Keeper of the Lost Cities

by Shannon Messenger

  “Here?” Across the street Spider-Man and Batman posed for pictures outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

  “No, I guess not.” If anything, they blended right in. “What are we doing here?”

  “Breaking the law.” He held up the pathfinder, casting blue beams of light on the ground. “Only blue crystals take you to the Forbidden Cities, and only certain members of the nobility are allowed to have them. Mine was issued back when I worked for the Council, and I ‘forgot’ to give it back when I resigned. So this trip is our little secret, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I come here sometimes. I’m not supposed to, but it helps to see them in real life.” He pointed to the humans wandering the streets, oblivious to the elves sitting among them. “We’ve cut ourselves off—vanished into the light. Makes it easy to forget how similar we are. Or could be—if they weren’t so stubborn.”

  He paused, like he was waiting for her to speak. But she didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you miss your human life?” he asked.

  She thought about the headaches, the fear of discovery, how out of place she always felt, and opened her mouth to say, “No.” But, “Sometimes I miss my family,” slipped out instead.

  His expression softened. “That’s good, Sophie. You, of all people, should never forget where you came from. If you ever need reminding, let me know and I’ll bring you here.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you wonder why you were hidden with humans?”

  Her mind darted unwillingly to Prentice. “My real parents must’ve wanted to get rid of me,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes, and pain seeped into his features. “Trust me, Sophie—no one ‘got rid of’ you. Don’t you know how special you are?”

  “Yeah, special enough to have secret information stored in my brain without my permission,” she mumbled. Which was probably why Prentice got rid of her. Who’d want a freak for a daughter?

  Or maybe he was the one who planted the information. Her hands clenched into fists.

  “That’s not the only reason you’re special, believe me.” Tiergan cleared the strain out of his voice. “Have you remembered anything else since the tribunal?”

  She watched an ant crawl across the dirty pavement.

  “I understand if you aren’t ready to talk about it. But don’t be afraid to explore your memories. They might be the only way to understand who you really are.”

  “What if I’m someone bad?” she whispered, putting words to the fear that had consumed her since yesterday.

  “I can assure you you’re not,” he promised.

  She shook her head, refusing to believe him. “What do you know about Prentice?”

  Tiergan shifted in his seat.

  “I know that’s classified information, but I think I deserve to know who he was.” She took an extra breath for courage. “He was my father, wasn’t he?”

  Tiergan sucked in a breath. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

  “He was a Keeper, and he was exiled because of me. It’s not hard to put the pieces together.”

  “Sophie, look at me,” Tiergan said, waiting until she did. “Prentice was exiled because he was hiding your existence—not because he was responsible for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated, and she could tell he was warring with himself, deciding how much to say.

  “Please,” she whispered. “No one will tell me anything about my past.”

  He sighed and looked away. When he spoke, his words were hurried, like he was forcing them out before he could change his mind. “Prentice was a Keeper for a group called the Black Swan, and the information he was hiding was you. Where to find you. I’d warned Prentice there would be consequences for helping the Black Swan, but he didn’t listen. And when he was captured, he sacrificed his sanity to keep you hidden. Now he lives in exile, his mind a shattered, useless mess.”

  “That’s why you’re so upset with Alden?”

  He nodded. “Alden was the one who found him. I pleaded for mercy on Prentice’s behalf, but the Council demanded to know what Prentice hid in his mind, so Alden oversaw something called a memory break. It’s a type of probe that shatters someone’s sanity in order to access their hidden memories.”

  Sophie shivered. She couldn’t picture Alden carrying out that kind of order—unless he knew he was right. But why wouldn’t Prentice just tell them where she was? “What exactly is the Black Swan?”

  “Something our society doesn’t know what to do with.” He wrung the edge of his cape between his hands. “The name is a metaphor. For thousands of years humans were convinced there was no such thing as a black swan. So when a black swan was found, it became a symbol of something that shouldn’t exist but does. A small group of insurgents in our society adopted the name. A brewing rebellion—a black swan—in a society where rebellion isn’t supposed to exist.”

  “How do you know so much about them?” she had to ask.

  “You’re not the only one with secrets you’d rather not share.”

  Sophie swallowed, realizing how little she knew about her favorite Mentor. He couldn’t be involved in anything . . . wrong, could he?

  No. Tiergan was one of the kindest people she knew. He could never be bad.

  Bad.

  “So, the Black Swan are the bad guys, right?” she whispered, staring at her hands. “And if they have something to do with me . . .” She couldn’t bear to follow the thought to its end.

  Tiergan took her hands and waited for her to meet his eyes. “Whatever the Black Swan is, it has nothing to do with who you are. When I look at you, I only see good. You came forward when you cheated—you even chose to serve your detention when you didn’t have to. Whatever’s in your mind is just information. And whatever secrets lie in your past do not change who you are now. I have no doubt you’ll make the right decisions, whenever the time comes to make them.”

  His words felt more healing than the balm Elwin used to cool her burns. Her voice was thick when she spoke. “Thank you, Tiergan. I’ll try to remember that.”

