Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 3)

by Shannon Messenger

  “Please tell me you put his name in here,” Sophie begged as she turned to the last page.

  The final paragraphs gave her no answers. Just hasty scribbles about how he deserved another chance.

  Jolie was planning to go to him one last time and try to make him see reason. And if she failed . . .

  “You have to be kidding me!” Sophie shouted when the final sentence ended.

  Did Jolie really make a special compartment in her wall, and give Vertina a password, and record the message backward so only someone with a special mirror could read it—and even then, only if they had a tremendous amount of patience—AND THEN NOT GIVE HIS NAME?

  Sophie stood, needing to move—or maybe kick something—to clear her head.

  Could she have mistranslated? Should she go back through and double check?

  She picked up the journal and mirror, wondering if her eyes could really handle another marathon translating session, when Grady peeked his head through her doorway.

  “Everything okay in here?” he asked. “I was on my way up to let you know Sandor had left, and I thought I heard you yelling.”

  “Sandor left?” Sophie glanced out her windows, stunned to see purple-blue streaks announcing the coming sunrise.

  “A few minutes ago,” Grady agreed. “But somehow I don’t think that’s what you were shouting about. Was it something in there?” he asked, pointing to the purple journal she was clutching with a death grip. He took a deep breath before he asked, “Did you find something bad?”

  “Honestly? I didn’t find anything. After all I had to go through to get this thing, it’s just a long story that tells me nothing.”

  Grady’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s how Jolie’s stories always ended. She would act like she’d revealed this huge thing, and most of the time I’d be thinking, That’s it? But after a while I realized that what she’d told me was big—for her. She wasn’t big on sharing secrets. I think that’s why the bad match was so upsetting for her. Suddenly everyone knew way more about her personal life than she wanted. Which was ironically how I knew she truly loved Brant. No matter how hard it got, she always stood beside him.”

  He smiled at the memory, because for him it was sweet.

  But Sophie felt like she was back in that burning tower, watching the world bubble and melt around her.

  The mirror slipped from her hand, hitting the carpet with a soft thud.

  “Are you okay?” Grady asked.

  Sophie shook her head, unable to form an actual reply.

  She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to speak again—and she almost hoped that was true, so she would never have to tell Grady the truth.

  She rubbed her wrist, remembering the burns her kidnapper had given her. But she could remember a different burn too, one she hadn’t even thought was a burn, even though it had needed burn ointment to treat it.

  The wound Brant had given her.

  “He’s a Pyrokinetic,” she whispered, knowing the words were true even though she desperately didn’t want them to be.

  Because if she was right, then . . . Brant hadn’t just been with Jolie the day she’d died.

  He’d set the fire that killed her.

  SIXTY-THREE

  SOPHIE BURIED HER HEAD IN her hands, trying to think of any reason she could be wrong.

  She’d visited Brant—talked to him.

  And he’d creeped her out both times.

  He’d even told her, “I’ve seen you before,” the first time she met him.

  Now she finally knew where.

  But his voice! She remembered her kidnapper’s voice—and he hadn’t sounded like Brant.

  Except . . . Brant had been sick when she’d visited.

  Or he was trying to disguise it.

  He’d even stopped her from probing his memories—was that because he was afraid of what she’d find?

  “No,” she whispered, repeating it over and over, like if she just said it enough times it would suddenly be true.

  “Okay, I’ve been pretty patient,” Grady said, taking her hands and waiting for her to look at him. “But you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.”

  She knew he was right—but this was too huge.

  Too life changing.

  It would shred his heart into itty-bitty pieces.

  “Please tell me, Sophie. I need to know.”

  “I know,” she whispered, smearing away tears.

  But she still couldn’t look at him.

  “Who is the Pyrokinetic? Just say it really fast.”

  She tightened her grip on him, knowing they’d both need something to hold on to if she was going to do this.

