Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,9

office with a fake smile plastered across her face, pretending everything was okay.

“I’m unmatchable.”

It came out as a whisper, but she knew everyone heard her. They all sucked in breaths. Even Bo, who probably didn’t understand the full enormity of that statement.

The elves didn’t discriminate because of skin color or money, like so many humans did. But anyone who was part of a bad match faced scorn for the rest of their lives—and so would their kids. It mostly happened to the Talentless, since the matchmakers focused on pairing up those with the strongest abilities in the hope that their children would be equally powerful. But the foundation of the matchmaking system was genetics, to ensure that no distant relatives were intermarrying, which could happen all too easily in a world where everyone stayed beautiful and healthy for thousands of years.

So if Sophie couldn’t provide the names of the male and female whose DNA she carried, the matchmakers could do nothing except give her a sympathetic pat on the head and send her away in shame.

She honestly wasn’t sure how she’d made it out of that room without bursting into tears—and couldn’t remember what she’d told her parents to explain why she wasn’t carrying a match packet as she rejoined them in the main lobby and headed home.

It was all a horrible, sickening blur—and the nine days that followed had been even more unbearable. She’d had to avoid her friends, afraid they might be able to tell that something had happened, all while her brain kept imagining the many ways her life was about to implode. The only thing that had gotten her through was waiting for this moment—this chance to avert the disaster.

“Please,” she said, ready to drop to her knees and beg. “I won’t tell anyone and—”

“You’d have to,” Mr. Forkle interrupted. “The information would only be useful if it were part of your official records. And that cannot happen.”

“But I’m unmatchable!” she repeated, much louder this time. And she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t flinch.

That’s when she realized…

“You knew.”

She should’ve figured that out before.

He was the one who filled out her Inception Certificate and left off that crucial information.

Of course he knew what that would mean for her someday.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Another way that Project Moonlark is manipulating my perspective so I’ll see the follies of our world? Am I supposed to be the poster girl for the dark side of matchmaking?”

“Of course not! Though, as I recall, you have had quite a few issues with the system. You even considered not participating.”

She had.

Matchmaking was disappointingly unromantic, and inherently problematic—but that was before…

She couldn’t think about it without wanting to throw up. And yet her mind still flashed to a pair of beautiful teal eyes.

Fitz had looked so adorably earnest—so honest—when he’d said the six words that changed everything.

I want it to be you.

The boy she’d liked from the moment he’d found her on her class field trip and showed her where she truly belonged—the boy who was so impossibly out of her league that it was almost laughable—told her he wanted to see her name on his match lists. And whether she agreed with matchmaking or not, she needed her name to be there so they could be together.

But she was unmatchable.

“Please,” she said again. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

“I wish there were.”

The sorrow in his voice sounded genuine.

But that didn’t help.

“I realize at your age,” he said carefully, “dating and relationships can feel like everything. But it’s truly only one small fraction of your life—and something you definitely don’t need to be rushing into. Perhaps in a few hundred years—”

“A few hundred years,” Sophie repeated, suddenly despising the elves’ indefinite life span with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.

It didn’t matter how he was planning to finish that sentence. In a few hundred years, everyone she knew would already be matched up.

Actually, they’d probably all be matched in the next decade. Fitz definitely would be. Even with all the drama surrounding his family, he was still basically elvin royalty. And he was handsome, and charming, and talented, and sweet, and thoughtful, and powerful, and—

“Time is relative,” Mr. Forkle said, interrupting her mental swooning. “Things can feel so urgent, and yet be so small in the grand scheme. I realize that’s a difficult concept to grasp at such a young age—and I’m sure it’s even harder for you, given your upbringing.”

“The upbringing you forced on me,” she spat