Everblaze

by Shannon Messenger

  The hard lines of his expression made it clear there would be no arguing with him. But now that she knew she wasn’t related to Jolie, she was happy to leave her mother’s true identity a mystery.

  Still, she wasn’t ready to let him leave.

  “What did she do for you?” she asked, pulling out the mirrored compact to show him. “I know she was connected to the Black Swan.”

  He waved the compact away. “I see nothing black. Nor any swan.”

  “And I see a pretty bird in the sky,” Sophie argued, pointing to the constellation pattern. She opened the compact and showed him his reflections. “And a human mirror.”

  “Fine,” he said, glancing over his shoulder again. “I will not tell you any more than this. Jolie volunteered to infiltrate the rebels. She was working deep undercover—which was why she owned nothing bearing the sign of the swan.”

  “Did she learn anything?”

  “She must have. We’ve long assumed they killed her because of it. But she died before sharing her report, and any record must’ve burned in the fire.”

  “But—”

  “I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to answer all of your questions. I’ve already shared far more than I’d planned. It’s time to go home.”

  He leaped away without another word, leaving Sophie and Sandor alone in the dim twilight.

  “He’s right,” Sandor said, when Sophie didn’t move. “Without that energy field, we’re at risk for ambush.”

  Sophie nodded, reaching for her home crystal—but she froze as a new thought clicked inside her head.

  Jolie was working undercover for the Black Swan. So she would’ve known about their tradition with ‘swan song.’

  Maybe she finally had the password Vertina needed.

  FIFTY-SIX

  SWAN SONG,” SOPHIE WHISPERED, FEELING her hopes plummet when Vertina’s smile faded. “That isn’t the word you needed?”

  Vertina sighed. “No, it is.”

  “Okay,” Sophie said slowly. “So . . . aren’t you supposed to tell me something?”

  “I am.”

  Seconds ticked by and Sophie lost what little patience she had. “Just tell me the stupid secret, okay?”

  “If it’s so stupid, why should I tell you?”

  “BECAUSE I GAVE YOU THE PASSWORD!!!” She backed away, knowing she was dangerously close to tossing Vertina out the window. “Please, Vertina. I don’t have time for this.”

  Keefe could hail her any second and say the words that would change everything—and she’d already wasted ten minutes dodging Grady and Edaline’s questions. They were very unhappy when she couldn’t tell them who the leak was, and if Sandor hadn’t assured them that they were keeping the secret for good reason, she would probably still be getting interrogated.

  Vertina hung her head. “I’m sorry. This is just harder than I thought. I’ve been keeping this secret for so long—and if you’d seen her face when she told me . . .”

  “I’m only trying to help her,” Sophie promised.

  Vertina closed her eyes, letting two shiny tears streak down her cheeks. Then she whispered, “The truth lies behind the glass that is not a window.”

  “The glass that is not a window,” Sophie repeated, wishing it didn’t have to be a riddle. Clearly the Black Swan had trained Jolie in obnoxiousness.

  But she could figure this out! She just needed to think of other glass things . . .

  A table?

  A goblet?

  Or . . .

  “Do you mean a mirror?” Sophie asked, digging Jolie’s compact out of her desk. “This mirror?”

  Vertina frowned as she studied it. “I do remember Jolie using that mirror—and I never understood why. One side was so unflattering. But I don’t think that’s what she meant. I have suspected she meant a mirror. But the way she said it when she told me made me think it was a specific mirror in a specific place.”

  “Where?” Sophie asked, trying again to pry off the compact’s mirrors, just to be safe.

  They still wouldn’t budge.

  “She never told me,” Vertina admitted sadly.

  “And that’s all Jolie said? There was nothing else?”

  “That was it.”

  “Great,” Sophie mumbled, shoving the compact into her pocket and heading downstairs.

  Every wall in Havenfield was made of some sort of crystal or glass. It could take days to search each piece of it—especially since the mirror she was looking for had to be small enough for no one to notice.

