Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,223

the realities of being unmatchable. She’d even sat there so calmly while Bronte told Sophie not to try to find her genetic parents—and she’d surely been able to feel everything Sophie was feeling.

But she’d said nothing.

Done nothing.

Just lied and lied and lied.

And Sophie couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she requested a new point of contact on the Council.

Surely she and Councillor Not-Her-Mom weren’t going to be able to work together.

She spent the next several hours trying to come up with an unsuspicious excuse for reassignment when she realized…

It was sunset.

And she’d wasted a whole day because of personal drama.

And there were too many important things going on for her to let that happen.

So she grabbed her Imparter, giving herself three seconds to panic about the awkward conversation ahead. Then she hailed her teammates to share Nubiti’s discovery.

And the strange thing was…

Nothing felt different.

Biana was friendly.

The conversation stayed focused on the dwarves, and removing the magsidian stones, and whether or not they should try to get permission from King Enki to search Loamnore one more time to make sure they hadn’t missed something. They also tried to come up with theories about what Lady Gisela might be planning for Keefe—but didn’t really get anywhere. And Dex admitted he wasn’t making much progress on creating a gadget to keep Keefe protected.

So there was still lots to keep them busy.

And Sophie tried to stay focused.

But a tiny part of her brain kept thinking: Fitz hasn’t told anybody.

And she tried to tell herself that he surely would soon—tried to order her brain not to read anything into it.

But…

She still felt the tiniest glint of hope.

It wasn’t even a full spark—and she did her best to smother it.

But it was still there.

A glimmer of possibility.

A faint whisper that maybe… maybe once pride had faded and tempers had cooled…

Nope, she couldn’t let herself go there.

Before she went to bed, she even forced herself to pack away all of the tiny gifts he’d given her—and she also made herself sleep in her room.

She needed to find her new normal—cling to it with all the strength she had.

But Fitz’s face still crept into her dreams.

And when she made her way down to the pastures the next morning and noticed teal ribbons tied around Wynn’s and Luna’s necks, Sophie’s heart did about fifty backflips—and then did fifty more when she saw the tiny folded notes dangling from each of the bows.

Her hands shook as she untied them, and she needed a deep breath before she read them—and then the world was spinning and her vision was dimming and she had to drop to her knees to keep herself from passing out.

Because the notes weren’t in Fitz’s familiar writing.

One had particularly loopy, pretty letters—so at odds with the harsh, threatening words:

You think you’re safe.

And you think you’ve thwarted our plans.

But you’re wrong.

We can destroy everything you care about.

We can finish your friend.

And that will only be the beginning.

Or you can meet us in Loamnore tomorrow,

10 p.m. in the main marketplace.

Don’t be late.

The second note was somehow even worse.

It was stamped with the same symbol that Sophie had seen on the letter that Keefe had delivered in London: two crescents forming a loose circle around a glowing star.

And across that, in Lady Gisela’s familiar handwriting, it said:

Bring Keefe.

~XOXO

FORTY-SIX

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

That was the question that everyone kept asking after Sophie handed the Neverseen’s notes over to Sandor and unleashed a hurricane of panic and confusion.

How did this happen?

How did the Neverseen get past Sandor’s abundant security?

But what Sophie wanted to know was: What are we going to do about it?

No one had an answer.

And they needed to find one—fast.

So she hailed all of her teammates and told them to come to Havenfield. Same with Linh, Marella, and Maruca. And Keefe, since it sadly didn’t seem like they’d be able to keep him completely out of this.

The only person she didn’t hail was Fitz—but she didn’t need to because she told Biana to take care of that.

That was how she was going to survive this breakup.

Delegating!

Avoiding eye contact!

Hiding!

All of which were particularly easy to do later that day, given the size of the crowd that had crammed into Havenfield’s living room once everyone made their way there to argue about their next move: Grady and Edaline, Mr. Forkle and Tiergan, Lord Cassius, numerous bodyguards, all of Sophie’s friends—and, of course, all twelve Councillors.

And thankfully, The Councillor Who Didn’t Deserve Sophie’s Time seemed to be using her own avoidance strategies: keeping