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

be alone after the Council banished her. And the two of them spent years living in shoddy tents and nearly starving in the Neutral Territories. He even joined the Black Swan mostly for her.

It made him incredibly brave and sweet and noble and…

A little scary—at least in his present situation.

“He needs your help,” Mr. Forkle told her. “You can save Mr. Tam from facing an impossible decision. So I suggest you get to work. Compare what you and your friends each know about him. Then talk to Lady Zillah and find out everything she’s taught Mr. Tam—and everything she knows about shadowflux. I’d also recommend familiarizing yourself with Loamnore. Miss Linh lived there for a brief time, so she might have some ideas about the city’s vulnerabilities. And you should ask Nubiti as well. Feel free to share my theories with her—if she hasn’t been listening to us already—and see if she can provide any insights. I’ll of course arrange a visit between you and King Enki, along with a tour of Loamnore as soon as I can.”

Sophie nodded, telling herself to feel relieved as he pounded his fist against the table, making the metal flatten back into a smooth, empty surface. This was the earliest they’d ever had a concrete strategy for stopping the Neverseen—and she hadn’t even had to pry it out of him, or follow a bunch of mysterious clues and notes before he trusted her.

This was progress!

But… was it enough?

And how would her friends feel about focusing on Tam?

She suspected that would not go over well, but… at least it would give her a perfect excuse not to talk about—

“Wait,” she said as the door slid open and Mr. Forkle pulled his pathfinder from his cape pocket. She’d gotten so distracted by the map and his theories about the dwarves and Tam that she’d forgotten the reason she’d asked for the meeting in the first place. “None of this is why I said we needed to talk.”

He spun the crystal at the end of the silver wand. “Well, surely you can agree that this is far more important.”

It was and it wasn’t.

Compared to everything going on, her personal life did rank pretty low.

But… she’d waited nine days for this opportunity. She wasn’t about to waste it.

“This will only take a minute,” she promised, squaring her shoulders and trying to project confidence as she switched to the speech she’d prepared. “I know you haven’t wanted to tell me certain things about who I am, and what your plans for me are, and where I come from, and what’s happened in my past. And I know you think you’re protecting me—but I can handle that stuff now. And I’m worried that the reason we keep failing is because of all of the secrets between us. It makes trusting you really hard sometimes—and it leaves me without some pretty important information. So I think it’s time for us to agree that we need to solve all of those mysteries.”

She let out a breath.

There.

She’d said it.

Now she needed him to argue that he couldn’t possibly tell her everything—because this was Mr. Forkle, after all—and then she’d offer a compromise and make him agree to answer at least one question.

They’d made a similar deal before—and she knew exactly what question she’d ask.

But Mr. Forkle didn’t follow the script.

“I’m sorry, Miss Foster.” His eyes stayed focused on his pathfinder as he locked the crystal into place. “I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“You don’t even know what I want to know,” she pointed out.

“Actually, I do. You… want to know who your biological parents are.”

Sophie blinked. “How did you—”

“I know you far better than you realize. Which is why I also know that you won’t be happy with me when I tell you that, unfortunately, the answer to your question is ‘no.’ ”

“Why?”

He sighed. “I can’t tell you that, either.”

She gritted her teeth. “I deserve to know.”

“You do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t tell you—because it doesn’t only affect you. The ramifications are too huge. I’m sorry, I realize that’s not what you want to hear. But it’s the best I can do.”

His tone made it clear that they’d reached the end of the conversation.

But Sophie couldn’t let it go. She had to make him understand that there were huge ramifications for her, too—even if it meant saying the words she’d been bottling up since that horrible day in Atlantis, when she’d stumbled out of the matchmakers’