Unlocked 8.5 (Keeper of the Lost Cities)

by Shannon Messenger

  “It wasn’t the only way,” Sophie reminded her. “You just wanted to keep your precious position on the Council.”

  “I did,” Oralie agreed, reaching up and tracing her fingers over the jewels in her circlet. “But that isn’t just about me. It might’ve started out that way when I was first elected. But you have no idea what kind of chaos would ensue if I were to leave—especially for a scandal like this.”

  Sophie opened her mouth to argue, but…

  She’d unfortunately already come to the same frustrating conclusion.

  The Lost Cities were in turmoil, and losing another Councillor could give the Neverseen the opening they needed to finally take over.

  That was why Sophie hadn’t told anyone the truth about Oralie.

  Not even Fitz.

  Despite how much the secret had cost her.

  Her heart turned sharp and heavy at the reminder, like a lump of shrapnel slowly shredding the inside of her chest.

  She’d gotten used to their “breakup”—if that was even the right term for what had happened between her and Fitz. But that didn’t mean she was over it. Or that part of her didn’t still wish…

  “I’m sorry,” Oralie said, stepping closer. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Well, you have.”

  “I know. And… I have to live with that.”

  Oralie’s voice cracked—and the sound made Sophie’s resolve crack a little too.

  But her shrapnel heart snapped her out of it.

  Her hands curled into fists. “Yeah, well I get to live with being unmatchable. So I win.”

  Worst. Victory. Ever.

  “I’m so sorry, Sophie. Truly.”

  Sophie jerked away when Oralie reached for her. “Just stop it, okay? You’re wasting time.”

  “Actually… I’m not. We needed my tears, didn’t we?” Oralie blinked, showing how glassy her eyes had gotten. “I knew the easiest way to trigger them was to remind myself of how much you hate me.”

  “Oh.”

  It was the only thing Sophie could think to say.

  She was so tired of feeling sorry for people who didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  “How do you know that starting with tears is the right order for the cache?” she asked, getting back to a subject that actually mattered.

  “Because my mind’s been fixated on a phrase ever since I started trying to piece together the steps. Truth starts below.”

  “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  “No, it’s a clue I left for myself. And it’s not about the words—though I’m sure I chose them because they sound mysterious enough to catch my attention. The secret’s in their first letters. T. S. B. Tears, sweat, then blood.”

  “You’re sure?” Sophie had to ask as Oralie reached up to wipe the corners of her eyes.

  “Positive.”

  Her voice didn’t waver—but Sophie noticed that Oralie held her breath as she smeared her damp fingertip across the curve of the cache.

  “Should something be happening?” Sophie asked after several endless seconds.

  “Not yet. I’ve only begun the sequence.” Oralie swept the long tendrils of her hair over her left shoulder. “These ringlets are so heavy—they always make my neck glisten.”

  “Glisten?”

  Oralie nodded, and Sophie begrudgingly had to admit that Oralie did look more shimmery than sweaty as she brushed her finger along her hairline and swiped it across the cache—which still didn’t respond.

  “Now for the part I’ve been dreading.” Oralie bit her lip as she removed one of the golden pins securing her circlet. “The rational side of me knows I’ll only feel a tiny prick, but… I think you must get your needle phobia from me.”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone hates needles,” Sophie argued, refusing to feel even the tiniest connection to Oralie.

  “I suppose.” Oralie scowled at the sharp point for a beat before she lowered it toward her fingertip—and Sophie looked away until Oralie announced, “All done.”

  The cache was streaked with red when Sophie turned back—but nothing else had changed.

  “There’s one final step,” Oralie explained. “Now it needs a password—and I actually have two, in case someone ever tried to force me to do this. One that opens the cache, and one that destroys it.”

  “And you’re sure you know which is which?”

  “Thankfully I made it easy for myself.” She leaned closer, her breath clouding the crystal as she whispered, “Fathdon.”

