Kenric, of course, didn’t answer.
And Sophie studied him, trying to decide if she wanted to laugh or cry or teleport somewhere far, far away.
Another person she’d trusted, who’d hidden things and lied to her every time she saw him.
That was the worst part of being the moonlark—aside from having enemies trying to kill her all the time.
No one was ever quite who they pretended to be.
“What did he mean about you being ill?” she asked, trying to piece together as much of the real story as she could.
Oralie pressed her hand against her stomach. “The process of giving the Black Swan what they needed for your genetics turned out to be more involved than I expected—physically and emotionally. And Kenric stopped by right after I returned home from the procedure. I tried to hide it from him, but I nearly fainted just answering the door. So he insisted on taking care of me. But… I woke up alone. He told me he went home after I finally fell asleep. Apparently not.”
“And you’re the reason Quinlin thought his receptionist was reporting on him to the Council?” Sophie verified, remembering the first time Alden brought her to Atlantis. “Not Bronte?”
“It wasn’t like Bronte needed any convincing. All I did was suggest that Quinlin and Alden might be overstepping their authority—which they were. And then I made sure I received the reports on their activities so that I could monitor Alden’s progress and also remove any notes about you from the record. I was trying to protect you!”
Sophie had no idea what to do with that information, except to shove it into another mental box of Things She’d Have to Deal with Later.
Her brain was getting pretty cluttered with those.
Someday she’d have to get brave and try to unpack them. But for now, she turned back to the memory, watching Kenric hold up a hand to silence Oralie.
“Don’t bother with whatever lie you’re about to give,” he told her. “We both know I’m right. And… I understand. Or I’m trying to, anyway.”
“Kenric—”
“And if that’s why you have to stay, Ora, then I’m staying too.” He tucked one of her ringlets gently behind her ear. “You’re going to need all the allies you can get. Especially since someday the Black Swan is going to bring their moonlark into play. You know that, right?”
Oralie’s mouth started to form one word. But at the last second she changed to a hushed “yes.”
Kenric nodded gravely. “Do you know a lot of other things you aren’t telling me?”
“No. I swear, Kenric. That was part of the deal.” Her gaze shifted to her feet. “I’m completely separate.”
“Good. It’ll be easier to protect you that way.”
“I don’t need your protection!”
“Yes, you do. And you’ll have it. I’ll be right here by your side, even if I have to pretend that things between us are strictly professional. It’s okay,” he added, wiping away her fresh tears. “I knew this was how this conversation was going to go. Why do you think I’ve never said anything before? I just… had to say it—at least once. Just to see what would happen. And now seemed like a perfect time, since you won’t remember it anyway.”
Oralie closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “You can’t hide your feelings, Kenric. They’re there—every time I’m around you.”
His smile was heartbreaking. “I know. Empaths may be terrible liars—but they always find the deeper truth.”
“We’re not like Telepaths. We can’t bury it—or wash it away,” Oralie murmured.
“Very true.” Kenric tucked another ringlet behind her ear before he pulled her hood back into place and pressed two fingers against her temple. “Still, it’ll be hard for you to understand what you’re feeling without the context, right? So how about I help you with that? I think it’s time to put all of this behind us, don’t you?”
“What are you doing? You’re not supposed to—”
The projections blinked away, as if someone had flipped a switch.
In a way, Kenric had.
“Well,” Oralie said, curling her fingers around the cache and leaning against the trunk of the Panakes. “That… wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Me neither,” Sophie agreed, trying to figure out which emotion to go with.
The memory had been intense, and fascinating, and devastating—but also ridiculously disappointing, and maddening, and pointless.
That was all they had to help Keefe?
A new word that meant nothing, a vague mention of a conversation with Fintan about stellarlune—where he apparently didn’t know anything—and Kenric and Oralie’s star-crossed love story?
“It’s okay,” Oralie told her, slipping her cache into a pocket hidden in her gown. “This isn’t the dead end you’re thinking it is.”
“Why? Did it finally trigger the other memories?”
“No. But I know where we can find them. Kenric’s cache clearly has the information we need. That must be why he asked me to give it to you if something happened to him, and why he made sure I had a way to open it. It works differently than mine, since there are multiple memories inside, but the access sequence is actually a little easier.” She held out her hand. “I’ll show you.”
Sophie’s heart dropped into the sloshiest part of her stomach.
Oralie stepped closer, taking Sophie by her shoulders. “Please tell me the panic I’m feeling isn’t because you lost Kenric’s cache.”
Oh, but it was so much worse than that.
Sophie stared at her boots, knowing she had no choice but to explain the whole miserable mess—from Keefe stealing the cache away from her and using it to bribe his way into the Neverseen, to him taking it back when he escaped and then finding out that he’d actually stolen a fake.
Oralie tightened her grip on Sophie’s shoulders. “How could you not tell me about this sooner?”
“Uh, the Council hasn’t exactly been super supportive and friendly, remember?” Sophie argued.
“I have. And I could’ve helped you get it back!”
“How?”
“I… don’t know,” Oralie admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have found a way, or that you were right to keep this a secret!”
She had a point.
But Sophie wasn’t in the mood to apologize.