  “You don’t have to follow me,” she told Sandor as he trailed her down the hallway.

  But of course he did, stationing himself outside Jolie’s room as Sophie slipped inside.

  “Please let it be in here,” she whispered, snapping her fingers to turn on the lights.

  The room looked far more chaotic than she’d remembered—clothes and shoes and books strewn all over the floor, mixed with a maze of half-packed trunks and boxes. She didn’t remember it being that messy the last time she’d been in there, but she also realized—with a serious dose of guilt—that she’d never finished packing up Jolie’s things.

  She would have to get back to that. But right now she had a more important job to tackle. The clue had said the glass was not a window, and maybe Jolie picked that wording to tell her where to start.

  She threw back the dusty curtains, revealing the floor-to-ceiling windows. Thin veins of gold divided the glass into square panes, each about the size of her head.

  Hundreds of them.

  It felt like thousands.

  She worked systematically, starting at the bottom and moving her way up and over and checking each. Stupid. Pane. But by the time she reached the other side, she still hadn’t found a hidden mirror. And maybe that made sense.

  The individual panes were all the same depth. There would be no way to hide anything behind them, unless the mirror stuck out—which would’ve been way too obvious.

  So it had to be one of the walls.

  But the walls were all crystal, not glass—weren’t they?

  Sophie sank to the floor, leaning against the bed and rubbing her eyes to bring some moisture back to them. She was pretty sure she hadn’t blinked in over an hour, and she was so tempted to give up and go to bed, try again in the morning when her head was clearer and the light was better.

  But she was so close.

  A vibration in her pocket made her jump, and her stomach turned sour as she pulled out her Imparter.

  “Swan song,” Keefe whispered, not quite looking at her.

  She knew it was lame, but she had to tell him, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. In fact . . . it almost makes sense. I finally understand everything I’ve ever felt about my life. I mean, it still sucks. And I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now.”

  “No one can hear you, right?”

  “No. They left me a note. Apparently my mom wanted to go to some fancy restaurant in Atlantis, so he took her and they’re still not back. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised they weren’t sitting at home worrying about me anymore.”

  “I’m—”

  “Please don’t say you’re sorry again. It makes me want to smash things, and that would be really hard to explain—and not because I’m mad at you,” he added. “It’s just . . . I don’t want you to be sorry because one of the people who tried to kill you just so happens to be my dad. Every time I think about it, I want to fling goblin throwing stars at all his favorite things. Which again, would be pretty hard to explain.”

  “Then don’t think about it.”

  “I won’t. I’m going to go drink a couple cups of slumberberry tea and hope it knocks me out until the plan is ready.”

  “Uh, that’s not dangerous, right?”

  Half a smile curled his lips. “Nope, it’s just tea. My mom makes my dad at least three cups a night. I guess now I know why he has trouble sleeping.”

  Sophie bit her lip. “I’ll hail you as soon a
s I hear from the Black Swan.”

  “Thanks. Oh, and . . . Sophie?”

  “Yeah?” she asked, surprised he was using her first name.

  “Please don’t hate me, okay?”

  “Keefe, I will never hate you.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts.’ In fact, I remember a pretty smart person telling me that our families don’t get to decide who we are. And that goes one step farther. Our parents don’t make us who we are either. Look at how much you’ve rebelled against your dad. Deep down, you’ve always known you didn’t want to be him. Now you finally know why.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes—either from tears or exhaustion, Sophie couldn’t tell which.

  She hoped it was the latter and told him, “Get some sleep.”

  He nodded and clicked away.

  “I’ll go deliver the message,” Sandor said, making her drop the Imparter.

  “Seriously—how do you sneak around like that on those giant feet?”

  “Goblin secret. But the tide is too high for you to join me. Can you stay out of trouble while I’m gone?”