  Sophie realized that was Councillor Kenric’s last name the same moment the cache flashed glaringly bright and she found herself squinting right at him—or rather, squinting at a small projection of him that was hovering above the glowing orb like a tiny Kenric apparition. A projection of Oralie stood facing him, both of them silhouetted in moonlight, wearing long silver capes with hoods covering their circlets.

  “I knew Kenric would be a part of this,” the real Oralie murmured. “He always insisted on being involved in everything I did.”

  “But he doesn’t look happy about it,” Sophie noted.

  The projections were slightly blurry, and some of the details were a little off with their features, since Oralie didn’t have a photographic memory. But Sophie could still see the scowl on Kenric’s usually smiling face.

  “For once, would you please just trust that I know what’s best?” he pleaded, knocking back his hood and tearing his hands through his vivid red hair.

  “No! You don’t get to drag me into this and then not tell me what’s going on!” the projection of Oralie argued.

  Kenric heaved a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. Your memory is going to be erased anyway.”

  “Then that’s all the more reason to keep me informed! The record in my cache should be a complete account of what we’re up against, not whatever scattered pieces you feel like sharing. Otherwise, what use will it be if we need to reference it in the future?”

  “Exactly!” Sophie said, hoping Kenric listened.

  But his projection moved closer and reached for Oralie’s hand. “Please, Ora. I need you to trust me on this. Can you feel how serious I am when I tell you that it’s absolutely essential to keep everything about Elysian fragmented?”

  The projection of Oralie frowned. “That’s not the word you had me ask Fintan about.”

  “I know. And I can’t tell you what it means, so don’t ask. I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all, but… I always say too much when I’m with you.”

  “And yet, here I stand, completely in the dark,” the projection of Oralie noted.

  “Good. You’ll be safer that way.”

  “Elysian doesn’t feel familiar,” the real Oralie murmured as the projection of Kenric started to pace.

  “Is it a place?” Sophie asked, remembering the myths she’d read back in her old school about the Elysian Fields.

  Often there were glimmers of truth behind the stories humans told—remnants from the days when the elves and humans still had a treaty between their worlds. Or pieces of the elves’ campaign of misinformation to make their existence sound too silly to be believed.

  “I truly have no idea,” Oralie admitted. “All of this feels strangely… detached. It’s like I’m watching someone else’s life instead of my own. I always thought accessing a Forgotten Secret would be like recovering any other memory, and after a few moments my brain would find enough cues to sync it back into my mental timeline. But this doesn’t connect to anything.”

  “Not even to stellarlune?”

  Past Oralie must’ve been thinking the same thing, because her projection asked Kenric, “Does this Elysian thing have something to do with whatever stellarlune is?”

  Kenric sighed. “I can’t tell you that, either.”

  “You can and you will.” The tiny Oralie stalked forward, grabbing his wrist. “You don’t get to show up at my door in the middle of the night, beg me to go with you to see a former Councillor—who seemed particularly unstable,
by the way—ask him over and over about whatever stellarlune is, even after I told you he wasn’t lying when he said he’d never heard of it, and then stand there, gray as a ghoul because you slipped and said something about this mysterious Elysian.”

  Kenric let out a soft chuckle. “Gray as a ghoul. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, Ora. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

  “Stop trying to distract me!”

  “But I’m so good at it!” Kenric flashed a smug grin as he stepped closer—so close, the toes of their shoes touched. “I seem to remember you losing your train of thought twice the other day when I wore that gray jerkin with the emeralds on the collar. The one you’ve always said brings out the flecks of green in my eyes.”

  He batted his lashes and Sophie had to smile.

  But the real Oralie looked ready to cry.

  And her projection seemed eager to smack him.

  “You’re ridiculous,” she whisper-hissed, reaching up to make sure her hood still covered her circlet before glancing over her shoulder. The memory was too shadowy for Sophie to tell where they were, but the silence in the background made it seem like they were alone. “Tell me about Elysian, Kenric! And stellarlune! And anything else you’re investigating! You came to me for help, so let me help!”

