Unlocked 8.5 (Keeper of the Lost Cities)

by Shannon Messenger

  He tried to twist away, but the triplets clung tighter than a jaculus feasting on a T. rex. And the more he struggled, the more they squealed and slammed him with more emotions and tightened their unsettling grips.

  He wanted it to stop.

  Needed it to stop.

  And the moment he had that thought, a word started burning in his throat.

  “Drink this!” someone ordered, and Keefe felt a vial press against his lips.

  He choked down the bitter liquid, coughing and hacking.

  “Is that any better?” the voice asked.

  Keefe shook his head.

  If anything, the unspoken command seemed to burn even hotter.

  He locked his jaw and pressed his lips tighter, sucking air in through his nose.

  “Okay, how about this one?”

  Keefe cracked his mouth open enough to gulp down something sludgy and sweet, which made his head feel like he was being stepped on by a mastodon.

  The command turned to fire in his throat, getting hotter and hotter and hotter.

  It had to stop.

  Someone, please make it stop.

  He gritted his teeth, biting back the plea.

  But his brain kept rattling with the word.

  Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

  “I don’t think that one helped either,” the voice said. “But I feel like the last one will do the trick.”

  Keefe gagged as the cloying sweetness hit his taste buds.

  Somehow he managed to choke the medicine down, and as it streamed across his throat, it did ease some of the burning.

  But it also made his heart race and his head spin.

  And the command was still there.

  It was just… shifting into something else.

  He didn’t need it to stop this time.

  He needed it to…

  No.

  He couldn’t let himself think the word.

  He was too tired to choke it back.

  No. No. No. No. No.

  “All right, let’s try it my way,” a new voice said, and Keefe felt something brush against his neck. “I just clamped my gadget around your registry pendant, and it should obscure your tone if you try to give a command right now.”

  “It’s okay,” someone added as Keefe shook his head. “Remember, this is a test. Use your voice.”

  Keefe shook his head harder.

  Which made everyone start chanting, “USE YOUR VOICE! USE YOUR VOICE! USE YOUR VOICE!”

  The triplets tightened their grips and rocked his shoulders—thrashed his arms—as their emotions brewed into a frenzy.

  Keefe couldn’t breathe.

  Couldn’t think.

  Couldn’t fight anymore as the command shifted back to the most basic need.

  “STOP!” he screamed, then slumped with sweet relief when the room fell blissfully silent.

  He took a slow, deep breath, reveling in the quiet, before he forced his eyes open to see what he’d done.

  And there they were.

  All three of the triplets, looking sort of… stuck.

  Their eyes were wide, mouths open, limbs stiff—as if they’d been frozen somehow.

  “Well,” Dex said through the fog of panic slowly filling the air, “looks like we’ll all have to go back to the drawing board.”

  - NINE - Sophie

  I think I’m starting to understand why the Council let Glimmer stay here,” Sophie grumbled as she bent to catch her breath. “I swear this place is harder to get to than Exile. At least those stairs go down.”

  It also didn’t help that she couldn’t see their destination.

  Somewhere up ahead—much farther than Sophie wanted to think about—the stone staircase they were climbing disappeared into the misty clouds.

  Tiergan’s house hopefully wasn’t too far beyond that.

  Fitz arched his back in a stretch. “I still think we should try levitating.”

  “Not in these winds,” Biana told him. “We’d be swept so far out to sea, we’d never get back.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He lunged to stretch his quads, rubbing his left knee when he straightened.

  “Is your leg hurting?” Sophie asked, realizing that was the same leg that Umber injured when she attacked Fitz with shadowflux.

  “It’s fine,” Fitz promised.

  “You’re sure?” Biana pressed. “I saw you limping a little while ago.”

  “I wasn’t limping. I was just… taking slower steps.” He glanced at Sophie, who must’ve looked as unconvinced as Biana, because he raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m out of shape, okay? Thanks for making me feel bad!”

  Sophie let him off the hook. “Clearly we’re all out of shape.”