  Grady curled his fingers around hers and she took deep breath, choking down the bile in her throat as she whispered, “Brant.”

  Grady went very, very still.

  It felt like time had stopped—like the entire universe was resting on the edge of nothingness, ready to topple over any second.

  But Grady’s voice was soft—barely even audible—as he let go of her and said, “I have to go.”

  “Where?” Sophie asked, stumbling into her nearest pair of shoes as she ran after him.

  She wasn’t surprised that he went up the stairs instead of down, nor when he stepped under the crystals of the Leapmaster and called for Brant’s house.

  But she couldn’t let him go.

  “You can’t do this, Grady,” she begged, running to his side.

  “Believe me, I can.”

  He moved to step into the light—but Sophie grabbed his arm, dragging him back.

  “I might be wrong.”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  She rubbed her wrist, remembering the sting of Brant’s last burn. And she replayed the memory she’d seen in his mind of the fire—the way the flames had exploded so strongly. So suddenly. Why had Brant been knocked back to safety, while Jolie had been surrounded?

  It only made sense if he sparked the fire.

  “It’s true,” she whispered.

  “Then let me go.”

  “But he probably won’t even be there,” she reminded him. “I’m sure he’ll be with the others on Mount Everest.”

  “Maybe,” Grady agreed. “But I’ll be waiting for him in case he gets away.”

  When she still didn’t let go, his expression became dull and rigid—like he’d turned to stone. “Don’t make me force you to let go, Sophie.”

  She realized what he meant and dropped his hand.

  “Don’t tell Edaline,” he whispered.

  She lunged for him as he stepped into the light, not entirely sure what she was doing. She had just enough time to hope Brant wouldn’t be there. Then the force of the light ripped them away.

  “You shouldn’t have done that!” Grady shouted as they reappeared on the rocky ground of the cold, bleak cliff. “Go home now!”

  “Not without you!”

  “Trust me, Sophie, you don’t want to be here for this.”

  She shivered as she turned to face Brant’s square, windowless house.

  The house Grady and Edaline had built to accommodate his every need.

  The house they’d visited every year. Bringing him his favorite cookies. Treating him like a son.

  “Sixteen years,” Grady said, picking up a stone and hurling it at the wall.

  It crashed with a thunderous CLANG! and shattered to a dozen pieces.

  Sophie froze, waiting for Brant to slam open the door and confront them.

  But the door stayed sealed and the house remained eerily silent. Nothing but the roar of the icy wind and the crashes and bangs as Grady threw stone after stone after stone.

  Finally, out of breath and out of stones, he turned away to dry his tears with his sleeve.

  Sophie strangled hi
m with a hug, hoping if she held him tight enough she could keep him together.

  “All this time,” he whispered. “I thought he was broken by his grief.”

  “Maybe he was.”

  She could still see Brant cowering in the corner, cradling Jolie’s pin in his hands. And he’d written her hundreds and hundreds of love poems and letters.

  “What if it was an accident?” she asked quietly. She knew better than anyone how unstable Pyrokinetics could be. And he’d ended up burning himself. “What if he lost control of his temper and the fire just . . . happened?”

  “I love this about you, Sophie,” Grady said, brushing his fingers over her head—careful to avoid her circlet. “You always hope for the best.”

  “But what if I’m right?”

  “Even if you are—and I don’t think that’s the case—how was what he did to you an accident?” He pulled away, taking her hands and tracing his fingers over her wrists.

  Wrists that had taken Mr. Forkle over an hour to heal.

  “Maybe—”

  “Well, I guess this means no more custard bursts,” a bitter voice said behind them.

  Grady’s grip was like a vise as he pulled Sophie behind him and turned to face Brant.

  Brant leaned against the metal door, looking perfectly at ease in his strange yellow-orange robe, like he’d known this day would come—and had been preparing for it.