Oralie dropped her hands and stepped back, letting out a long, heavy breath. “This has to stop, Sophie. We have to start working together. No more secrets. No more lies. You don’t have to like me or forgive me—but you do have to trust me. And I’ll do the same for you. There’s too much at stake—and not just for Keefe. I don’t know what Elysian is, or what it has to do with stellarlune, but the fear I can now remember feeling in Kenric was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced from him. He was always calm and collected, even under incredibly fraught circumstances. So for him to be that worried…” Her voice hitched and she turned away. “We have to find his cache—now.”
“Okay, but how?” Sophie repeated.
Oralie stood taller, smoothing her gown. “I suppose we should start with you telling me everything you’ve already tried. Maybe that’ll help us spot something you overlooked.”
“We haven’t really tried anything,” Sophie reluctantly admitted. “There were too many other things going on. I did think about asking Fintan when I met with him, but our deal only allowed me to ask him one question, and there was something else I needed to know more. Plus, I’m sure the Neverseen moved the caches after he was captured, so anything he could’ve told me would be useless anyway. But… I guess we could try making another deal with him just in case—or wait. What about Glimmer? You guys have her in custody, right?”
“In a way, yes. We’ve placed her at Tiergan’s house and made it clear that she’s not allowed to leave—and Bo has been tasked with making sure she’s constantly supervised. But… we’ve yet to schedule her Tribunal. She’s being cooperative enough that we don’t want to risk changing her attitude.”
Sophie’s jaw tightened. “Cooperative enough isn’t the same as cooperative! Has she told you anything new about the Neverseen? Like where any of their hideouts are, or any insights into their plans, or—”
“She’s answered all of our questions honestly,” Oralie assured her. “I’ve monitored her reactions closely during our conversations. But… so far, she hasn’t shared anything particularly useful. Then again, neither has Tam. And neither did Keefe, after he escaped, as I’m sure you remember. The Neverseen are incredibly cautious with what they allow their members to know. And there’s been no indication that Glimmer’s holding anything back from us—at least not beyond her name and what she looks like.”
“She still hasn’t taken down her hood?”
“She says she doesn’t feel safe—and yes, we could force her to,” Oralie added before Sophie could make that exact suggestion. “But the Council feels she’ll be more useful to us if we make her a willing ally—and I agree. So we’re giving her a little space—a little time—to see if she’ll choose to trust us before we try anything more drastic.”
Sophie opened her mouth to argue—and realized she had no idea what she wanted to say.
She’d watched Glimmer voluntarily help Lady Gisela with her dangerous plans for Keefe—and heard Keefe’s mom champion Glimmer’s loyalty.
But.
Glimmer had also been the one to turn on Lady Gisela in Loamnore and set Tam free from the bonds that had been controlling him.
And yet…
Glimmer was the one who put those bonds on his wrists in the first place.
They also hadn’t figured out how Lady Gisela had escaped.
Given her injuries, she would’ve needed someone’s help—and while it was possible that a few dwarves remained loyal to her, it was also just as possible that Glimmer was trying to do exactly what Keefe had attempted when he ran off and joined the Neverseen, and was pretending to switch sides to try to take down her enemies from the inside out.
Tam seemed to trust her, though… and he barely trusted anybody.
So basically, Sophie had no idea what to believe.
“I want to meet with her,” she decided, wishing she’d demanded it sooner.
She’d lost so many days sitting by Keefe’s side in the Healing Center.
And yet, she needed to get back to him as soon as possible.
“I should be able to make that arrangement,” Oralie agreed after a second. “But we need to keep pursuing other leads as well. There’s a good chance that Glimmer knows nothing—or that what she knows is now outdated, just like Fintan.”
“Okay, but what leads?” Sophie hated the whine in her voice, but she was done convincing herself they had something to go on when they didn’t.
Oralie chewed her lip, pressing so hard that her teeth left tiny dents. “Well… do you think you can find Alvar again?”
The name hit like a thunderbolt, stirring up enough anger, sorrow, and regret to make Sophie dizzy.
“I don’t even know if he’s still alive,” she mumbled.
The last time she’d seen Alvar, he’d looked… grim.
That’d been one of the reasons why she and Keefe were willing to let Alvar escape in exchange for a little information. The risk of him hurting someone before his time was up had seemed pretty small.
“Still, I think it’s worth trying to track him down,” Oralie told her. “Maybe Fitz or Biana would know some places he might go to die in peace.”
“I suppose I can ask them,” Sophie said, feeling ready to vomit just thinking about it.
Biana might not handle it that badly.
But Fitz?
Fitz had the worst temper.
Especially when it came to anything to do with his brother.
But… Alvar was a Vanisher. And he’d already admitted that he’d used his ability to sneak around the Neverseen’s hideouts, trying to gain leverage in case he ever needed it. So he might know something about the caches.
Or maybe there was something he hadn’t told them about stellarlune.
He might’ve even heard of Elysian.
“I’ll talk to Fitz when I go back to the Healing Center,” Sophie promised, reminding herself that they couldn’t afford to waste any time.
