Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,17

grateful to have the loyal gnome stationed outside of her doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Flori asked as she rushed to Sophie’s side.

Sophie curled into a ball, hugging Ella—the bright blue Hawaiian-shirt-wearing stuffed elephant she’d brought with her from her human life. “I need you to sing that song you wrote to quiet the echoes.”

Flori clearly had lots of questions, but said nothing as she reached for Sophie’s face, brushing her fingers softly down Sophie’s cheeks and humming the first notes of the melody. She sang the lyrics in an ancient, earthy language that slipped under Sophie’s skin, turning warm and wonderful as each verse sank into her mind and heart. And as the air thickened with a sweet floral perfume, it felt like the sun rose inside her, melting the cold darkness and flooding her with tingly light.

“Did that help?” Flori whispered, studying Sophie with worried gray eyes.

“I… think so.” Sophie flexed the fingers on her right hand to test for pain, breathing a sigh of relief when there wasn’t any—and the weakness didn’t feel like it had worsened. But as the last of the song’s warmth faded, a bone-deep weariness nestled in, making her wish she could burrow under her blankets and soak up the sweet, heady scent from the flowers growing across her canopy for the rest of the day. Each of the four types of blossoms had inspired part of the lyrics for the healing verses, and the vines had grown much more fragrant with Flori’s singing.

But Tam’s message had left a different type of echo—the kind where the words kept crashing around in her head, knocking loose stabbing slivers of worry. And while her brain wanted to rebel—wanted to scream that there had to be some horrible misunderstanding—it also kept repeating what Mr. Forkle had said about Tam earlier.

They’re going to use him to strike at you where you’re most vulnerable.

“Easy,” Flori warned as Sophie stumbled to her feet.

“What’s going on?” Sandor demanded, catching Sophie by her shoulders to hold her steady.

“Nothing,” she assured him.

“That wasn’t nothing,” Flori said gently. “Something stirred your echoes.”

“Yeah, but you fixed me.” She flashed a grateful smile, and Flori gave her a green-toothed grin in return.

But Sandor stopped her from pulling away. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to talk to Keefe.”

His jaw locked with a furious click. “What has that boy done now?”

“Nothing.” All of her bodyguards looked dubious—which was fair, considering the amount of chaos that Keefe had caused over the years. “I’m serious.”

“You were perfectly fine—and then you started doing your Telepath tricks, and suddenly you were begging for Flori’s help,” Sandor argued. “Don’t expect me to believe the two have no connection.”

“They are connected,” Sophie admitted. “But I wasn’t talking to Keefe.”

“Then who were you talking to?” Bo called from the doorway.

Sophie sighed, knowing the truth would cost her precious time. But when she tried to pull free again, Sandor was much too strong. “I… reached out to Tam.”

Sandor’s grip tightened and he leaned back, studying her from head to toe like he was searching for injuries. “What did that traitor do to you?”

“Nothing!”

“Stop using that word as your answer for everything!” he snapped.

“But it’s true! And he’s not a traitor!” She twisted free of his grasp—anger bringing back her strength. “You know Tam. How can you call him that?”

And yet, even as she asked the question, she could hear Mr. Forkle telling her, There are very few things Mr. Tam wouldn’t do to protect his sister.

And that didn’t even take into consideration how the shadowflux might influence him.

She wasn’t going to forget the sharpness of his thoughts—or the chill—for a very long time.

“As your bodyguard, I must view anyone choosing to live with the enemy as a traitor,” Sandor insisted. “And what he did to you today proves why that distinction is necessary.”

“He didn’t do anything,” she argued, clinging to the reminder with an iron grasp. “He used shadowflux to pass along an important warning—at huge risk to himself. And I guess whatever’s left of my echoes reacted to it. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal,” Sandor argued. “He should’ve known that would happen and—”

“Well, he didn’t,” she interrupted. “Or… maybe he did and figured it was worth the risk—which is the same thing I did when I reached out to him telepathically.”

She was trying very hard not to think about what the Neverseen might do to punish Tam for their conversation. Hopefully the show Tam put on would convince Gethen that he’d