  “Hey—speak for yourself!” Biana sprinted up the next few steps, blinking in and out of sight with each movement. “I run laps around Everglen every morning—and I’m always faster than Woltzer!”

  “It’s my job to stay behind you,” Woltzer muttered from a few steps back. “I can’t protect you if I race ahead.”

  “Then how come Sandor and Grizel are ahead of us right now?” Biana countered.

  “Because they know I’m covering the rear!” Woltzer shouted. “Don’t you know anything about battle strategy?”

  “Of course I do.” Biana flashed her loveliest grin. “It’s just so much fun to mess with you.”

  Fitz snorted. “It’s amazing your bodyguard hasn’t strangled you.”

  “Nah, Woltzer loves me!” She blew him a kiss over her shoulder.

  Honestly, Woltzer should’ve won the prize for Most Patient Bodyguard.

  “So, are you losers rested enough to keep going?” Biana asked, tossing her dark, wavy hair. “Or do you need to waste more valuable time?”

  Fitz sighed. “Who invited her?”

  “That would be you,” Biana informed him. “You thought having a Vanisher would come in handy.”

  “No, I just knew you’d sneak along anyway, since you’re nosy like that—and dying to see Tam.” He stage-whispered to Sophie, “My sister’s a fan of silver bangs.”

  Sophie raised her eyebrows, glancing at Biana.

  Biana’s cheeks flushed—but Sophie couldn’t tell if that was confirmation or irritation.

  Or both.

  “Really, Fitz?” Biana snapped. “You want to talk about crushes? Because you…”

  Her voice trailed off, and she turned even redder when she glanced back at Sophie.

  They hadn’t really talked about the breakup—mostly because Sophie hadn’t talked much about the whole dating thing with Biana in the first place.

  Yet another reason having a crush on her friend’s brother made things super awkward.

  Fitz cleared his throat but didn’t seem to know how to break the silence.

  Neither did Sophie.

  But she forced her tired legs to start trudging up the stairs again—and the momentum helped her find a change of subject. “I think we should run through our plan.”

  “There’s a plan?” Fitz asked. “I thought we were just going to ask Glimmer what she knows about the caches.”

  “Right, but we’re going to need to make her trust us before she’ll tell us anything,” Sophie reminded him.

  “See, and I think Glimmer should be making us trust her,” Biana argued. “She’s the one hiding behind a cloak, probably hoping we won’t ask how many times she helped plan the Neverseen’s attacks.” She traced her fingers over one of the deeper scars running down her arm and shoulder.

  “I know,” Sophie told her, cringing over her next words even before she said them. “But I think Councillor Oralie was right about something she told me. Willing allies are way more useful than forced ones. If we make Glimmer trust us, she’ll tell us stuff she’d hold back otherwise.”

  “Or we poke around her head and find out everything we need to know in one easy probe,” Fitz countered.

  Sophie sighed. “Yeah, but you and I both know probes are never that easy—especially with
the Neverseen. I’m sure Gethen’s trained her to block Telepaths, and she probably has all kinds of false information in her head.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” They climbed in silence for several steps before Fitz mumbled, “You know, I thought being Cognates would make us way more powerful than we are.”

  “So did I,” Sophie admitted, trying not to wonder if he was blaming her for that.

  Her struggles with the whole total-trust-and-honesty thing always got in the way of their training.

  “Hey,” Biana said quietly, “you guys are being too hard on yourselves. You’ve done some amazing things. The problem’s just bigger than that.”

  “What do you mean?” Fitz asked.

  Biana traced more scars on her shoulder. “Well… we’ve kind of been set up to fail, you know? Nothing we’ve learned prepared us for what we’re dealing with—not our Foxfire lessons, or our ability training, or even the stories we were told about what it would be like when we grew up. We’re not supposed to have enemies trying to kill us, or massive, evil conspiracies destroying everything we know. Our world was supposed to be safe and happy and perfect, like it was for our parents. But it’s not—and it turns out it wasn’t like that for them, either. They just didn’t let themselves see the problems. So now we’re stuck figuring out how to fix this giant mess—while fighting against people who’ve been planning this stuff for longer than we’ve been alive. So of course they keep beating us. Of course we don’t feel powerful enough. We aren’t!”

