Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 8)

by Shannon Messenger

  Sandor and Bo both snorted “allowed” under their breath.

  Mr. Forkle smiled. “Oh, I assure you—if I didn’t want you in my office, I could cast you out before you could even draw your weapons. It’s my favorite security feature that Tinker designed. But I haven’t used it, because I’m counting on you three to make sure your people are ready, in case the Neverseen attempt to weaken your worlds further while they’re targeting the dwarves. I’ll update the Council as well, and convince them to take their own precautions. And while we’re doing all of that”—he shifted back toward Sophie—“I need you and your friends to focus on what we’ve discussed. I’d recommend starting with Mr. Tam. Think about his strengths and your weaknesses, since where they overlap likely lies the Neverseen’s plan.”

  Sophie swallowed hard, but it couldn’t dislodge the lump in her throat as she forced herself to ask the question she’d been dreading. “So… you think Tam’s going to do what they want him to? You don’t think he’ll find a way to resist?”

  Mr. Forkle looked away. “I think, if it comes down to it, there are very few things Mr. Tam wouldn’t do to protect his sister. And Lady Gisela knows that all too well.”

  Sophie wished she could argue. But she’d been worrying about the same thing.

  Tam had already left the Lost Cities so that Linh wouldn’t have to be alone after the Council banished her. And the two of them spent years living in shoddy tents and nearly starving in the Neutral Territories. He even joined the Black Swan mostly for her.

  It made him incredibly brave and sweet and noble and…

  A little scary—at least in his present situation.

  “He needs your help,” Mr. Forkle told her. “You can save Mr. Tam from facing an impossible decision. So I suggest you get to work. Compare what you and your friends each know about him. Then talk to Lady Zillah and find out everything she’s taught Mr. Tam—and everything she knows about shadowflux. I’d also recommend familiarizing yourself with Loamnore. Miss Linh lived there for a brief time, so she might have some ideas about the city’s vulnerabilities. And you should ask Nubiti as well. Feel free to share my theories with her—if she hasn’t been listening to us already—and see if she can provide any insights. I’ll of course arrange a visit between you and King Enki, along with a tour of Loamnore as soon as I can.”

  Sophie nodded, telling herself to feel relieved as he pounded his fist against the table, making the metal flatten back into a smooth, empty surface. This was the earliest they’d ever had a concrete strategy for stopping the Neverseen—and she hadn’t even had to pry it out of him, or follow a bunch of mysterious clues and notes before he trusted her.

  This was progress!

  But… was it enough?

  And how would her friends feel about focusing on Tam?

  She suspected that would not go over well, but… at least it would give her a perfect excuse not to talk about—

  “Wait,” she said as the door slid open and Mr. Forkle pulled his pathfinder from his cape pocket. She’d gotten so distracted by the map and his theories about the dwarves and Tam that she’d forgotten the reason she’d asked for the meeting in the first place. “None of this is why I said we needed to talk.”

  He spun the crystal at the end of the silver wand. “Well, surely you can agree that this is far more important.”

  It was and it wasn’t.

  Compared to everything going on, her personal life did rank pretty low.

  But… she’d waited nine days for this opportunity. She wasn’t about to waste it.

  “This will only take a minute,” she promised, squaring her shoulders and trying to project confidence as she switched to the speech she’d prepared. “I know you haven’t wanted to tell me certain things about who I am, and what your plans for me are, and where I come from, and what’s happened in my past. And I know you think you’re protecting me—but I can handle that stuff now. And I’m worried that the reason we keep failing is because of all of the secrets between us. It makes trusting you really hard sometimes—and it leaves me without some pretty important information. So I think it’s time for us to agree that we need to solve all of those mysteries.”

  She let out a breath.

  There.

  She’d said it.

  Now she needed him to argue that he couldn’t possibly tell her everything—because this was Mr. Forkle, after all—and then she’d offer a compromise and make him agree to answer at least one question.

  They’d made a similar deal before—and she knew exactly what question she’d ask.

  But Mr. Forkle didn’t follow the script.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Foster.” His eyes stayed focused on his pathfinder as he locked the crystal into place. “I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

  “You don’t even know what I want to know,” she pointed out.

  “Actually, I do. You… want to know who your biological parents are.”

  Sophie blinked. “How did you—”

  “I know you far better than you realize. Which is why I also know that you won’t be happy with me when I tell you that, unfortunately, the answer to your question is ‘no.’ ”

  “Why?”

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

  She gritted her teeth. “I deserve to know.”

  “You do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t tell you—because it doesn’t only affect you. The ramifications are too huge. I’m sorry, I realize that’s not what you want to hear. But it’s the best I can do.”

  His tone made it clear that they’d reached the end of the conversation.

  But Sophie couldn’t let it go. She had to make him understand that there were huge ramifications for her, too—even if it meant saying the words she’d been bottling up since that horrible day in Atlantis, when she’d stumbled out of the matchmakers’ office with a fake smile plastered across her face, pretending everything was okay.

  “I’m unmatchable.”

  It came out as a whisper, but she knew everyone heard her. They all sucked in breaths. Even Bo, who probably didn’t understand the full enormity of that statement.