  She wasn’t sure what to do with the other things he told her. The bits and pieces belonged to a puzzle she didn’t know if she wanted to solve. For now she tucked them away, clinging to the hope that Tiergan was right—that she was good. As long as that was true, she could survive pretty much anything else.

  DESPITE TIERGAN’S ENCOURAGEMENT, SOPHIE DIDN’T feel ready for anyone to know about her revelations. Especially Bronte.

  She kept the memory log with her at all times and only took it out to work on when she was alone. Grady and Edaline were used to her practicing alchemy in the caves, so they didn’t question her disappearing after school every day with Iggy. And Dex was so busy with the added ability-detecting exercises, he didn’t notice they weren’t hanging out as much. The only one who seemed concerned was Biana.

  She cornered Sophie in the hallway. “Are you mad at me?”

  “What? No. Why?”

  “You haven’t come over in at least three weeks. It was before the school was evacuated.”

  Had it really been that long? “Sorry. I’ve been superbusy.”

  “Do you want to come over this weekend?”

  “I don’t think I can.” She needed to avoid Alden, so he wouldn’t ask to see her memory log.

  “What about next weekend?”

  “Uh . . . sure.” Biana seemed so insistent, and she could always cancel.

  Biana straightened, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Cool. I’ll tell my parents so they know to be home.”

  “Oh. Good.” She was sure her smile looked more like a grimace.

  Deep down she knew she was overreacting. Other than Elementine and the photo of the sand castle, she hadn’t found anything significant. She’d poured through her s
crapbook for anything elf-ish and recorded every dream, but there was nothing worth hiding. Maybe Elementine was a one-time thing. She wasn’t going to stop searching, but maybe she didn’t need to stress so much about the memory log.

  So she didn’t cancel her plans with Biana. She went to Everglen. And it felt like coming home.

  They played base quest, and this time she was on Fitz’s team. His eyes held a tiny bit of envy when Sophie showed him the way she tracked thoughts to an exact location. She tried to teach him, but his mind couldn’t master it, so she did the tracking and transmitted the location to him so he could tag Keefe and Biana out. She was so familiar with the feel of Fitz’s mind after all the times she’d transmitted to him across the campus during her telepathy sessions, she barely had to concentrate to find him.

  After losing three rounds in a row, Keefe refused to play unless Sophie was on his team. She agreed to the switch, and then transmitted their hiding spots to Fitz so they’d lose and keep the suspicion off of her. Keefe looked ready to explode when Fitz tagged him out the second time, and he spent the rest of the night grumbling about conspiracies. Sophie laughed until her sides hurt. She couldn’t believe she’d let fear keep her away from this much fun for over a month.

  Especially since Alden never asked to see her memory log. He and Della hugged her, told her to visit more often, and disappeared for the rest of the day on official business. For once she didn’t want to know where they went.

  She was done asking questions. Done investigating conspiracies—not that she’d made any headway. She didn’t want to accidentally trigger any more memories. Ignorance was safer.

  Whatever was going on was the Council’s problem, not hers. She wouldn’t let fear control her again.

  SHE MADE IT ONE WHOLE month without unnecessary stress or worry, and then Dame Alina said the two most terrifying words ever: “final exams.”

  One month until finals. And even if she passed the tests, she still had to face another tribunal, where the Council—Bronte—would permanently decide her future at Foxfire. She felt like throwing up every time she thought about it.

  Alchemy was still her worst subject, but she also struggled with elementalism and PE—all the subjects where she had to do things, not just learn. She still hadn’t figured out how to turn off the part of her brain that screamed levitating was impossible, that lightning couldn’t be jarred, that the law of conservation of mass was a legitimate scientific principle—and it always messed her up.

  Dex had been nagging her for months to try an elixir he invented called Nogginease, which contained limbium, a rare mineral that could supposedly clear her mind. She’d resisted, since she couldn’t use it during the exams, but maybe it was like learning to ride a bike. She needed training wheels to start.

  Dex looked downright giddy when she asked for a bottle—probably because her lack of skill caused him to lose when they were on the same team in PE. He brought her a week’s supply the next morning.

  She swallowed the unnaturally cold syrup in one gulp, wincing as the chill ran down her throat. “I don’t feel different.”

  Dex laughed. “Give it a chance. Your body needs time to absorb it.”

  “I should probably change into my uniform then.”

  A few steps toward the locker room her mind fuzzed. She leaned against the wall for support. “I don’t think it’s working right.”

  She couldn’t describe what was happening, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing.

  Dex rushed to her side. “You don’t look so great.”

  “I don’t feel so great.” She closed her eyes—the blurry vision was nauseating—and tore at her clothes. It was far, far too hot to wear a cape.

  “Here, let me,” Dex said, unfastening the clasp on her cape. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” She tugged at her vest. “My skin’s on fire.”

  “Whoa, what are those?” Dex pointed to the huge red bumps popping up on her arms.

  “Oh no,” she gasped, collapsing. “Allergy . . .”