  “Are you saying it’s hopeless?” Sophie had to ask.

  “Are you kidding? I know we’re going to win this.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in Biana’s voice. “I think we just need to remember that we’re doing something no one has ever had to do before—and all the advice we’ve been given isn’t necessarily good. So yeah, we don’t always do everything perfectly, and it can feel like we’re not strong enough. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t powerful and awesome and amazing. We’re doing our best. We just need to keep fighting. And we should probably stop listening to what everyone’s telling us and try finding our own way.”

  She was right, of course.

  But when she put it like that, it sounded even more exhausting than all the stairs they were currently climbing.

  “Sorry,” Biana mumbled. “Didn’t mean to derail the conversation.”

  “No, you’re right,” Fitz told her, rushing up the next few stairs and turning to face them. “Okay, I want to preface this by saying I’m not a fan of it, but… maybe we need to come at this totally differently than we normally would. So instead of focusing on getting her to cooperate with us, we act like we’re willing allies with her.”

  “What does that mean?” Sophie asked. “We act like we want to join the Neverseen?”

  Fitz shook his head. “Nope. It means acting like we can’t wait to work with her—showing her why she should’ve been on our side this whole time. I know it’ll be tough. But maybe if we act like she’s already a part of our team, she’ll cooperate.”

  “Okaaaaaaaay,” Biana said slowly. “You really think we can pretend to be her friend, though? She’s going to be sitting there in one of those creepy black cloaks, probably giving us lots of attitude.”

  “Well… we don’t have to be friends,” Sophie realized. “I doubt she’d believe that. But we could treat her like an equal. She kind of is. She could’ve just as easily been working with the Black Swan if we’d reached out to her before the Neverseen recruited her.”

  “You really think that’s true?” Biana asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sophie admitted. “But it’s at least possible. Both groups exist because of a lot of the same problems. They just have very different solutions.”

  “Like murdering,” Biana mumbled.

  “I know,” Fitz told her. “That’s why I hate this plan. But… it’s definitely a different approach than we normally use. And I’m pretty sure Glimmer will be expecting us to march in there and treat her like the enemy, so it might throw off her guard if we don’t.”

  Biana sighed. “Ugh, I guess I can’t be mad, since I’m the one who started us down this path. Fine… Let’s go be besties with Little Miss Neverseen!”

  “Not besties,” Sophie corrected. “Equals.”

  Not that she really wanted to be equals with someone who’d put bonds on Tam’s wrists and blasted Keefe with light to trigger the changes he was now struggling with.

  But Sophie kept those thoughts to herself.

  Her feet were ready to scream at her for the abuse they’d endured when Tiergan’s house finally came into view—sturdy stone towers peeking over fortresslike walls.

  Sandor and Grizel were waiting outside the only entrance—a wide, rectangular door carved with elaborate filigree woven around the word “Solreef.”

  “I want to make one thing clear before we continue,” Sandor said, holding out his arms as a barricade. “No matter what this Glimmer person tells you, you are taking that information and going home. I mean it!” he added when Sophie opened her mouth to respond. “She could tell you that every member of the Neverseen was drugged, tied up, and ready for capture as long as someone heads there in the next five minutes, and you will say, ‘Good to know, but we’re going to listen to my bodyguard because he will lock me in my room for the rest of eternity.’ Are we clear?”

  “I already promised that,” Sophie reminded him. She’d been through the endless Is-it-safe-to-meet-with-Glimmer? conversation that morning. “We won’t do anything without discussing it with you.”

  “Not discussing,” Sandor corrected. “Agreeing. We all need to agree on the next move.”

  “Fine. Can we go in now?” She reached around him to pull the rope for the chimes, and a tinkling melody filled the air.