  “The only thing I’m in danger of is dying of boredom.” She glanced at the endless stretches of crystal and glass, wondering if she was even looking in the right place.

  Jolie could’ve hidden the mirror anywhere. Maybe even at school . . .

  No—that wouldn’t make sense. Access to the elite towers was restricted to the elite and Sophie doubted Jolie meant for one of her schoolmates to find it. Why else would she leave the clue at her house? Plus, if she wanted to keep it safe, why hide it somewhere there’d be hundreds of prodigies who could accidentally stumble across it.

  No, Jolie must have hidden it at Havenfield. And the safest place would be her room.

  Sophie just had to search smarter.

  She moved to the indent in the carpet where Vertina used to be and placed her feet on the line, facing the same way. Whatever mirror Jolie meant couldn’t have been within Vertina’s line of sight—otherwise Vertina would’ve known where to find it. Which meant Sophie could rule out . . .

  Most of the places she’d already wasted time checking.

  Awesome.

  She swallowed her frustration and turned to face where Vertina couldn’t see, looking for somewhere that wouldn’t draw much attention. One of the corners seemed to have more shadow than light, and there was a strip of space next to the bookshelves, covered mostly by the lace curtains of the nearby window. She tiptoed to the corner—afraid that making a sound would scare the dim possibility away. And maybe it worked, because when she pulled back the dusty lace, she found a narrow row of square glass panes.

  The square in the center was a mirror.

  “Got you,” Sophie whispered, tracing her fingers along the edge.

  The mirror felt slightly less flush with the wall than the other panes, and when she pressed the upper right corner, the mirror popped out, swinging on an invisible hinge. Her hands shook as she pushed the door aside, revealing a sliver of a compartment—barely deep enough to pass her fingertips—with a slim lavender journal tucked inside.

  The cover felt cold as she traced her finger along the elegant runes drawn in the center, and it took Sophie’s mind a second to translate the word:

  Reflections.

  Jolie had written it using the Black Swan’s cipher. And yet, when Sophie turned to the first page she found row after row of carefully shaped runes that formed nothing more than gibberish. Nonsensical words mixed with lines and squiggles and dots and dashes. For page after page after page.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sophie grumbled, flipping the book upside down, like that would somehow fix it.

  It didn’t.

  Still . . . something felt familiar about the runes.

  She closed her eyes, hoping a memory was about to trigger.

  “What’s that?” Edaline asked, making Sophie stumble backward into the bookshelf.

  “Sorry, you scared me,” Sophie mumbled, trying to hide the journal behind her back. But she knew Edaline had seen it. And when Edaline made her way over she realized she’d left the secret compartment wide open.

  “How did you find this?” Edaline whispered, swinging the mirror back and forth on its hinge.

  “It’s . . . a long story.”

  “Well, I’ve got time.”

  Sophie was tempted to lie—or dart upstairs and lock herself in her room. But . . . Edaline was Jolie’s mother. So she followed Edaline over to the bed and explained about Prentice’s memory, and the mirrored compact, and Vertina’s clue, and the gibberish journal.

  Edaline didn’t speak when she’d finished. Just took the journal and flipped back and forth through the pages.

  Flip.

  Flip.

  Flip.

  “Should I not have told you?” Sophie asked, hating the shadows that had crawled under Edaline’s eyes.

  “No. In fact . . . I think Jolie might have tried to tell me. She came home rather suddenly, not long before the fire. I could tell she was stressed, but she wouldn’t tell me why. And one night I found her sitting, pretty much right here, staring at that wall. When I asked if she was okay, she asked me, ‘What if someone wasn’t who you thought they were?’”

  “That’s what she told Vertina,” Sophie whispered. “I’d thought she’d discovered the leak in the Black Swan. But now we know they don’t have a leak, so . . . do you have any idea who she meant?”