  The elves didn’t discriminate because of skin color or money, like so many humans did. But anyone who was part of a bad match faced scorn for the rest of their lives—and so would their kids. It mostly happened to the Talentless, since the matchmakers focused on pairing up those with the strongest abilities in the hope that their children would be equally powerful. But the foundation of the matchmaking system was genetics, to ensure that no distant relatives were intermarrying, which could happen all too easily in a world where everyone stayed beautiful and healthy for thousands of years.

  So if Sophie couldn’t provide the names of the male and female whose DNA she carried, the matchmakers could do nothing except give her a sympathetic pat on the head and send her away in shame.

  She honestly wasn’t sure how she’d made it out of that room without bursting into tears—and couldn’t remember what she’d told her parents to explain why she wasn’t carrying a match packet as she rejoined them in the main lobby and headed home.

  It was all a horrible, sickening blur—and the nine days that followed had been even more unbearable. She’d had to avoid her friends, afraid they might be able to tell that something had happened, all while her brain kept imagining the many ways her life was about to implode. The only thing that had gotten her through was waiting for this moment—this chance to avert the disaster.

  “Please,” she said, ready to drop to her knees and beg. “I won’t tell anyone and—”

  “You’d have to,” Mr. Forkle interrupted. “The information would only be useful if it were part of your official records. And that cannot happen.”

  “But I’m unmatchable!” she repeated, much louder this time. And she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t flinch.

  That’s when she realized…

  “You knew.”

  She should’ve figured that out
before.

  He was the one who filled out her Inception Certificate and left off that crucial information.

  Of course he knew what that would mean for her someday.

  “What is this?” she demanded. “Another way that Project Moonlark is manipulating my perspective so I’ll see the follies of our world? Am I supposed to be the poster girl for the dark side of matchmaking?”

  “Of course not! Though, as I recall, you have had quite a few issues with the system. You even considered not participating.”

  She had.

  Matchmaking was disappointingly unromantic, and inherently problematic—but that was before…

  She couldn’t think about it without wanting to throw up. And yet her mind still flashed to a pair of beautiful teal eyes.

  Fitz had looked so adorably earnest—so honest—when he’d said the six words that changed everything.

  I want it to be you.

  The boy she’d liked from the moment he’d found her on her class field trip and showed her where she truly belonged—the boy who was so impossibly out of her league that it was almost laughable—told her he wanted to see her name on his match lists. And whether she agreed with matchmaking or not, she needed her name to be there so they could be together.

  But she was unmatchable.

  “Please,” she said again. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

  “I wish there were.”

  The sorrow in his voice sounded genuine.

  But that didn’t help.

  “I realize at your age,” he said carefully, “dating and relationships can feel like everything. But it’s truly only one small fraction of your life—and something you definitely don’t need to be rushing into. Perhaps in a few hundred years—”

  “A few hundred years,” Sophie repeated, suddenly despising the elves’ indefinite life span with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.

  It didn’t matter how he was planning to finish that sentence. In a few hundred years, everyone she knew would already be matched up.

  Actually, they’d probably all be matched in the next decade. Fitz definitely would be. Even with all the drama surrounding his family, he was still basically elvin royalty. And he was handsome, and charming, and talented, and sweet, and thoughtful, and powerful, and—

  “Time is relative,” Mr. Forkle said, interrupting her mental swooning. “Things can feel so urgent, and yet be so small in the grand scheme. I realize that’s a difficult concept to grasp at such a young age—and I’m sure it’s even harder for you, given your upbringing.”

  “The upbringing you forced on me,” she spat back at him.

  “Yes, that is one of the few things we didn’t give you a choice in. And yet, I suspect you wouldn’t trade the time you spent with your human parents and sister.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she conceded. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to know who my biological family is—especially since not knowing them ruins everything.”

  “Not everything,” he corrected. “And not ruins. It simply complicates certain things.”

  Sophie shook her head.

  It would ruin what she had with Fitz. That was more than enough.

  “Please don’t do this to me,” she whispered to him as Flori started humming again, trying to keep her calm.

  Mr. Forkle dragged a palm down his face. “I’m not doing anything. We’re just… at an impasse. And I wish I could change that. But right now, this is where we must stand—and given everything going on, I’m begging you to put this out of your mind. You cannot let it distract you from everything we’ve been discussing. Focus on the dwarves. There’s too much at stake. Too many people we care about who could get hurt. I know you’re smart enough to see that, so I won’t say any more.”

  Sophie turned away, counting her breaths and willing herself not to cry. But she could still feel the tears burning behind her eyes as Mr. Forkle tilted her chin back toward him.

  “You’re the strongest, most resourceful person I’ve ever known, Miss Foster. And after everything you’ve survived, I know you can survive this.”

  He was wrong.

  This was officially too much.

  But…

  Maybe he was also right.

  She was strong and resourceful.

  And she wasn’t backing down.

  She’d spent the last few years learning how to focus on multiple challenges at the same time. She had multitasking down to an art.

