Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,1

He’d always been overprotective, but his paranoia had reached new levels of exhausting after the Neverseen’s recent brutal attack—and Sophie couldn’t blame him, since she and Fitz had ended up bedridden in the Healing Center for weeks. Her right hand still ached whenever she pushed herself too hard, and Fitz occasionally walked with a slight limp. But Elwin kept assuring them that they’d make a full recovery. Certain wounds were just trickier than others—and theirs had been some of the worst, thanks to the creepy echoes caused by their exposure to shadowflux.

The rare sixth element was darkness in its purest form. Only the strongest Shades could control it. And shadowflux changed everything it touched.

Shadowflux was also somehow so vital to whatever the Neverseen were planning that when their Shade was killed at Everglen, Lady Gisela threatened Tam until he agreed to serve as Umber’s replacement. Sophie and Keefe had begged Tam not to go, but he swore he could handle himself. And Lady Gisela had warned them that any attempt at rescue would only put Tam and his twin sister, Linh, in greater danger. So Tam was on his own with the Neverseen—and it killed Sophie every time she thought about it.

Each passing week made her heart heavier. Her nightmares more vivid. Her brain more convinced that she’d never see her friend again.

Or worse: that Tam would join the enemy for real.

If you hear us out, I guarantee you’ll realize that we are the only ones with an actual solution to the problems in this world, and that you’ve been wasting your talent serving the wrong side, Lady Gisela had told him. And she’d proven time and again that she was a master of mind games and manipulation.

“All clear!” Sandor called, and Sophie squared her shoulders and took a long, steadying breath.

She could go back to worrying about Tam later. Right now, she needed to focus on the conversation ahead—a conversation she’d been rehearsing for the last nine days. Ever since she’d gone to Atlantis and…

Well.

Things had not gone according to plan.

She could still see the pitying looks on the matchmakers’ faces as they’d shown her the ugly red words on the screen.

Words that would define her—destroy her—if people found out about them.

That was why she’d begged for this meeting. If she could convince Mr. Forkle to give her one tiny piece of information—something she deserved to know anyway—everything would get back on track.

She’d been gearing up for a fight, since getting information from the Black Swan was a lot like prying open the jaws of a thrashing verminion. But if he trusted her enough to bring her to his secret office…

“Shall we?” Mr. Forkle asked, gesturing to the entrance.

Sophie nodded and crossed the threshold, shivering as a blast of cold, metallic-tinged air seeped through the thin fabric of her lavender tunic. The room was too dark to see, but it felt like stepping into a refrigerator, and she pulled her dove gray cape tighter around her shoulders, wishing she’d worn thicker gloves, instead of the silk ones she’d chosen.

The light flared to life when Mr. Forkle followed, as if the sensor only responded to him. “You don’t look impressed,” he noted as Sophie blinked in the sudden brightness.

“It’s just… not what I was expecting.”

She’d been imagining his secret office for years—and she’d always pictured a cross between a spaceship and Hogwarts, with fancy architecture and all kinds of high-tech gadgets and mysterious contraptions. Plus clues to who Mr. Forkle truly was, and plenty of hints about Project Moonlark. Instead, she’d found herself in a curved white room that made her feel like she was standing inside a giant underground egg. Soft light poured from a single bulb, which dangled off the end of a thin chain above a round, silver table. The walls were smooth and bare—as was the floor—and several small grates in the ceiling flooded the room with icy drafts.

That was it.

No windows. No doors—except the one they’d come through, which had sealed silently behind them. Nowhere to sit. No decor of any kind. Not even any books or scrolls, despite Mr. Forkle’s love of research.

“And here I thought you’d learned that things in the Lost Cities are rarely what they seem,” Mr. Forkle said, pressing his palm against the wall. The light bulb flickered twice before it flared much brighter and projected a grid of images across every surface of the room, as if the office was tapping into thousands of camera feeds displaying elves, goblins,