  “You already have, far more than you know,” he assured her. “Fintan was calmer with you there, and that allowed me to finally slip past his guard.”

  “You breached his mind? Why?”

  Kenric backed away, resuming his pacing. “The same reason I always breach someone’s mind—but I didn’t find the information I was looking for, in case you’re wondering. That’s probably good news, though. At least this mess is a little more contained than I’d feared. I just wish I could find the source of the leak.”

  “I’m getting tired of your vagueness and riddles,” the projection of Oralie warned.

  Sophie snorted. “Welcome to my world.”

  “The truly strange thing is,” the real Oralie murmured, “I can’t recall any part of the conversation I apparently had with Fintan. And if the Washers erased it, there should be a second jewel in my cache—or this memory should start much earlier. I suppose it’s possible that Kenric washed it himself, but—”

  “Kenric was a Washer?” Sophie interrupted.

  “One of the best. It was often his job to wash the minds of the other Washers, to make sure they hadn’t inadvertently learned anything from their assignments—but he was under oath to never wash the mind of anyone on the Council, even if they asked him to. And I can’t see him breaking that vow—especially with me.”

  “I can, if he thought he was protecting you,” Sophie argued.

  “I suppose.” Oralie studied the tiny versions of herself and Kenric, who seemed to have entered into some sort of epic staring contest. “Actually, now that I think about it, there was another time when my mind felt like it does right now. I woke up in my sitting room, and Kenric was there with… someone. I can’t remember who—which is strange. I know we weren’t alone, but…” She rubbed the center of her forehead, like she was trying to massage the detail loose. “I also have no memory of letting them in. But I remember Kenric teasing me about drinking too much fizzleberry wine. And I had indulged in a second glass that night with dinner, so that seemed like a logical enough explanation at the time. But… I do also remember thinking that something about his smile felt off. I was just too tired to ask him about it. My head was so… fuzzy.” She frowned, rubbing her forehead harder. “I have that same fuzziness now. It’s like… trying to feel my way through fog, except there’s nothing on the other side, if that makes sense.”

  “Do you think that other memory has something to do with stellarlune?” Sophie asked. “Or Elysian?”

  “It could. But let’s not forget that it’s equally possible that I truly did have too much wine.”

  Somehow Sophie doubted that. “And you have no idea what Elysian is—not even a guess?”

  She wasn’t surprised when Oralie shook her head—but that didn’t make her any less ready to scream, Just once, couldn’t you guys call it something like “Our Massive Conspiracy to Control the World” and stop with all the fancy words that don’t mean anything?

  “This is such a classic Kenric move!” Oralie huffed, glaring at his projection. “He always kept me out of anything he’d decided was ‘too intense.’ That’s why there’s only one Forgotten Secret in my cache.”

  “Um… it sounds like the real reason for that might be because Kenric stole some of your other memories,” Sophie had to point out, which made her want to throw a full-fledged tantrum—complete with kicking and flailing.

  Sometimes it felt like all she ever did was try to help fill in someone’s mental gaps after someone else messed with their memories. It was enough to make her start hating Telepaths.

  Oralie turned away, stretching out her hand to catch several of the pinkish, purplish, bluish petals raining around them. “I know what you’re thinking, Sophie. But Kenric would never do anything malicious—especially to me. He and I…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence—but she didn’t need to.

  Kenric’s feelings for Oralie had been incredibly obvious, and Sophie had long suspected that the feelings had been mutual.

  But she still had to wonder if there’d been a lot more to Kenric than she’d originally realized.

  She squinted at his face, wishing she knew more about him.

  He’d always been her favorite Councillor—but that had mostly been because he tended to take her side. And that didn’t necessarily mean she should’ve trusted him.

  “Is that the end of the memory?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell,” Oralie admitted.