And maybe because she was dreading that conversation so very much, it took her longer than it should have to realize that the crisp, accented voice shouting inside her head wasn’t just a flashback from her memories.
SOPHIE!
SOPHIE!
SOPHIE!
FITZ? she transmitted back, stumbling over her feet when he responded with a brain-splittingly loud FINALLY!
WHAT’S WRONG? she asked. IS KEEFE OKAY?
If something happened…
HE’S FINE, Fitz assured her. BETTER THAN FINE. THAT’S WHY I REACHED OUT. I FIGURED YOU’D WANT TO KNOW THE GOOD NEWS RIGHT AWAY.
He paused long enough that she would’ve clobbered him if he’d been closer.
Then he told her, KEEFE’S AWAKE.
- TWO - KEEFE
OKAY, FOR THE TEN-ZILLIONTH TIME: I’m fine,” Keefe promised as Elwin snapped his fingers and replaced the glowing blue orb around Keefe’s head with a neon yellow one. “You don’t have to keep testing me.”
Especially with balls of superbright light, which were not helping with all of the pounding going on in his brain.
The pounding didn’t mean anything, by the way.
That’s why he didn’t bother mentioning it.
Of course he had a headache!
His mom had just tried to kill him—again!
Sure, she’d claimed it was simply the next part of her evil plan to make him into her own personal super-elf—but that was basically the same thing. And she could order Bangs Boy and the Flasher girl with the weird nickname to blast him with as many freaky shadow-bolts and light beams as she wanted.
It wasn’t going to change anything.
He still hated his mom.
Still planned to destroy her creepy organization.
Still had notoriously awesome hair—even if he was probably rocking some major bed head at the moment.
So… he was good.
Everything was good.
Well. Maybe not everything.
He wasn’t a fan of the way Elwin kept blocking him from getting up, because apparently he was supposed to “rest” for a couple of centuries. And he certainly wasn’t enjoying the Headache of Doom. Or how twisty and churn-y his insides felt—but he didn’t mention that, either, because he already knew why his spit tasted so sour.
His mom…
She must’ve gotten away again.
Otherwise he would’ve woken up to a whole lot of high-fiving and celebrating.
Instead, he’d found Fitz and Elwin staring at him with tired eyes and extra crinkly foreheads—and he didn’t know why he was so surprised. Things hadn’t exactly been going well before he blacked out, given that pretty much everyone on his side was unconscious and his mom had just gotten exactly what she wanted.
Honestly, he should’ve been relieved that he hadn’t woken up trapped in a Neverseen hideout with Mommy Dearest standing outside of his cell.
But… some tiny part of him had still been hoping his friends would pull off a victory—probably because then whatever his mom had done to him wouldn’t matter.
Now he was going to have to deal with it and deal with her at the same time. Which sounded… tiring.
He’d thought about asking Fitz what went wrong. But he wasn’t in the mood to hear about all of the mistakes they’d made.
Okay, fine—he wasn’t in the mood to hear about all of the mistakes he’d caused everybody to make, because his brilliant plan had turned out to be a little less-than-brilliant.
Apparently, he shared the Really-Bad-at-Scheming gene with his mom.
And yet somehow she always found a way to beat him.
He couldn’t figure out how she kept pulling that off.
Was it ruthlessness
, like Vespera had droned on and on about in one of her Look—I’m-the-queen-of-all-things-evil! speeches?
Or was it a deeper kind of desperation?
Or pure, random luck?
Or was it something more insidious than all of that?
Could his mom have built some sort of… fundamental flaw into him during her creepy experiments? A way to make sure that her little Legacy Boy would be just strong enough to do her bidding but not strong enough to take her down?
The possibility felt like an angry T. rex tearing through his already aching brain, and he had to press his arms against his sides to fight the urge to reach up and smack himself.
No way did his mom deserve that kind of credit.
She wasn’t some gene-manipulating mastermind.
She was an evil, power-hungry, unstable murderer playing with things she didn’t understand—and whatever she’d tried to do to him in Loamnore wasn’t going to work.
It wasn’t.
He’d make sure of that.
Plus, he had the moonlark on his side—and Foster was even more amazing than the Black Swan had designed her to be.
She was an overachiever like that.
In fact, he’d bet anything that Sophie was the one who’d gotten him safely away from the dwarven capital while he was unconscious.
Though… maybe if she hadn’t had to do that, his mom wouldn’t have escaped.
There was no way to know, so it was probably better not to wonder about it.
He just had to keep fighting and remember that the defeats they’d suffered were… mostly a timing issue. After all, his mom had been refining her plan for years, and he was stuck playing catch-up—and he had holes in his memory slowing him down.
But he was getting smarter every day.
And stronger.
And angrier.
So.
Much.
Angrier.
And all of that rage was going to keep fueling him while he finished this game once and for all.
Until then, he needed to focus on the smaller victories. Like the fact that this time all of his friends had made it through safely. That’d been the first thing he’d asked after he’d woken up—if waking up was the right way to describe the process. He hadn’t necessarily been asleep. He’d been sort of… drifting through a strange mental space where past and present—dream and reality—all blurred together.
Unlocked 8.5 (Keeper of the Lost Cities) Page 29