  Edaline shook her head. “At the time, I’d just figured she was having a fight with her friends. They’d been pulling away from her after she got engaged, and Jolie had been pretending not to notice. But I knew it was breaking her heart. So I told her, ‘There will always be people who disappoint us, and it’s up to us to decide when to forgive, and when to walk away.’”

  “Did she say anything to that?”

  “She said ‘I love you, Mom.’ And I remember being surprised by it. I’d been ‘Mother’ for a very long time. It was so nice to be ‘Mom’ again.”

  There couldn’t be a more perfect moment for Sophie to tell Edaline the same thing, finally cross that line and start treating her like a parent, not just a guardian.

  But the moment slipped away.

  “Was that the last time you saw her?” Sophie asked, hoping the question wasn’t too painful.

  “No. I saw her the day of the fire. She stopped by out of the blue, and I remember thinking she looked tired—though of course I’ve since wondered if she also looked afraid. She told me she thought it was time to walk away, and I . . . I thought she meant Brant. I thought the pressure of the bad match had finally gotten to her, and I knew she’d never forgive herself if she gave up just because it was hard. So I told her to never let fear drive her. I told her . . .”

  “What?” Sophie asked when she didn’t finish.

  But Edaline shook her head, handing Sophie the journal as she stood. “Hindsight is a dangerous game to play.”

  She turned to head for the door. But before she left, she whispered, “I’m not going to try to stop you from finding out what Jolie was into. But I am going to tell you what I should have said to her that day. Please be careful. And if whatever you’re chasing starts to catch up with you—run, don’t walk away.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  A SCROLL ARRIVED THE NEXT morning, bearing the Council’s official seal.

  Sophie had a horrible, flip-floppy feeling, since the deadline King Dimitar had given the Council was almost up. But when she mustered the courage to break the seal, she found an invitation to an event at Foxfire that evening. As far as Sophie could tell, it appeared to be some sort of hybrid between the inauguration of Magnate Leto and an official Council assembly—which sounded like a terrifying combination. But Grady didn’t seem concerned.

  “They’ve always done an inauguration when a new Principal is appointed,” he said, pouring himself a cup of some sort of strange red tea. “And the Councillors are always there, just like they a
re during the Opening Ceremonies. Remember, Foxfire is a noble academy. The Council is a part of their celebrations.”

  “Right, but, it says”—she picked up the scroll, reading directly from one of the paragraphs—‘“Further updates will also be delivered by the Council, and the event will conclude with an important public announcement.’ Is that normal?”

  “No,” Grady admitted. “But . . . this is a strange time for the Council. Both their official amphitheater and their tribunal hall burned in the Everblaze. They also have a brand-new Councillor, a terrified populace demanding answers, King Dimitar threatening war, a city to rebuild, and somewhere in there they also need to inaugurate a new principal. I’m guessing they figured that since we’d all be gathering anyway, they might as well double up and address some of the people’s questions.”

  “I guess,” Sophie mumbled, still staring at the scroll.

  “You’re worried they’re going to announce your punishment there, aren’t you?” Grady asked.

  “Shouldn’t I be? I mean . . . doesn’t it seem like the perfect place?”

  “It does. . . .”

  He dragged out the word as he rubbed a crease on his forehead. “Listen, Sophie, I haven’t wanted to tell you this, but there’s been a bit of drama surrounding your upcoming sentence. A rather vocal group of people have seized upon it as an opportunity to . . . have you expelled.”

  All the blood drained from her face. “From Foxfire?”

  Grady nodded. “They know you were indirectly involved with the fire—and then they watched you almost cause a war with King Dimitar. They’re scared, Sophie. And when people are scared, they do crazy, heartless things. Like blame an innocent girl for impossibly complicated situations, and try to keep her away from their children.”

  Sophie stared at her sleeve, flicking away a piece of lint. “Do you think the Council’s going to listen to them?”

  “No, I don’t. Alden’s met with them several times, and he’s confident that they have a different punishment in mind.”

  “And what punishment is that?” she asked, no longer able to breathe.