  “I guess there’s no need to pretend anymore, is there?” he asked, switching to the hollow, raspy voice Sophie would recognize anywhere. His scarred lips curled with the hint of a smile as he met her eyes. “What? Not happy to see me again? And here I thought you were working so hard to find me.”

  “Actually, I was working to stop you,” she told him.

  “Hmm—and that hasn’t gone very well either, has it?” He traced his fingers across his forehead, miming her circlet. “I must say, that contraption is the only good decision the Council’s ever made. Well, that, and having you heal Fintan. Both worked out very well for me.”

  His grin made Sophie want to vomit.

  “Watch yourself, Brant!” Grady warned him.

  “Why? So I can wait another sixteen years for you to figure out what’s going on? Tell me this—what do you think I do all day? Sit in this cold box of a house, staring at the walls, waiting for my annual visit? Actually, I get out all the time. It’s amazing how much a little ash helps me slip past goblins.”

  Sophie sucked in a breath. “You were the intruder who left that footprint in the pastures—and you’ve been to the Sanctuary, haven’t you?”

  His smug smile was the only answer he gave.

  “What do you want with Silveny?” she demanded, wishing Grady hadn’t used up all the rocks to throw at him.

  “A creature the Council will do anything to keep alive?” Brant asked. “Whatever would I do with that?”

  Before Sophie could reply, Brant’s fist flew up, punching himself in the face. He stumbled backward, crashing into the wall—and when he righted himself there were red streams dripping down his scarred chin.

  “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you,” he warned Grady.

  “Or else what?” Grady asked, making Brant elbow himself in the stomach so hard he doubled over. “You’re not fooling anyone, Brant. I’ve seen the madness you’re hiding beneath the surface. I’ve watched you clawing at the walls and slithering on your belly and collapsed in a puddle of your own drool.”

  Brant’s teeth were smeared with red as he smiled. “Or maybe I just wanted to see if you’d mop up my spit!”

  That earned him two more self-punches to the face, but the pain only made him laugh.

  “Does that make you feel better, Grady?”

  “Nothing will ever make me feel better!” Grady snarled. “You’ve stolen everything—”

  “EVERYTHING WAS STOLEN FROM ME!” The outburst left Brant panting for breath, and he clutched his chest, staring at the pale, empty sky. “All I ever wanted was to take my rightful place in society. But the Council wouldn’t let me. Because they were too scared of this.”

  He snapped his fingers and red-orange flames sparked across his hand, crawling over his skin.

  “Look at you both cower!” he said as held his palm out to them. “Can’t you see the beauty of it? This is a gift.”

  “Fire destroys everything it touches,” Sophie reminded him as she watched the flames flicker and dance.

  “Not me.” He waved his hand, showing how the skin wasn’t melting.

  “Yes it did. I saw the letters you wrote Jolie. I know how much you loved her.”

  “I did.” He curled his fingers into a fist, snuffing out the flames. “But the Council and the Black Swan poisoned her against me.”

  “She wasn’t against you,” Sophie told him. “I read her journal. She defended you—even at the end, when she knew what you were.”

  “What I am,” Brant said calmly, “is a visionary!”

  “No—you’re a murderer!” Grady shouted. “And I won’t let you get away with it anymore.”

  “I’d like to see you stop me.”

  Before Sophie could blink, Brant curled his fingers at the sky and hissed some sort of word, drawing down a basketball-size sphere of Everblaze.

  “Enough,” Grady told him, his voice unnaturally calm as Brant froze like someone had just hit the pause button.

  The Everblaze hovered above Brant’s palm like a tiny burning star, bathing him in the flickering neon yellow glow.

  “Put it out,” Grady demanded.

  Brant managed a crooked smirk back at him. “I’d like to see you make me.”

  “Oh, I can.”

  Brant’s smirk morphed into horror as his free arm rose in a slow, deliberate motion and shoved his hand into the center of the ball of Everblaze.

  “Stop!” Sophie shouted as Brant screamed.

  “He can stop it himself,” Grady told her. “He just has to put out the flame.”

