Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,185

mean it, Keefe,” Sophie told him. “Tonight is about investigating only—not taking dangerous risks. If you won’t promise that—and mean it—then I’m having Fitz set us back down.”

Keefe sighed. “Fine, I promise.”

“And mean it,” Sophie emphasized. “Convince me that I can trust you.”

“You can trust me, Foster,” Keefe assured her, tightening his grip on her hand. “I know I’ve made huge mistakes in the past, but I’m trying to learn from them—and the last thing I ever want to do is let you down. Okay?”

Nothing about what they were doing felt okay anymore.

But… she believed him.

And they’d come this far.

Please don’t let this be a mistake, Sophie thought, sending the plea to every star twinkling around them before she told Fitz, “Drop us!” and they plummeted into the void.

* * *

The time on Big Ben said 11:11 p.m., which probably meant that London was somehow on the same time zone as the Lost Cities—something Sophie would have to put more thought into later.

At the moment, her focus was on staying out of sight.

London was busier than she’d been expecting at such a late hour—a steady stream of cars and buses on the roads, pedestrians wandering every shadowed sidewalk—and while Sophie had managed to swipe Grady’s obscurer before she left, their little group still felt very exposed.

It didn’t help that their clothes stood out a lot more than Sophie had wanted. She’d tried her best—her magenta jacket and white ruffled tunic didn’t look that different from the coats and shirts that some of the humans were wearing, and she’d layered different socks over her leggings to try to make the layered gloves on her hands seem like a fashion statement. But she’d decided to wear her cape, thinking its warmth might come in handy given London’s reputation for cold, foggy weather. And Fitz and Keefe looked like boy princes in their capes and embroidered jerkins.

“We have to stay together,” Sophie reminded Keefe, pulling him back to her side when he tried to head toward what might’ve been Westminster Abbey—she wasn’t sure. She was still getting her bearings, trying to match the famous landmarks in front of her—each lit with a warm, golden light against the night sky—with the pictures she’d seen in human books and the photo they’d seen of Keefe’s mom.

“Then come with me,” Keefe told her. “The point is for me to wander around, right?”

“It is—but I didn’t know it was going to be so crowded, so we need to figure out a strategy,” Sophie warned. “It’s not going to be easy moving as a group of three without bumping into anybody—and don’t step into the street unless I tell you it’s safe,” she added, jerking him to a stop as he moved toward the crosswalk. “There are all sorts of rules about when it is and isn’t your turn, and if you don’t follow them…”

She didn’t say any more, certain he remembered Ethan and Eleanor’s obituary.

“Fine, but can we please get moving?” Keefe asked, and the frantic edge to his voice made him sound a lot more like he had earlier. He trailed his hand along the iron fence and narrowed his eyes, like he was trying to concentrate on the feel of the metal. Or maybe he was taking in all of the nearby sounds. “Nothing’s familiar here. I need to find something familiar.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” Fitz told him, pulling something crumpled out of his pocket.

It took Sophie a second to realize he’d brought the photograph of Lady Gisela—and it was hard not to hug him for thinking of that.

He pointed to the parliament building. “This is what your mom was standing in front of. It’s just hard to tell which part of the building specifically, since it all kind of looks the same—and the clock is so huge that you can see it from lots of angles. Hmm.”

He held up the photo and waved it around, like he was trying to piece it into a puzzle.

“Okay, but none of this is triggering any memories. Even the smell isn’t familiar.” Keefe sucked in a deep breath through his nose, coughing in the process.

“Yeah, the air here’s really thick,” Fitz said, crinkling his nose, “between the fog and the pollution and that weird damp smell. Are we near a river?”

“The Thames,” Sophie agreed, pointing to the lights on the bridge ahead, which happened to be the same direction that Keefe’s mom had been looking in the picture. “That might be a good way to go,” she