his fingers through his hair. “I’m out of shape, okay? Thanks for making me feel bad!”
Sophie let him off the hook. “Clearly we’re all out of shape.”
“Hey—speak for yourself!” Biana sprinted up the next few steps, blinking in and out of sight with each movement. “I run laps around Everglen every morning—and I’m always faster than Woltzer!”
“It’s my job to stay behind you,” Woltzer muttered from a few steps back. “I can’t protect you if I race ahead.”
“Then how come Sandor and Grizel are ahead of us right now?” Biana countered.
“Because they know I’m covering the rear!” Woltzer shouted. “Don’t you know anything about battle strategy?”
“Of course I do.” Biana flashed her loveliest grin. “It’s just so much fun to mess with you.”
Fitz snorted. “It’s amazing your bodyguard hasn’t strangled you.”
“Nah, Woltzer loves me!” She blew him a kiss over her shoulder.
Honestly, Woltzer should’ve won the prize for Most Patient Bodyguard.
“So, are you losers rested enough to keep going?” Biana asked, tossing her dark, wavy hair. “Or do you need to waste more valuable time?”
Fitz sighed. “Who invited her?”
“That would be you,” Biana informed him. “You thought having a Vanisher would come in handy.”
“No, I just knew you’d sneak along anyway, since you’re nosy like that—and dying to see Tam.” He stage-whispered to Sophie, “My sister’s a fan of silver bangs.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows, glancing at Biana.
Biana’s cheeks flushed—but Sophie couldn’t tell if that was confirmation or irritation.
Or both.
“Really, Fitz?” Biana snapped. “You want to talk about crushes? Because you…”
Her voice trailed off, and she turned even redder when she glanced back at Sophie.
They hadn’t really talked about the breakup—mostly because Sophie hadn’t talked much about the whole dating thing with Biana in the first place.
Yet another reason having a crush on her friend’s brother made things super awkward.
Fitz cleared his throat but didn’t seem to know how to break the silence.
Neither did Sophie.
But she forced her tired legs to start trudging up the stairs again—and the momentum helped her find a change of subject. “I think we should run through our plan.”
“There’s a plan?” Fitz asked. “I thought we were just going to ask Glimmer what she knows about the caches.”
“Right, but we’re going to need to make her trust us before she’ll tell us anything,” Sophie reminded him.
“See, and I think Glimmer should be making us trust her,” Biana argued. “She’s the one hiding behind a cloak, probably hoping we won’t ask how many times she helped plan the Neverseen’s attacks.” She traced her fingers over one of the deeper scars running down her arm and shoulder.
“I know,” Sophie told her, cringing over her next words even before she said them. “But I think Councillor Oralie was right about something she told me. Willing allies are way more useful than forced ones. If we make Glimmer trust us, she’ll tell us stuff she’d hold back otherwise.”
“Or we poke around her head and find out everything we need to know in one easy probe,” Fitz countered.
Sophie sighed. “Yeah, but you and I both know probes are never that easy—especially with the Neverseen. I’m sure Gethen’s trained her to block Telepaths, and she probably has all kinds of false information in her head.”
“Yeah, I guess.” They climbed in silence for several steps before Fitz mumbled, “You know, I thought being Cognates would make us way more powerful than we are.”
“So did I,” Sophie admitted, trying not to wonder if he was blaming her for that.
Her struggles with the whole total-trust-and-honesty thing always got in the way of their training.
“Hey,” Biana said quietly, “you guys are being too hard on yourselves. You’ve done some amazing things. The problem’s just bigger than that.”
“What do you mean?” Fitz asked.
Biana traced more scars on her shoulder. “Well… we’ve kind of been set up to fail, you know? Nothing we’ve learned prepared us for what we’re dealing with—not our Foxfire lessons, or our ability training, or even the stories we were told about what it would be like when we grew up. We’re not supposed to have enemies trying to kill us, or massive, evil conspiracies destroying everything we know. Our world was supposed to be safe and happy and perfect, like it was for our parents. But it’s not—and it turns out it wasn’t like that for them, either. They just didn’t let themselves see the problems. So now we’re stuck figuring out how to fix this giant mess—while fighting against people who’ve been planning this stuff for longer than we’ve been alive. So