taken her away, but Keefe had borrowed the dark jacket and jeans Fitz had been wearing.

  “Want me to talk like this?” Keefe asked, mimicking Fitz’s accent almost perfectly. “Take my hand, Sophie. Let me show you where you truly belong.”

  “That’s not what he said,” she grumbled. But it wasn’t that far off, either. “And just so you know, the mimicking is totally creepy.”

  “I know, right? My mom does it all the time. You should see the way she mimics my dad. It’s almost terrifying.”

  “That would be.”

  She shook her hands, trying to shake away the nervous energy as she paced her room and checked the sky. It would be sunset in San Diego in less than half an hour.

  “Remember, Foster, we’re calling the shots this time. No crazy leaps, or midnight flights over the ocean, or drugged cookies. Just us, asking questions and not letting anyone leave until we get some answers.”

  She nodded, sinking to the floor, not trusting her shaky legs.

  “So what is it?” Keefe asked, coming to sit beside her. “I totally get the nerves and stuff. But . . .”—he brushed a finger across her palm—“what’s with all the dread?”

  She took out Jolie’s mirrored compact, studying the two different Sophies reflected inside.

  “The Black Swan knows who I am, Keefe. Not who I was—or who I think I am. Who I really am.”

  Keefe scooted closer, so close she could see his reflection in the mirrors. “Well, we both know I’m not good at the serious, supportive thing, so I may be a jerk for saying this but . . . when are you going to realize that they can’t tell you who you are? Maybe they can tell you a bunch of weird junk about your past and your family—and I get that some of that might be freaky. But if they tell you that your mom is the most open, go-with-the-flow person they’ve ever known, is that suddenly going to make you stop being so stubborn or keeping so many secrets?”

  “I doubt it,” Sophie admitted.

  “And what if they told you your dad was an even bigger rule breaker than me—not that that’s possible. Are you suddenly going to start ditching class and pranking Dame Alina—or, Magnate Leto, or whoever our principal is?”

  “No.”

  “Right. Because our fa
mily doesn’t decide who we are. We decide who we are. Believe me, it drives my parents crazy. And sometimes that’s the only thought that gets me through the day.”

  Sophie closed the compact, tucking it safely in her jeans pocket. “Things have been better with your parents though, haven’t they?”

  “Yeah. I guess. I don’t know.” He made his way over to Iggy’s cage, rumpling Iggy’s orange dreads. “Sometimes it feels like they’re starting to accept me for me—not turning me into a mini-them. But other times it’s like . . .”

  “Like?” Sophie prompted.

  “Like . . . I’ve distracted you long enough. The time has come!” He sang the words, fist-pumping the air before dragging her and Sandor outside to the cliffs. “Game faces on, everyone! That goes for you too, grandma. Channel your inner grumpy old lady.”

  Sandor raised his cane like he was considering clubbing Keefe over the head with it.

  “Perfect!” Keefe told him, pulling them closer to the edge. “And hey, I just realized—this is your first time teleporting, isn’t it, Gigantor?”

  Sandor nodded, staring at the crashing waves below. “I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy it.”

  Keefe laughed. “Don’t worry—Foster’s got this. The jump is the hardest part.”

  But Keefe was wrong.

  The jump was just the beginning.

  Mr. Forkle was waiting for them. Sitting in the center of his lawn, looking as puffy and wrinkled as ever while he rearranged the remaining garden gnomes into a circular pattern.

  The scene was so familiar, Sophie almost wondered if they’d gone through space and time. But then she saw the boarded-up windows and the overgrown grass, and wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

  “You kids,” Mr. Forkle grumbled, starting with his favorite phrase. “Late to your own meeting.”

  He pointed to the sky, where the last rays of sunlight were sinking below the horizon.

  “Hey, at least we showed up,” Keefe reminded him. “That’s more than you can say.”

  Mr. Forkle studied him, his expression both smug and amused. “You needn’t have bothered with the costumes. There are enough obscurers here to erase this place from existence. We’re the only ones who know we’re here—for now, at least.”

  “You think the Neverseen will find us?” Sophie asked, glancing up and down the street.

  “Neverseen?” Mr. Forkle asked.

  “That’s the name I found written in runes on the patches of their sleeves.”

  “Interesting.” He moved two of the gnomes outside the circle and craned his neck to study the sky. “And yes, I do expect the rebels to make an appearance. But I also expect them to leave us alone.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Sandor demanded as he threw off his disguise and straightened to his full height.

  “Because”—Mr. Forkle tapped the nose of one of the gnomes and the air shimmered around them—“I just put an impenetrable energy field around us. It’ll only last ten minutes, but that should be enough time. Bet you thought I was just a crazy old man, playing with my gnomes.”

  “Kinda,” Keefe admitted.

  “So, the gnomes weren’t a code?” Sophie asked.

  “They were many things, depending on what I needed. Twelve years was a very long time to be separated from my world, and these ridiculous statues were all I had to remind me why I was here.”

  “Why were you here?” Sophie asked quietly.

  His eyes met hers, sharp and clear—yet somehow impossibly ancient. “You are my greatest achievement, Sophie.”

  There was a softness to the words. A warmth. But the words were still wrong.

  “That’s all I am to you—an achievement?”

  “What more would you like?”

  She didn’t have an answer.

