Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,196

how fast Foster’ll put poor Fitzy’s skills to shame.”

“We both know that isn’t true.” Lord Cassius’s eyes focused on his hands, and he studied his fingernails as he asked, “What did your mother say to you yesterday—specifically? I heard the summary, but not her actual words.”

“Why do you care?” Keefe countered.

“Because your mother is a master of saying one thing and meaning another, and you were always too afraid of her to properly learn how to speak her language.”

Keefe snorted. “I wasn’t afraid of her. I mean, I probably should’ve been, since she was sneaking around murdering people, but—”

“You were terrified,” Lord Cassius insisted. “Because she gave you just enough love to show you how wonderful it could be if she truly cared for you—and then casually withheld the rest, leaving you wondering where you went wrong, and trying to figure out how to fix it, and being constantly afraid that you’d lose what little you had.”

A beat of painful silence passed as Keefe shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You sound like you know that feeling well.”

It was Lord Cassius’s turn to shrug. “Like father, like son.”

Sophie could picture it all so clearly—the miserable dynamic that Keefe grew up with in his parents’ cold, ostentatious tower. And all she wanted to do was squeeze into his chair so she could wrap her arms around him and prove that someone cared.

But she’d made Keefe two promises before he brought her there.

One: She’d do her best to avoid the memories she knew he probably wouldn’t want her to see.

And two: No matter what she saw, she would never pity him.

What she was feeling in that moment definitely wasn’t pity—but Keefe probably wouldn’t see it that way.

“Okay,” she said, taking a seat in the chair that Keefe had dragged over for her—and loving the way Lord Cassius’s jaw tightened when she curled her knees up and rested her feet on the clean white fabric. “I’m pretty sure the one thing we all agree on is that none of us want this to take any longer than it needs to. And you already know how this works, since you’ve been doing it with Fitz, so you don’t need me to explain anything to you, right?”

“Does that mean there won’t be any fancy moonlark tricks to wow me with the wonders of your telepathy?” Lord Cassius asked.

Sophie matched his smug smile. “I don’t need tricks to wow you. That’ll happen naturally, when I crash through every wall you put up and find all the things you think you can hide from me.”

Keefe whistled. “Okay, I’m not sure where all of this Foster confidence is coming from, but I’m here for it!”

Sophie’s cheeks warmed a little—but not that much.

Because she was feeling confident.

Maybe her head was still thrumming from the unbridled force of her inflicting.

Or maybe it was because she’d been a Telepath since she was five years old.

Either way, she knew beyond any doubt that her mind was powerful.

And Lord Cassius, for all of his bravado, was very, very weak.

She double-checked her fingernail gadgets—and her four layers of gloves—before reaching for Lord Cassius’s temples, since he was an Empath and his sensitivity to her enhancing would probably be stronger.

“The memories I want you to ignore are tinted purple,” he told her.

Sophie shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to decide what stays secret.”

With that, she pressed her gloved fingers against his skin—relieved when no warmth from her enhancing sparked between them—and shoved her consciousness into his mind, without bothering to ask for permission.

His mental barriers shredded like paper, and she crashed into the center of his thoughts, where everything was…

Quiet.

And tidy.

And still.

Usually minds were a rush of color and motion and sound and energy—like being surrounded by thousands of flickering holograms, each broadcasting its own vibrant soundtrack.

But Lord Cassius’s head was like stepping into a vast, pristine library—run by the kind of overzealous librarian who yelled at people for moving the books and took great pleasure in shushing anyone who made the slightest noise.

A lifetime’s worth of memories loomed around Sophie in ten precariously arranged stacks. Houses of cards tinted red, blue, green, orange, gold, silver, pink, white, black, and purple—as if Lord Cassius had been categorizing each of his thoughts and experiences before meticulously tucking them away.

Sophie wasn’t sure what the other colors meant—but she knew he wanted her to stay away from purple, so…

You’re so much like my son, Lord Cassius thought as Sophie focused on the shaky tower