Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,165

at the spot that was surely going to be a new scar.

They needed a subject change—fast.

“So Fitz is at the Shores of Solace right now?” she asked.

“He is—and he’s not happy about it. He didn’t want to leave you. I heard him yelling at my dad before he left, saying the whole thing is a waste of time. But my dad still got his way—he always does. Someday I need to figure out how he pulls that off.”

“I take it that means they haven’t found anything useful?” Sophie asked.

“That’s what I’m assuming. And I’m not surprised. I’m sure my dad’s being super stubborn, and controlling, and hiding a ton of stuff, and basically sabotaging the process.” Keefe plopped back onto the desk chair and propped his feet on her desk. “Plus… don’t get me wrong. You know Fitzy’s my Best Dude—”

“Best Dude?” Sophie interrupted. “Is that seriously what you’re calling him now?”

Keefe nodded. “Until I convince him that we should call ourselves the Keefitzinator. Anyway, I’m not saying our Fitzy’s not a super-powerful Telepath. He’s just… better with the basic stuff when he’s working alone, you know? And finding shattered memories seems like it might be a bit too fancy for him. Especially since my dad’s good at dodging Telepaths.”

Sophie chewed her lip. “If you want me—”

“Nah,” Keefe cut her off, before she’d had a chance to make her offer.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Uh, for one thing, have you seen you?” he asked. “Hate to break it to you, Miss F, but you need some major bed rest.”

“I meant after I’m better,” Sophie mumbled, tugging at the parts of her hair that weren’t plastered to her forehead and trying to hide behind the greasy strands.

“Oh, I know—but once you’re better, you’ll have way more important stuff to do than digging through my dad’s creepy memories,” Keefe insisted. “Besides, it’s not like we even know for sure that we’re going to find anything.”

“Right, but—”

“Seriously, Foster. It’s not worth it.”

He wouldn’t look at her as he said it. And Sophie had a feeling there was a bigger reason he was letting her off the hook.

And in case she was right, she decided not to keep pushing.

But they were running out of subject changes.

All she had left was, “Any luck with your memories?”

“I wish.” He snatched the gold notebook off of her desk and tucked it into his cape pocket before picking up the silver one and slowly flipping through. “I’ve logged a bunch more stuff. But nothing useful. And Dex told me yesterday that he still hasn’t gotten any hits from the London cameras, so… I don’t know. Maybe the drawing I gave him wasn’t good enough for the facial recognition.”

“Or the guy might’ve moved,” Sophie hated to tell him. “Humans do that way more than elves do.”

“I know. I thought of that. But… London’s the only lead I have, so…” He slumped lower in his chair.

“Well… it hasn’t been that long since Dex set up the cameras,” Sophie said, trying to be positive. “And the guy could’ve been on vacation. Or battling the flu and not leaving the house or something. Just because we haven’t found him yet doesn’t mean we won’t.”

Keefe looked about as convinced by those suggestions as she was.

She wished she could think of some brilliant solution, but… the man Keefe remembered could literally be anywhere on the planet, and they only had cameras searching one city.

If only they could tap into, like… a human spy satellite or something. Then they could at least cover a lot more ground. But she doubted Dex’s Technopath skills stretched all the way to outer space—and even if they did, there would still be lots of places the satellite didn’t cover because human tech wasn’t that powerful. And the elves didn’t…

“Wait,” Sophie said, wincing as she straightened up. “Is Mr. Forkle still here?”

“He might be,” Keefe said. “Why?”

“Go check,” Sophie told him, wishing she’d thought of this sooner. “If he is, tell him I need to talk to him right now.”

“About what?” Mr. Forkle asked from the doorway, and Sophie jumped—then winced.

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” Livvy cut in, shoving Mr. Forkle aside to make her way over to Sophie, with Elwin right at her heels.

Edaline was with them too, and she held Sophie’s hand the whole time that Elwin and Livvy did their exam—which was mostly Livvy asking, “Does this hurt?” before poking Sophie somewhere, while Elwin flashed various orbs of colored light around Sophie’s body and studied her through his