Nightfall

by Shannon Messenger

  “What was he investigating?” Sophie asked.

  “Honestly? I have no idea,” Livvy admitted. “We didn’t share as much back then. It was safer to keep everything compartmentalized.”

  “Well, we know it had something to do with the Lodestar symbol,” Sophie reminded her.

  She’d recovered the asterisk-shaped map to the Neverseen’s hideouts from the shambles of Prentice’s mind—and only after she’d transmitted the words “swan song” to him. But that still didn’t tell them how Prentice had found the symbol to begin with, or if he’d learned anything else when he made the discovery.

  “What made you go after Prentice?” she asked Alden, regretting the question when his eyes clouded over.

  He blinked several times to clear the regrets away. “Quinlin noticed discrepancies in Prentice’s records. Times when his registry pendant claimed he was at his post as Beacon of the Gold Tower, but he wasn’t actually there. So I started watching closer.”

  Livvy frowned at her husband. “You never told me you had anything to do with Prentice’s arrest.”

  “And you never told me the Black Swan were on our side!” Quinlin snapped back. “Even when I admitted that I had reservations about performing the break!”

  Alden flinched.

  He and Quinlin used to be Cognates—the same rare telepathic relationship that Sophie shared with Fitz. But it required absolute trust and complete honesty, and when Quinlin hid his doubts from Alden about breaking Prentice’s mind, it damaged their connection beyond repair.

  “I did what I could,” Livvy argued. “I warned you not to do anything you didn’t believe in. And I fed you questions to ask when you met with Prentice—”

  “You met with him?” Alden interrupted.

  Quinlin looked away.

  “The day before the break,” Livvy answered for him.

  Alden sank into the nearest armchair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because . . . it didn’t change anything,” Quinlin mumbled. “It was obvious that Prentice was hiding something.”

  “That was the problem.” Livvy rubbed the center of her forehead. “Even if the two of you had refused to perform the memory break, the Council would’ve ordered another pair of Telepaths to do it. And Prentice couldn’t reveal where Sophie was hidden—not when it was still so early in the project. The point of having her born from humans was to let her gain a unique perspective on the species—the kind of perspective she could only acquire by truly believing she was one of them during her formative years. If the Council dragged her back to the Lost Cities, everything we’d worked for would’ve been a waste. And Prentice knew that. He also had faith that Forkle’s genetic modifications would give Sophie the ability to heal shattered minds someday—and he was right. She will fix him.”

  “As soon as you tell me it’s time,” Sophie agreed.

  “I wish it were up to me,” Livvy told her. “I think he’s ready. But the Collective is afraid that since we still don’t know why his consciousness disappeared, it could happen again.”

  “I thought he got buried under his shadowvapor,” Sophie reminded her. “And that’s why Tam was able to use his ability to bring him back.”

  “That was a symptom, not the cause,” Livvy corrected. “Something had to push him that deep. And without knowing what it was, we can’t guarantee it won’t happen again. But I’m not convinced that’s a good enough reason to leave him trapped in madness. He’s suffered long enough.”

  “Years,” Alden added. “And you knew it would be that long when you let us break him. You knew Sophie wouldn’t be able to heal him until she was old enough to manifest—and that we’d likely learn the truth about the Black Swan long before she was ready. You had to know the toll that would take on us.”

  Livvy looked away. “I did watch to see how you were holding up after we rescued Sophie. But you did too good of a job of pretending to be okay—and when we realized you weren’t . . .” Her voice hitched. “From the moment Tiergan told us you’d broken, all of us—every single one—worked tirelessly to get Sophie to a place where she’d be able to bring you back.”

  Alden swallowed hard. “And what about when our Cognate connection crumbled after the break? No remorse for that?”

  “That was between you two. You chose to hide your concerns,” she told Quinlin. “And you chose to let that shake your trust,” she reminded Alden. “Neither had to be the giant, insurmountable things you let them become.”

  Quinlin snorted. “Clearly you don’t know anything about Cognates.”