  “Never,” Brant spit through gritted teeth.

  “THEN YOU CAN BURN!”

  Brant’s screams grew louder and Sophie covered her ears—but she could still hear the agonizing wails echoing off the rock face. And the rotten, sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh was inescapable.

  “Please, Grady,” Sophie begged.

  But Grady didn’t so much as flinch.

  It wasn’t until she squeezed his arm and whispered, “Jolie wouldn’t want this,” that he lowered his head and Brant’s screams faded into muffled whimpers.

  “You should go, Sophie,” Grady told her as his whole body started to shake.

  “Not without you,”

  “I have to finish this first.”

  “How?” she asked him. “If you don’t stop now, you’ll end up just like him.”

  “Listen to her,” Brant mumbled, slowly pulling himself to his feet. Sophie avoided looking at his hand—not wanting to see the damage the Everblaze had done. “She’s such a smart little weapon.”

  “I’m not a weapon!” Sophie snapped.

  “Not anymore,” Brant agreed, whipping his arm and launching the Everblaze at her head.

  Sophie dropped to her stomach, feeling the edges of her hair singe from the heat as the fireball streaked above her—missing her by inches.

  She covered her face, preparing for a second attack, but Brant had gone quiet.

  Everything was silent—except the tongues of yellow flame licking across the jagged rock wall behind her, spreading into a wild blaze.

  “Grady?” Sophie shouted, realizing he was no longer beside her.

  She pulled herself to her feet, squinting through the thick smoke to spot two figures standing near the edge of the cliff.

  “Stop!” Sophie screamed, racing to Grady’s side.

  He froze her before she could
reach him, stopping her midlunge, like she’d been grabbed by an alien tractor beam. “You don’t want to do this, Dad.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But I have to. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

  Brant inched another step forward, sending a shower of pebbles toppling over the edge.

  “Stop!” Sophie screamed again. “Just let the Council take him away.”

  “So he can end up like Fintan? They’ll never do what needs to be done. And he’ll find a way to burn again.”

  “I can burn now!” Brant hissed a command and Everblaze snaked to his side, swirling into a massive fireball above them. “Let me go or I’ll make it rain on all of us.”

  “You’ll never get the chance,” Grady promised.

  “Oh, I will.” The fireball sank lower, making Grady duck. “Just give me a reason, Grady, and we all go up in flames—and moving Sophie counts,” he added, dropping the fire lower still, forcing Grady to duck. “If she goes, we all go. Or you can admit you’ve lost and let me go free.”

  “I can make you want to surrender,” Grady snapped back.

  “Can you?” He laughed as Grady gasped and rubbed his head. “Looks like you can’t. Guess that’s an advantage to having a few cracks in the old brain.”

  “I will never let you go, Brant.”

  “Well, then you can sacrifice another daughter. The choice is up to you.”

  No—Sophie realized. It was up to her.

  If she let Grady kill Brant she’d lose him in the process, and that was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. She had to make him change his mind, and she was pretty sure she knew how—assuming Bronte was right about the heart being the secret to inflicting.

  She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the chaos and focus on her memories of love. Her brain didn’t want to focus, but she let her heart swell with feelings, the warm burst when Grady and Edaline had told her they loved her, the trust and faith she’d felt the day they adopted her, and the sweet relief of the moment she’d first called them Mom and Dad. She felt her love for her human family, too, all the smiles and kisses and late-night back rubs to help her sleep. She could feel the last hug she gave them before she said goodbye forever. And the gentle strength of Fitz’s shoulder as he’d held her and let her cry and promised her everything would be okay. She could feel herself clinging to Dex as they escaped together, and the pride and gratitude she’d felt as she watched Keefe fight to protect her outside the dark, treacherous cave. She even felt the calm respect for Biana, who always came back, no matter how much they’d fought, and the comfort and happiness Silveny and Iggy had brought into her life.