Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,92

specifically throughout our city,” Nubiti went on, tucking the shard of sea glass among the shaggy strands of her fur, “carved to serve many needs. And several of those stones were changed before the deserters left—which is not new information. Your Council is well aware, as is your father, Miss Foster. Many inspections have been made on the altered magsidian—as well as many repairs. But no stone can ever be the same after it is altered. Each new facet causes a permanent change. So we have been left with a network that can achieve the same purpose, but it is not the same.”

“Is that what you meant by ‘lost’?” Sophie asked, trying to piece together what Nubiti was saying.

Nubiti shook her head. “I meant the lost shards of magsidian,” she said as she bent to scoop up another handful of sand.

“Shards?” Sophie glanced at her friends, hoping some of them were following this better than she was.

Stina seemed to be, because she asked, “You mean the pieces the deserters chiseled away when they altered the magsidian in Loamnore?”

“Yes. They cut at least a dozen shards, some no larger than a splinter, some similar in size to this.” Nubiti fished a second piece of sea glass from the sand—green this time, and about the size of a small Lego. “And there is no telling what those stones can do,” Nubiti warned as she tucked the green glass among her fur. “They are new shapes, new sizes—and for some reason we cannot feel them, no matter how thoroughly we search.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Dex mumbled.

“It’s not. Especially given what I now suspect is the source of the stone, after listening to your conversations.” She moved to the wall of the cave, trailing her claws along the jagged edges in the rock. “Some stone comes from the earth. Other stone falls from the sky. Magsidian is a blend of both—something new, created by a dark collision.”

“You mean a meteor?” Sophie asked.

“Yes and no. It was no ordinary rock that fell and fused with all it touched. None of my people have a name for it because none of us witnessed the impact. But the stone tells its own tale. One of shadows and energy. One that feels elemental.”

She left the word hanging there, waiting for someone to grab ahold of it and make the connection that would forever raise the stakes of what they were dealing with.

And as the leader of Team Valiant, Sophie knew it was her job to step up to the task. So she whispered, “You think magsidian is made of shadowflux.”

FOURTEEN

COULD MAGSIDIAN WEAKEN TAM’S ability if it were cut the right way?” Biana suggested, earning a round of murmured agreement from the rest of her teammates as Sophie added the question to the list they were building.

Nubiti had tunneled back into the sand not long after she’d led them to the shadowflux-magsidian revelation, and they’d decided that the meeting with Lady Zillah now needed to be their top priority. Stina had hailed the Shade Mentor as soon as they’d made it back to Calla’s Panakes tree, and Lady Zillah had been her usual intense, uncooperative self. But she’d agreed to have a “brief conversation” with Stina and Wylie the next day if they met her at her office in Mysterium at noon—sharp. And she’d emphasized that it would be brief. Which meant that Wylie and Stina needed to be prepared in order to make the most of their limited time. So Sophie had rushed to her room for a notebook and they’d all gathered under the swaying branches as they brainstormed—with Wynn and Luna trotting around, causing plenty of distractions.

But figuring out what to ask was proving to be more challenging than Sophie had expected.

The problem was, everything they’d discovered seemed so abstract.

So… magsidian was made of shadowflux—at least partially. And the dwarves who’d joined the Neverseen had stolen some pieces of the rare stone before they left. And for some reason, the rest of the dwarves couldn’t feel any trace of those shards the way they could with other magsidian, so they had no way of finding or recovering them.

But what did any of that actually mean?

And what did it have to do with Tam?

Nubiti hadn’t seemed to know, and was very reluctant to say any more about it than she already had.

And since there was no guarantee that Lady Zillah would know much either, they were trying to come up with a mix of specific and broad