  The two projections were standing so still that the image almost looked frozen.

  “Do you think—” Sophie started to ask, but Kenric’s voice cut her off.

  “I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Ora.” He dropped his gaze toward the ground. “I tried to avoid it. But I didn’t know who else to trust.”

  Oralie’s projection reached for his hands. “If you really trust me, tell me what’s going on.”

  For a second he looked tempted. But he shook his head. “I can’t. And I swear, I’m doing you a favor by keeping you in the dark. I’m counting down the days until I can have the Washers clean this mess out of my brain.”

  “I can tell.” Oralie closed her eyes in the memory. “I feel so much fear and frustration. And… is that disgust?”

  Kenric pulled his hands away from her. “Let’s just say that sometimes I’m not particularly proud to call myself a Councillor.”

  “It’s that bad?” she whispered.

  He looked pale when he nodded. “Some days I dream about walking away.”

  “You mean resigning?” Oralie clarified.

  He hesitated before stepping closer. “I’ve done my share for my people, Ora. I’d have zero problem letting someone else take over. But… I won’t go unless you resign with me.”

  Everyone sucked in a breath: Sophie, Oralie, Oralie’s projection—even Kenric, as if he couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

  But he didn’t take it back.

  Instead, he reached for her face, gently cupping her cheek. “I may not be an Empath, but I know I’m not alone in this. Don’t tell me you’ve never wished—”

  “Please don’t say it,” Oralie begged—but there was no energy behind her plea.

  She even leaned into his hand.

  “Ora,” Kenric breathed, sweeping back her hood, “you don’t have to keep fighting this. We wouldn’t be the first to walk away because of—”

  Oralie shook her head. “Kenric, don’t.”

  His jaw set and his eyes blazed with the same intensity as his voice when he told her, “Because of love, Ora. We both know that’s what this is, no matter how hard we pretend otherwise.”

  The real Oralie covered her mouth, tears streaking down her face.
>
  Her projection just stood there shaking.

  Kenric reached for her other cheek. “Think of how much simpler everything would be if we stopped trying to deny how we feel,” he whispered. “How happy we could be. How free.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. “We could have our own place. Our own lives. Maybe someday even our own family.”

  “Kenric…”

  He leaned toward her, and her lips parted, like she might let him kiss her. But at the last second she turned her face away.

  “I can’t do this.”

  He turned her chin back toward him. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Both.”

  The word seemed to form a wall between them, growing thicker with every silent second that followed.

  Kenric tilted his head. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “No—”

  “There is. I know you too well, Ora. In fact… I might even know what it is.”

  “There’s nothing to know,” Oralie swore.

  Kenric laughed sadly, stepping back. “Empaths are terrible liars.”

  “Kenric—”

  “That time when you were ill,” he interrupted. “When you wouldn’t let me take you to see any physicians. I stayed by your side the whole night, just to be safe. And there were a few moments when I couldn’t tell if you were asleep or awake. You’d toss and turn and whisper something over and over. Something that sounded… a lot like suldreen.”

  Sophie felt her jaw fall open.

  “Suldreen” was the proper term for a moonlark.

  “That doesn’t mean—” Oralie’s projection tried, but Kenric cut her off.

  “I saw how upset you were when Prentice was exiled. And I saw the look on your face when Alden brought us that strand of DNA. Everyone thought it was a hoax or a misunderstanding—but not you. Don’t try to deny it, Ora. I saw you flinch when he used the phrase ‘Project Moonlark.’ And you’ve tried harder than anyone to stop Alden’s search. You think I don’t know that you’re the one who convinced Bronte to place someone in Quinlin’s office to keep an eye on things?”

  “So he knew,” Sophie said as both Oralies let out a strangled sob. “He knew you’re my…”

  “He must have,” the real Oralie whispered. “But I had no idea. He never said…” She leaned closer to his projection, shouting, “Why didn’t you tell me when I’d remember it?”