  “I know you have questions, Sophie. Do not expect me to give you all the answers. We haven’t the time and you haven’t the stomach. So here’s what I can tell you. I chose this house—this place—these people to protect you, nurture you, keep you safe and hidden and allow you time to become what you needed to be. Of course, I never intended for the rebels—these Neverseen—to find you when they did, but—oh don’t sound so surprised,” he added when she gasped. “Surely you’ve figured most of this out already?”

  “How could I?”

  “Simple deduction. You really think we would set fires in the shape of our sign, just to catch Alden’s attention?”

  “I guess not,” she mumbled. She’d known the Black Swan weren’t behind the Everblaze, but hadn’t thought much about the first white fires, which had already been burning when Fitz arrived.

  Mr. Forkle sighed, filling the air with the scent of dirty feet—a side effect of his ruckleberry disguise. “Somehow the Neverseen knew you were here. They just didn’t know precisely where. So they lit the fires to flush you out, taunting us with our own symbol—and framing us in the process. That’s when I sent the newspaper article to Alden—the one that led him to you so he could take you away. It was earlier than we’d planned, but I needed to keep you safe, and I thought they’d give up once the eyes of the Council were upon you. But obviously . . .”

  “You were wrong,” Sophie finished.

  “It happens sometimes,” he agreed.

  “Like our last meeting?” Keefe jumped in. “Or were we really your bait?”

  Mr. Forkle became very focused on rearranging his gnomes as he told them, “We saw an opportunity to catch some of our enemy and we took it. And it would’ve worked if Sophie hadn’t seen them too early and had Sandor chase them away.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d told us what you were planning!” Sophie snapped.

  “You would’ve been willing to sit back, pretending nothing was happening while the enemy closed in?”

  “I’ve taken bigger risks, haven’t I?” She pointed to the star-shaped scar he’d given her.

  “Another of my mistakes,” he whispered. “If I’d understood human medicine better . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sophie said, thrown by the concern in his voice. “My point is, you should’ve been working with me, not cutting me off, like you have been for the last few weeks.”

  “We had our reasons.” He pulled a small black bottle from his pocket and uncorked the stopper. “We needed to understand how the Neverseen found our ocean base. And we have finally figured out the answer.”

  “Hey—what are you looking at me for?” Keefe asked.

  “Both times the Neverseen tracked Sophie down, she was with you.”

  “What about Paris?” Sophie reminded him. “And the cave? And here? Remember the jogger?”

  “Those times were different. They were before we were taking so many precautions. Before we realized how far our enemy was willing to go.”

  “Uh, that may be—but I didn’t betray anyone,” Keefe argued.

  “I never said you did it intentionally,” Mr. Forkle told him as he poured a fine silver dust into his hand. “But that doesn’t mean you weren’t unwittingly responsible. We disabled both of your registry pendants, and all of Sandor’s trackers before our last meeting. But there was one signal we couldn’t remove.”

  He flicked his wrist, showering Keefe with the fine, gritty powder.

  Keefe coughed and rubbed his eyes, and Sophie reached forward to help him.

  But she froze when she noticed Keefe’s hands.

  All of his fingers were glowing bright red.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  BUT . . . MY SKIN’S BEEN MELTED off,” Keefe argued, staring at his glowing hands like they couldn’t possibly belong to him. “Twice.”

  “Exactly,” Mr. Forkle said quietly, “because the homing device is still in your possession. That’s how the Neverseen have been finding you. Not because of any leak on our end, which was as I’d suspected. But I
had to be sure.”

  He turned to Sophie, pouring more reveldust into his palm. “I’m sorry, but I have to check you, too. And Sandor.”

  Sophie nodded, holding her breath as he blasted her with the fine powder, then did the same to Sandor. She counted to thirty, wishing with every breath that she wouldn’t see the telltale glow. And for once her wish was granted.

  Sandor was clear as well.

  “Just as I thought,” Mr. Forkle said, recapping the vial. “Sandor’s methods are far too thorough to keep an ogre device around—even if he can’t smell it. Which makes Keefe the perfect target.”

  “Where is it?” Sandor asked, grabbing Keefe and patting him down.

  “You won’t find anything,” Mr. Forkle warned him. “Otherwise we would’ve seen a brighter glow. But remember, Keefe is not wearing his regular clothes.”

  “Regular clothes?” Keefe repeated, still staring at his glowing hands. “I don’t have any regular clothes—except my Foxfire uniform, and I wasn’t wearing that either of the times we were ambushed.”

  “So what were you wearing?” Sandor asked.

  “It would likely be an accessory,” Mr. Forkle added. “Something you always wear, regardless of the outfit. Like a pendant or a nexus—”

  “Or a pin,” Sophie whispered, afraid to meet Keefe’s eyes.

  Keefe backed a step away. “No. That . . . there has to be a mistake.”

  Sophie swallowed, trying to think of anything else it could be.

  But the Sencen family crest fit perfectly.

  Hadn’t his dad only given it to him recently? And now that she thought about it . . . hadn’t he given it to him after he found out Keefe was working on something with her?

  “No,” Keefe said again, shaking his head so hard it looked painful. “My dad’s a jerk—but he’s not that. He wouldn’t . . . I mean—these are the people who tried to kill you. And Dex. And me. He couldn’t . . . could he?”

  “There is one way to know for sure,” Mr. Forkle said, offering him the vial of reveldust. “But there is one very important thing you must keep in mind. If I am right—as I suspect that I am—you cannot let your father know that you are on to him. You cannot let anyone know that anything is different—and this goes for you as well,” he told Sandor and Sophie. “Not Alden. Not your guardians. No one must know.”