  So she let him lead her and her bodyguards into the sunlit meadow and pulled her home crystal out from under her tunic. She had to light leap out of there fast, before he caught a glimpse of the new plan forming in her mind.

  If he wouldn’t tell her who her genetic parents were, she’d find the answer herself.

  TWO

  SO HOW’D IT GO?” GRADY called as Sophie and her bodyguards glittered onto the flower-lined path at Havenfield—and it took Sophie a second to spot her adoptive father standing near the triceratops pen, along with her adoptive mother, Edaline.

  Havenfield was one of the rehabilitation centers for the Sanctuary, so there was always an abundance of bizarre animals milling about the lush pastures that stretched all the way to the steep ocean cliffs bordering the property. And one of Sophie’s favorite creatures was bounding around Grady and Edaline on wobbly legs, flapping his blue-tipped wings and shaking his gleaming mane.

  Wynn wasn’t just adorable. He was a true miracle baby, since he and his twin sister, Luna, were the first alicorns to ever be born in the Lost Cities. And with their birth nearly two weeks earlier, they’d doubled the population of their severely endangered species and reset the Timeline to Extinction. Both the babies and their mama had only survived the incredibly high-risk delivery thanks to the help of the trolls and Luzia Vacker—which was one of the reasons the Council kept struggling to find the right punishment for what happened with the illegal hive at Everglen.

  The line between hero and criminal was sometimes very gray.

  “What’s all that for?” Sophie asked, pointing to the large spool of glowing wire that Grady was holding, and the bulging sack Edaline had slung over one of her shoulders.

  Grady tipped his chin toward Wynn. “The gnomes are helping us baby-alicorn-proof the gorgodon enclosure, since this guy seems to think the gorgodon is his new best friend—and it turns out he’s scrawny enough to wriggle through the bars.”

  “I nearly had a heart attack when I found him trotting around in there this morning,” Edaline added as Wynn reared back with a whinny.

  “Is he okay?” Sophie asked, sprinting over and searching Wynn’s silvery body for signs of injury.

  “He’s fine,” Edaline assured her, stroking Wynn’s forehead right where his nubby horn jutted out of his wild mane. “Don’t ask me how, but he didn’t get a scratch on him.”

  Sophie couldn’t understand it either. The gorgodon was the last of the mutant hybrid beasts that Lady Gisela had created as creepy guard dogs for her version of the Nightfall facility. Part flareadon, part gorgonops, part eurypterid, and part argentavis—it was huge, ugly, and as deadly as possible. It could fly, could breathe underwater, and had enormous claws, fangs, and a stinging scorpion tail. The gnomes were always fixing giant gouges in the bars from the beast thrashing against its cage—and feeding time was super challenging.

  “Will that really be strong enough?” Sophie asked, frowning at the glowing wire. It looked so thin, she had a feeling even her weak right hand could bend it.

  “Oh yeah.” Grady shook the spool, filling the air with a clinking noise that reminded Sophie of ringing bells. “This is iron tempered with lumenite. Even an angry T. rex couldn’t break it.”

  “But you might also want to let Silveny know what her son’s been up to,” Edaline suggested. “Wynn’s already tried to sneak back to the gorgodon three times since I lured him out of there, and I think a nice long mama lecture will put some proper fear into him.”

  Sophie nodded.

  One of t
he many unique aspects of her enhanced telepathy was her ability to communicate with animals—and Silveny was particularly easy to understand, because the Black Swan loosely modeled Sophie’s genetic enhancements on alicorn DNA. She almost wished she could tell that to the matchmakers and see if it made them decide that her biological parents didn’t matter, since her genes had been so drastically manipulated. Which showed how desperate she was, if becoming “the horse girl”—on official record—suddenly sounded appealing.

  “Everything okay?” Edaline asked, her turquoise eyes narrowing and her delicate eyebrows pressing together. It was a look she’d been giving Sophie a lot lately. Ever since Sophie had stepped out of the matchmakers’ office empty-handed. And Sophie had a feeling it meant her parents had guessed that something had happened in Atlantis—but she was hoping their theory had to do with her changing her mind about registering and being too embarrassed to admit it.

  She was determined to avoid clarifying the situation for as long as she possibly could.

  “You didn’t answer Grady’s question about how it went with Mr. Forkle,” Edaline reminded her.

  Sophie shrugged. “It was Mr. Forkle. How do you think it went?”

  Grady grinned. “That bad, huh?”

  “Pretty much.” She told them about the weird egg-shaped office, the 3-D map of the Lost Cities, and Mr. Forkle’s theory about the dwarves being the Neverseen’s next target—but couldn’t bring herself to repeat his fears about Tam. She also decided not to mention the fact that she and her friends might be attacked much more personally.

  “That’s more information than he usually gives you,” Edaline noted when Sophie had finished.

  “I know. But… it still feels like we’ve narrowed it down from a million possibilities to a thousand—and that’s assuming Mr. Forkle’s even right.”

  “I think he is,” Grady said, his gaze focusing on some invisible point in the distance. “It would explain some of the things I’ve been looking into with the dwarves.”

  “What things?” Sophie asked, glancing at Edaline, who looked equally curious.