Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,11

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 the 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.

Grady blew out a breath, knocking a few strands of his blond hair off of his forehead. “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to share. My assignments were classified—and I’m not saying I won’t tell you, so no need to give me that look, kiddo. I just think I should speak with the Council first, to save us a whole lot of drama. I’ll head to Eternalia as soon as I make sure Wynn can’t become a gorgodon snack.”

Wynn nickered in protest.

“The gnomes and I can finish up without you,” Edaline offered, reaching for his bundle of glowing wire.

Grady pivoted away. “This is much heavier than it looks.”

“So?”

When he still wouldn’t hand it to her, Edaline snapped her fingers, making the spool disappear. Edaline was a Conjurer, so she could pull things back and forth through the void—or hide something in the nothingness and drag it back when she needed it.

A second snap did the same to the sack she’d had over her shoulder.

“Should’ve thought of that earlier,” Edaline said, smoothing her amber-colored hair. “Sometimes I forget that I don’t have to do things the way you do.”

Sophie occasionally had the same problem. It didn’t always feel natural to rely on her abilities—and she was even worse at remembering to use any of her elvin skills. Things like telekinesis, levitating, channeling, darkness vision, breath control, and body temperature regulation were all feats that every single elf was capable of achieving. But their world put so much emphasis on special abilities that people rarely used their skills—or even thought about them—and that was turning out to be a dangerous mistake. Particularly since the Neverseen made their members train in their skills every day.

Fitz and Biana’s traitorous older brother, Alvar, had even used breath control and