care!” Oralie insisted.
Sophie laughed. “You let me be part of an experiment! Left me with humans for twelve years! Ignored me as much as you could once Fitz brought me here—”
“I’ve never ignored you!” Oralie argued.
“Really?” Sophie countered. “Then where were you when Grady and Edaline freaked out and canceled my adoption?”
Oralie flinched. “Alden and Della—”
“Alden and Della stepped in and offered to raise your daughter,” Sophie jumped in. “And you were just going to let them.”
“Sophie, I couldn’t—”
“No, I get it,” Sophie told her. “You couldn’t let anyone know. Just like you can’t let anyone know now, even though I’ll be stuck being unmatchable—”
“Sophie—”
“Just like you couldn’t stand up for Prentice!” Sophie added—and somehow Oralie managed to turn even paler.
A ghost of her pretty pink self.
“I didn’t know Prentice was hiding you,” she whispered. “When I found out… I’ve never been so ill.”
“But you knew he was part of the Black Swan,” Sophie argued. “And I’m assuming you knew they were the good guys, since you volunteered your future child for Project Moonlark.”
“You don’t think the Black Swan could ever have a traitor?” Oralie asked her. “Back then, everything was murky. There was no clear line between the Black Swan and the Neverseen as far as anyone could tell. Some people didn’t even believe there were two groups. And I’d been given zero information—”
“You must’ve been told something if you were willing to give them your DNA!” Sophie pressed.
“Yes, I was told that I could help them create something—”
“Something,” Sophie interrupted.
“A wake-up call,” Oralie clarified. “A force for change and good, who would make our world pay attention in a way that no one else ever could. Make people see things for what they are, not what we thought they were.”
“And you thought, ‘Sounds like a perfect job for my child.’ ”
“No,” Oralie said, turning toward one of the windows and staring out at the stars. “I thought it sounded like the only way I’d ever be able to have a child.”
She left the words there, waiting to see what Sophie would do with them.
But Sophie couldn’t bring herself to care. “So I get to be unmatchable now—and Prentice had to spend years in Exile with a broken mind—because you wanted to have it all.”
Oralie shook her head. “Prentice spent years in Exile because of a dozen different misunderstandings. And you…”
Once again, Sophie waited for Oralie to finish that sentence.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until she finally had to ask, “That’s it?”
“I… don’t know what else you want me to say,” Oralie admitted.
Sophie wanted to tell her, How about “I’m sorry”? Or how about “I’ll fix this”? Or how about “I love—”
But she shut down those thoughts.
If Oralie couldn’t think to say them on her own, then they weren’t worth hearing from her anyway.
So all that was really left for Sophie to say was, “It’s late. Grady and Edaline are probably starting to worry.”
Oralie nodded, still staring at the stars. “They’re good parents, Sophie. Far better than I ever could’ve been.”
“They are,” Sophie agreed. “But you don’t get to take credit for them.”
“Don’t I?” Oralie hesitated a beat before she reminded Sophie, “Alden and Della tried to adopt you after Fitz brought you here. And I convinced Bronte to push the rest of the Council to deny their request and assign you to Grady and Edaline. I didn’t know they’d momentarily lose their way, but… I knew you needed each other.”
“We do,” Sophie told her. “But that still has nothing to do with you.”
“No, I suppose not,” Oralie murmured.
Seconds ticked by, until Sophie finally let go of Oralie’s wrist.
Her fingers had long since gone numb. And there was nothing else she needed to ask—no more lies or excuses she wanted to hear.
She stood and stumbled toward the door to find Sandor.
Oralie stayed where she was.
But she did call one question out to Sophie before she left.
Oralie could’ve said anything to her daughter in that moment. And all she wanted to know was, “Are you going to tell anybody?”
“Maybe,” Sophie told her, because she wanted to leave Oralie worrying and hurt.
But Oralie was an Empath.
Surely she heard the lie in the word.
FORTY-FOUR
SANDOR TOOK ONE LOOK AT Sophie’s expression as she emerged from Oralie’s crystal castle and asked, “Is there anything I need to know?”
And he was wise enough to let it go when Sophie told him, “It’s just been… a very long day,” as she dug out her home crystal.
It had been a long day.
In fact, Sophie couldn’t believe that only that morning,