Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,170

and I finally had a chance to meet with Lady Cadence.”

Sophie stopped breathing. “You asked her?”

Biana nodded, eyes shifting to her feet.

Stina stood taller. “She definitely isn’t your biological mother.”

“She isn’t,” Sophie repeated with the last of the air in her lungs—still not quite ready to breathe again.

She isn’t.

She isn’t.

She isn’t.

“That’s good news, right?” Stina asked. “You didn’t want her to be your biological mom, did you?”

“No,” Sophie said, forcing herself to suck in some air—and triggering a whole lot of coughing—which unfortunately made her very aware of all the places she was still very sore from almost dying, even with the pain medicine. So there were several seconds filled with a lot of cough—“ow!”—cough—“ow!” before Sophie managed to grit out, “I’m definitely glad I’m not genetically related to her. But… do I want to know what she said after you asked her? Probably not, huh?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Biana promised—and the “that” told Sophie everything she needed to know.

She held up her hands before Biana could continue. “Never mind. Whenever Foxfire’s back in session, I’m going to have to train with her every week, and I’m pretty sure the only way I’m going to be able to do that without dumping curdleroots on her head is if I don’t let you finish that sentence.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Biana assured her again. “But… yeah, you’re probably right.”

“She did say one interesting thing, though,” Stina noted. “She said the Black Swan is too smart to have your biological parents’ abilities match yours. It’d be too much of a giveaway—especially since your abilities are so rare. That kinda makes sense, don’t you think? Like how Bronte isn’t your biological father even though he’s the only Inflictor? So I guess when we figure out more names, we should try to pick people who don’t have your abilities.”

“Great, so basically it could be anybody,” Sophie grumbled.

“Not true,” Biana argued. “You have a lot of abilities. And it rules out all of those.”

“Yeah, but there are still way more abilities I don’t have than abilities I do,” Sophie countered, reaching up to rub her temples. “But it’s fine,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as them. “It doesn’t matter right now. We’re pausing the biological parent search.”

“We are?” Stina asked.

Sophie nodded, feeling ten pounds lighter for having decided it. “It’s just not the right time. There are too many huge things going on, and I can’t keep letting it be a distraction. We can always pick the search back up once things calm down.”

“I guess that’s true,” Biana murmured. “But… what about the whole unmatchable thing?”

Sophie sighed. “I’m just… going to have to deal with it. Fortunately, most people don’t know about that yet, and it won’t really be noticeable until our grade level starts picking up their match lists, which is still a little ways off. Hopefully I’ll have it figured out before then. But… even if not, that doesn’t change the fact that right now, we have to focus on the dwarves, and Keefe’s missing memory, and whatever else the Neverseen are planning. And I need to get out of this stupid bed.”

She tried to kick off her covers and regretted it when her legs proved to be extra achy.

“Want us to get Elwin or Livvy or Edaline?” Biana offered.

“No, it’s fine,” Sophie said, hating the next words she had to say. “I think… I just need to rest for a bit.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Stina agreed. “Seriously, Sophie. There’s nothing wrong with taking the time you need to get better.”

“Stina’s right,” Biana added, looking less uncomfortable with those words than she used to. “That’s why you have us. Is there anything else you need us to be working on?”

“I can’t think of anything,” Sophie admitted, even if it felt like there should be dozens and dozens of things.

Did they really have so few projects and leads?

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter—that they were definitely on the right track with the magsidian stones they’d discovered, and that was going to give them a real advantage. But she still wished she could come up with something better to say than, “Just make sure you talk to the Council about getting Lady Zillah to Loamnore. And maybe check on Linh at Choralmere?”

“On it,” both girls promised, and Sophie had to marvel for a second at how well they were all working together—even if bossing them around still felt really strange.

Stina leaped away after that to hail one of her