  “Maybe not,” Livvy said. “But there was nothing I could do. You were different after the break, Quinlin. You retreated from everyone—even me. It was the beginning of our end.”

  “And yet you stayed with me for several more years,” Quinlin noted. “Was it to spy on my search for Sophie—perhaps even to ensure I wasn’t successful?”

  “I suppose I deserve that question,” Livvy told him. “But it still makes me want to punch you.”

  “Punch me?” Quinlin repeated.

  “Yes! You really think I would do that?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to think anymore, Livvy. Clearly we never knew each other at all.” Quinlin stalked to the wall, staring at the opaque crystal as if he could see through to the city beyond.

  Livvy shook her head, curling and uncurling her fists. “I didn’t come here to analyze our failed relationship, or to relive the Prentice nightmare. I came here because a little girl has been separated from her parents—parents who’ve been unknowingly wrapped up in a dangerous project for more than a decade. I helped bring this trouble into their lives. The least I can do is keep their daughter safe while we figure out how to rescue them. Can we please focus on that and leave the past in the past?”

  Several beats passed before Alden nodded.

  But Quinlin wasn’t ready to concede. “You told us Forkle recruited you. But you didn’t say why you agreed to join.”

  Livvy flicked her hair. “It was simple. Our glittering world is full of cracks, and I thought I was the only one who noticed them. When I met someone who shared my concerns, I decided to trust him.”

  “You can do better than that,” Quinlin pushed, turning back to face her.

  Livvy sighed, crossing to the opposite end of the room and settling into the shadows. “Fine. You want the whole story? It goes back to my Physician training. I spent years learning how each of our cures was developed, hoping I’d someday create my own. And I was stunned to discover that one remedy had its origins in the human vaccine for smallpox. The idea of using one virus to stop another was something no one would’ve attempted if the humans hadn’t found proof that it worked. So I wanted to explore what else we might learn from them—and when I told my professor my plan, he laughed me out of the room. I ended up agreeing to drop the idea, but a few months after you and I were married, I was putting something away in your office, and I discovered that you had a pathfinder with a blue crystal.”

  Quinlin sucked in a breath.

  Livvy’s eyes dropped to her hands. “I’m sure you had your reasons for not mentioning to your wife that you were one of the few elves approved to visit the Forbidden Cities. But I figured . . . if you were using the pathfinder in secret, I could too. So, I waited until the Council sent you on an overnight assignment, spun the crystal to a random facet, and followed the path to a city near the ocean, with a long red bridge that stretched across the water.”

  “Sounds like San Francisco,” Sophie noted.

  “Maybe it was,” Livvy said. “I was too distracted by the people sleeping on the street while others averted their eyes. It was almost enough to make me think my Instructor had been right to see no value in anything humans had to offer. But I’d come that far, so I tried to find one of their medical centers. And the longer I wandered, the more I started to see past the grime and disorder. I saw couples hand in hand. Parents caring for their children. Even their architecture, while primitive, had its
own sort of beauty. But then I found a hospital.”

  Sophie shuddered, remembering her own hospital stays.

  “It was horrifying,” Livvy agreed. “Needles and blood and beeping machines leaking radiation. I even saw someone die.” She wiped her eyes. “And the worst part was, I could’ve saved him with one elixir. In fact, I could’ve cured the whole hospital in a few hours. But I didn’t have any medicine with me because I hadn’t gone there to give. I’d gone there to take. I thought I couldn’t be any more disgusted with myself. But as I was trying to leave, I stumbled into the children’s wing, and . . . I’ll spare you the nightmares.”

  “You couldn’t have helped them,” Quinlin said gently. “If you had, you would’ve created chaos.”

