that the plan was solid.
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t work,” she told Keefe. “But… it’d be icky.”
“Icky?” Ro repeated.
Sophie nodded. “Keefe and I both know how it feels to have someone invade our minds and mess with our memories. I’m not doing that to anyone else.”
“Even if you wouldn’t be ‘messing’ with anything?” Keefe countered. “You’d just be learning information you should’ve been given anyway because it’s about your life. And let’s not forget that you’d be learning it from the person who stole some of your memories and planted all kinds of other stuff without telling you. I mean, if anyone deserves to have their privacy violated…”
Sophie sighed.
He wasn’t wrong.
But that didn’t make it right.
The fact that he’d used the word “violated” said more than enough.
“How about we call that plan Z?” she suggested. “And I’ll consider it once Foxfire is back in session, if literally every other idea has failed and we have no other options.”
Ro muttered something about “no fun.” But Keefe grinned. “Fair enough. And… never change, Foster. You keep us honest.”
Sophie’s face burned even hotter as he flipped to the last page of the blue notebook and wrote, “PLAN Z: UNLEASH THE FITZPHIE!!!” Then he turned back to the half-full first page and labeled it “PLAN A.”
“Okay… since right now the only information we have is about who it’s not,” he said, scanning his notes again, “the first thing we need to do is make a list of people it actually could be. Then we’ll decide how to rule them out.”
Sophie sighed. “Technically it could be anybody.”
“Nah, we can rule out a bunch of people. Like Grady and Edaline, since there’d be no reason to keep that hidden. And my dad, since he’d never give up control of his kid like that—or be able to go this long without bragging about you. And everyone in the Neverseen, since they’d never help the Black Swan—and hey, good news! That means you’re not my sister.”
Sophie stopped pacing. “Did you actually think I was?”
“Nope.” He smirked. “But admit it. You’re worrying about Fitzy now, huh?”
She hadn’t been.
But now that he mentioned it…
Keefe cracked up. “I’m kidding! Alden wouldn’t have been involved with Prentice’s memory break if he was your dad—and Della would’ve stopped him from searching for you if she was your mom.”
“I guess,” Sophie mumbled, leaning against the nearest wall, her brain spinning spinning spinning.
What if a different Vacker was her biological parent?
She could be Fitz’s cousin.
Or his aunt, thanks to the weirdness of the elvin life span.
In fact, for all she knew, her biological father could be Fallon Vacker and she’d be Fitz’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Sort of, at least.
“Whoa, deep breaths!” Keefe said, rushing over to her side. “It was just a joke.”
“Not your smoothest moment,” Ro told him. “Come on, Hunkyhair, don’t blow this!”
Keefe ignored her, squatting a little to meet Sophie’s eyes. “You’re not a Vacker, Foster.”
“You don’t know that,” she argued. “It could be the reason Forkle won’t tell me, because it’d bring too much scandal to the family. Or because Fallon used to be with the Council or—”
“Fallon?” Keefe interrupted. “Wow, you’ve gone deep, deep conspiracy on me.”
“You have to admit it’s possible, right?”
She held her breath as Keefe considered, her mouth turning sourer and sourer with each passing second.
Eventually Keefe shook his head. “Nah, I don’t buy it. Forkle would’ve snuffed out your Fitz feelings a loooooooooong time ago if you had any Vacker-family connection—and yes, I’m sure he knew about your crush. You really weren’t that great at hiding it.”
Sophie tried to glare, but she was pretty sure it mostly looked sulky.
“Seriously,” he told her. “I’m one-hundred-percent positive about this. See? No Vackers on the list.”
He held up the blue notebook, showing her the still mostly blank pages.
There were no names on the list at all—but Keefe had put “Foster Mommy” on one side and “Foster Daddy” on the other.
“Gah, what’s wrong now?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to steady her as her knees wobbled.
“She needs to rest!” Sandor snapped. “I told her she wasn’t up for this. Her conversation with Tam nearly brought back her echoes.”
“It did?” Keefe asked.
“I’m fine,” Sophie insisted, but the words were too breathless to be convincing, and she didn’t have the energy to fight Keefe as he guided her over to the bed. She even bent at the waist once she was sitting, trying to keep blood flowing to her darkening brain.
“You need water,” Keefe told her, grabbing a bottle of Youth