  Dex caught her before she hit the ground. “Allergy? What’s an allergy?”

  She wanted to explain, but her chest felt like something was crushing it and she couldn’t get enough air. The world spun harder and her vision dimmed.

  “Hang on. I’ll take you to Elwin.” Dex threw her over his shoulder, and then they were moving. He was strong, but they were the same height, and she weighed almost as much as he did, so their progress was slow. Maybe too slow. Fear settled into every muscle, making her tremble.

  Then someone else grabbed her, cradling her in their arms. She heard some sort of discussion—an argument maybe—and then she was moving much faster. She was too far gone to make sense of it. There was a tugging in her stomach and a burning in her throat, and then she was out cold.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  DON’T TRY TO SPEAK YET, SOPHIE,” a familiar voice whispered as her eyes flut- tered open.

  She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Her throat chafed like sandpaper and her tongue felt like a foreign object. Her blurry eyes focused on the wild-haired head hovering over her.

  “Nod if you can understand me,” Elwin instructed.

  She nodded, surprised by how much energy the simple movement took.

  “That’s the first good news today.” He smiled, but it didn’t erase the worry in his eyes as he held a small bottle against her lips. “I need you to swallow something for me.”

  Some of it dribbled across her chin, but she managed to get most of it down.

  “That’s a good girl.” He wiped her face with a soft cloth and placed a cold compress against her forehead. “Just rest for now, okay?”

  She nodded again, exhausted from the effort.

  The warm liquid soothed her dry throat and sent cool, tingling sensations rushing through her body. After a few minutes she could swallow normally again. “What happened?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Dex said you told him it was an allergy. He thinks it might be the limbium in a solution he gave you, because you’d never had it before.”

  Her fuzzy memories focused. “Where is Dex?”

  “I made him and Fitz wait outside till I had things under control. Things got a little too messy for spectators.”

  Fitz?

  She vaguely remembered stronger arms carrying her to safety. Had that been Fitz? She was about to ask when she caught what Elwin said. “Messy?”

  “Don’t worry, I cleaned up all the vomit. But you need to change your shirt.”

  She bolted upright. “I threw up?”

  “Everywhere. Never seen anything like it. It’s always an adventure with you, isn’t it? But don’t worry, I don’t mind—and neither did Fitz. It was only his PE uniform.”

  She threw up on Fitz?

  “Oh no,” she wailed, wondering if it was possible to die of embarrassment.

  “What’s the matter? Are you in pain?”

  “No,” she moaned, trying to crawl under the blankets and disappear. She could smell the mess on her uniform now and she couldn’t decide which was worse, knowing it was on her or knowing it was on Fitz, too. “Why? Why did this have to happen?”

  “I don’t know much about allergies. Never seen one before—and I can’t say I’d like to see another. Bullhorn screamed his head off when you came in. Scared the wits out of me.”

  She cringed. “It was that close?”

  He bit his lip. “Bullhorn’s never done that before.”

  They both shivered.

  “How did you know what to do?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t. I just took my best guess and hoped it would work. When Bullhorn left you alone, I knew I was on the right track.”

  “Well . . . thank you.” The words felt trite, considering he’d saved her life. But what else could she say?

  “Just d
on’t ever do that to me again! I’m going to make up a bottle of what I gave you, and I want you to keep it with you in case you ever have another reaction—and stay away from limbium.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He gave her one of his huge tunics and left her alone to change. Her soiled uniform went into an airtight bag to block the smell.

  “You up for company?” Elwin asked when she finished. “Fitz and Dex won’t leave until they see that you’re okay.”

  She sank lower in her bed and nodded, wondering how to apologize to someone for vomiting on them.

  “You guys can come in,” Elwin called.

  Dex rushed to her side, followed closely by Fitz.

  Dex’s eyes were red and swollen. “I’m so sorry, Sophie. I had no idea you’d react like that. I’d never—”

  “It’s okay, Dex,” she interrupted. “It wasn’t your fault. And I’m fine now. See?” She held up her arm, showing him the blotch-free skin.

  Dex let out a deep breath. “You’re really okay?”

  “Yeah. Just humiliated.” She scraped together the courage to look at Fitz. He wore a fitted white undershirt, his PE tunic noticeably absent. “I’m so sorry, Fitz. I can’t believe I—”

  He held up his hands and smiled his dazzling smile. “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the time Alvar’s pet raptor peed all over me. Now that was disgusting.”

  She wanted to believe him, but she was fairly sure she’d always be the girl who threw up on him. It was hard to resist the urge to crawl under a rock and disappear for a decade or two. “Still. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be. I’m just glad you’re okay and I was there to help.”

  Dex reeled on Fitz. “I didn’t need your help.”

  “Please, you never would have made it in time.”

  “I would too!” He looked to Sophie to back him up.

  “I . . . don’t remember.” She wanted to spare Dex’s feelings, but deep down she knew Fitz was right. Which was a scary thought.

  Dex scowled.

  “Has that ever happened to you before?” Fitz asked.

  “Only once—when I was nine.”