  “That’s what I told myself when I got home. And I kept repeating it as I spun the crystal on the pathfinder so I’d never find the facet again. But I spent the next few hours vomiting anyway, thinking about what I’d discovered about myself—and about us as a species. We tell ourselves that we’re the superior creatures on the planet. And yet, we’ll scour the globe to preserve animals—we even had the dwarves hollow out an entire mountain range so we could build a Sanctuary for them. But we’ve stood back and let billions of humans die. Yes, their life spans are fleeting. And yes, they tried to betray us all those millennia ago—and I have no doubt that some of them would do it again if they knew we existed. But none of that—none of that—justifies letting innocent people suffer and die. Especially children. You should’ve seen them smiling at me, waving hands that were taped to plastic tubes and needles.”

  “You’re talking about that time I went to help the dwarves, aren’t you?” Quinlin whispered. “I came home, and you were so shaky.”

  “I thought about telling you what happened,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know how you’d feel about me taking your pathfinder. So I kept it to myself—until I met Forkle. And after he heard my story, he brought me to meet the rest of the Black Swan and showed me their idea to fix the problem between elves and humans—and asked for my assistance.”

  Sophie’s stomach dropped when Livvy turned back to face her.

  “How am I supposed to fix any of the things you’re talking about?” she asked.

  “That’s up to you. It’s one of my favorite things about Project Moonlark. We created you, yes. But your life is still yours You get to decide what you want to do with it. That’s why we’ve never told you our hopes or goals—why we didn’t make a specific plan. We simply made you to the best of our abilities and let you find your own way. And now here you are, at this turning point in history, facing down enemies with unimaginably evil schemes. No one expects you to solve everything. And we certainly don’t expect you to fight alone. But I personally can’t wait to see what else you do with the gifts we gave you, whenever the time comes.”

  “I think we’ve gotten off track,” Alden said, when all Sophie could do was stare and blink.

  “Maybe I have,” Livvy agreed. “Forkle was the master of notes and mysteries. I’ve always been better at laying it all out there. So I’ll admit that we don’t have a clue what the Neverseen wants with your human family. And I think we all know that whatever their plan is, it’ll be huge, and intricate, and nothing we’re expecting. I’m telling you that because I want you to know it’s okay to be scared. And angry. And overwhelmed. Just trust yourself and your gifts—and your friends. And never doubt that wherever this is heading, we’ve done all we can to prepare you.”

  There was no possible coherent reply to any of that, so Sophie didn’t bother trying.

  “I should go check on my sister,” she said, standing on wobbly legs.

  Alden handed her a domed silver tray she hadn’t noticed on the table next to him. “Mallowmelt always makes a difficult conversation better.”

  She gave him a small smile, remembering when she’d been introduced to the gooey, amazing cake.

  “I’m not going to lie to her,” she warned as she headed for the door. “If she wants me to tell her more about the Neverseen, I’m going to share everything I know.”

  Livvy smiled. “That’s my girl.”

  Four

  GETTING HER SISTER to agree to Alden’s arrangements turned out to be an even bigger challenge than getting her to understand where they were, and why she’d forgotten that Sophie existed. But exhausting as both conversations were, Sophie also had to give her sister credit.

  She’d always thought of her as kind of a crybaby—quick to tattle and whine and play for sympathy. But there was steel in her sister’s posture. Ice in her eyes.

  Her sister might’ve looked small in the giant canopy bed, and out of place in her wrinkled T-shirt among all the jeweled pillows and intricate crystal chandeliers. But she wasn’t intimidated by her flashy surroundings. And she wasn’t afraid of the things Sophie was describing, either—not that her determination would matter against villains like the Neverseen.

  Involving her would be like bringing a snarling bunny into a den of hyenas.

  The fifth time their argument circled back to the beginning, Sophie decided to try a visual demonstration. She held her half-empty bottle of Youth out in front of her and concentrated on the base, imagining her mental energy crawling inside the glass and buzzing around like a swarm of bees. The longer she let the force hum, the more the power swelled, until the bottle exploded into shimmering powder mixed with sprinkles of water that rained down on the bed.