  Sophie was stunned to realize she recognized it.

  “Was that… the Beatles?” she asked when Tiergan pulled open the door.

  His lips curled into a smile as he stepped aside to let them in. “No one’s ever recognized it before. But I suppose I should’ve known you would. Ready for your meeting? Your guest is waiting.”

  He led them down a brightly lit hallway, past rooms that looked surprisingly warm and cozy. All the couches and chairs were covered in soft, squishy pillows, and the tables and shelves were filled with worn books and framed photos and carefully selected knickknacks.

  Sophie wondered how Tiergan felt about having a former member of the Neverseen staying in a place he’d worked so hard to make feel like a home—especially since they had no idea if Glimmer was involved with the Neverseen’s abduction of Wylie. But it wasn’t the right time to be thinking about things like that.

  They stopped at a carved wooden door, and Tiergan knocked in six very specific places before the door swung open, revealing Bo with his sword drawn like he’d expected some sort of trickery.

  He had no smile for his former charge, but Sophie wasn’t expecting one.

  Bo wasn’t a fan of making friends.

  “The space is small, so it’s best if you wait out here,” he told Sandor, Grizel, and Woltzer. “Don’t worry, if she makes any threats, I will end her.”

  “There won’t be any threats,” Tam grumbled from somewhere behind Bo.

  He was still rolling his silver-blue eyes when Sophie made her way into the narrow sitting room.

  His smile also looked guarded—but this was the first time Sophie had seen him since Loamnore.

  It probably felt even weirder for him than it did for her.

  “Where’s Linh?” she asked, trying to ease some of the tension—but Tam’s shoulders went rigid again.

  “She’s still at Choralmere,” he mumbled. “She thought it was too crowded around here.”

  “No, she just doesn’t like me,” a new voice said—one that was both familiar and not familiar enough.

  It came from the corner of the room that Sophie had been trying her best to ignore—trying to prepare herself for the sight of a black cloak and the Neverseen’
s creepy eye symbol. But she couldn’t avoid it anymore.

  Glimmer rested on a chaise near the window, her face completely obscured by her hood, and her head was turned as if she was staring outside and not paying them the slightest bit of attention.

  “To save us all time,” she said without turning toward them, “I don’t know where Gisela is—or anyone else, for that matter. I also don’t know what they’re planning. Or what’s happening to your friend.”

  “Good,” Sophie said, turning back to Tam. It made it easier to sound cheerful when she added, “That’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not telling you who I am either,” Glimmer informed her.

  “Also not why we’re here,” Sophie promised.

  “We are curious about why you joined the Neverseen, though,” Biana jumped in—which seemed to catch Glimmer’s attention.

  “Why?” she demanded, turning toward Biana. “So you can tell me how misguided I am?”

  Tam sighed. “Glimmer—”

  “It’s fine,” Fitz assured him. “We’re not here to judge you, Glimmer. We’re here to see if we can work together.”

  Glimmer snorted and turned back to the window. “No, you’re here because you want something.”

  “You’re right,” Sophie agreed, taking a breath to steady her temper.

  Her brain kept replaying the moment when Glimmer unleashed that light beam toward Keefe’s head—but she couldn’t let herself fixate on that.

  “We need help,” she said quietly. “Lots of it. And since we probably wouldn’t have gotten out of Loamnore without you, we thought you might be willing to work with us.”

  “I won’t be working with you, though, will I?” Glimmer snapped. “I’ll still be stuck right here, waiting for the next group of people to show up to ask me a bunch of endless questions even though I don’t know anything!”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” Biana told her—but her tone was friendly. Teasing, even. “I mean, I get it. I’m always grumbling about how the Black Swan never tells us anything. But if I really think about it, there is stuff I know. Things I’ve seen. Comments I’ve overheard. All kinds of tiny little pieces that add up, you know?”

  Sophie could practically hear the eye roll in Glimmer’s voice when she said, “Yeah, well, the Neverseen are too smart for that.”