  “That,” Sophie said over her sister’s screech, “is called outward channeling. It’s a skill that every elf has. And Gethen—the Telepath who took Mom and Dad—used it to destroy an entire castle full of people. And that’s only the beginning. Fintan—the Neverseen’s leader—is a Pyrokinetic. He can snap his fingers and call down unstoppable flames called Everblaze. And the Neverseen also have a Vanisher and a Guster and a Technopath and a Shade and a Psionipath and—”

  “Am I supposed to know what any of that means?” her sister interrupted.

  “No. But the fact that you don’t proves my point. The things we’re facing—you can’t even imagine them, much less help fight them. I have five special abilities—I’m pretty sure that’s more than any other elf has ever had—and the Neverseen have still almost killed me a bunch of times.”

  “Keeping your sister alive has been the greatest challenge of my career,” Sandor added from the shadows. “And I say that as someone who has fought ogres, as well as a band of renegade trolls.”

  Her sister had no response to that.

  Honestly, Sophie didn’t either.

  She grabbed one of the room’s satin chairs and scooted it next to her sister, sinking down onto the squishy cushion. “I hate having to scare you—”

  “I’m not scared.”

  The way her legs were trembling under the blankets suggested otherwise, but Sophie decided not to mention it.

  “Okay, fine. I also know how it feels to be told to sit back while everyone else does all the important stuff,” Sophie said quietly. “But this is something you can’t help with. It’s too big. Too complicated. And you’re too . . . human.”

  The words hit her sister harder than Sophie expected.

  “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” she promised.

  “It sorta sounds like you are.”

  Shame prickled Sophie’s cheeks as she realized her sister was right. All this time around elves had made her pick up some of their snobbery.

  “I’m sorry. I just meant . . . these problems belong to my world. It’s not your job to deal with them.”

  Her sister became very interested in dusting the specks of powdered glass off the bed.

  “What?” Sophie asked.

  “Don’t you already know what I’m thinking?”

  “I would if I weren’t blocking you. Human thoughts are loud. Plus, Telepaths have to follow rules to respect people’s privacy. Is that what’s bothering you? You think I’m eavesdropping?”

  “No.” She looped her hair around her
finger so tightly, the end of her finger turned purple. “I guess I just thought the one good thing I was going to get out of this nightmare was having my sister back. But . . . you’re an elf. You have a goblin bodyguard, you live in a bunch of cities that are supposed to be myths, and you talk about humans like you think we’re the biggest losers ever.”

  “I don’t think you’re the biggest losers ever—I swear. What I said before came out wrong.” Sophie reached for her sister’s hand, relieved when she didn’t flinch away. “And you did get your sister back. Why do you think I’m trying so hard to protect you?”

  “I don’t need your protection!”

  She definitely did.

  But Sophie knew saying that wasn’t going to help anything. So she went with a different kind of honesty.

  “The thing is . . . you didn’t remember me until today—and I know that wasn’t your fault. But all of this time, I’ve still remembered you. I missed you guys so much that I had to stop myself from thinking about you. Maybe if I hadn’t done that . . . maybe if I’d checked on you more often . . .”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but her sister must’ve guessed.

  “It’s not your fault that Mom and Dad were taken,” she told Sophie.

  “It is and it isn’t. If it weren’t for me, the Neverseen wouldn’t have known any of you existed. And I may not have asked the Black Swan to make me this way, but I’ve still made my own choices.”

  Sophie fidgeted with her monocle, her reminder that she’d accepted her role as the moonlark voluntarily.

  “I can’t let anything happen to you,” she said quietly. “I could never live with that guilt. I promise I’ll check in—and you can hail me anytime you want. Just please say you’ll stay here in Atlantis, where it’s safe. I finally have you back. I can’t lose you again.”

  Her sister sighed. “You’ll tell me anything I want to know?”

  “Unless you ask something I don’t have the answer to—but then I’ll try to find out.”

  Her sister chewed her lip, leaving teeth marks so deep they looked ready to bleed. “Then I want the whole story—the one you promised you’d tell me earlier. I want to know what you’ve been doing all this time, and why you have a bodyguard, and why these Neverseen people keep coming after you.”