relaxed as possible before he held the Imparter up to his lips. His mouth was parched and his voice sounded raw and crackly as he whispered, “Show me Dex.”
- ELEVEN - Sophie
Nope—we’re not having this argument again!” Sophie said, waiting for the room to quiet down before she added, “You guys have to stop freaking out any time something sounds a tiny bit dangerous—”
“This is more than a ‘tiny bit dangerous,’ ” Grady interrupted, pacing to the wall of windows and staring out at Havenfield’s pastures.
Sophie had kept her promise to Sandor and went straight home after Glimmer made her offer.
But that didn’t mean she was planning on staying there for very long.
“You’re talking about going to a Neverseen hideout with a member of the Neverseen,” Edaline gently reminded her.
“No, Glimmer’s a former member of the Neverseen,” Sophie corrected.
“So she claims,” Sandor snorted. “This whole thing could be a trap.”
“Glimmer wouldn’t do that!” Tam argued.
“Sadly, I don’t think that you—or anyone else here—can truly speak for what Glimmer would or wouldn’t do,” Tiergan said quietly.
Tam and Tiergan had insisted on being part of the conversation—as had Fitz and Biana. And Sophie was sure it was only a matter of time before Mr. Forkle showed up.
And the rest of the Black Swan.
And more of her friends.
And Sophie was done wasting that kind of time.
Especially since none of their planning and arguing and worrying and explaining ever seemed to save them from almost dying. That’s why she’d had the we-need-to-stop-overthinking-things fight with them before.
And still, here she stood, staring down a bunch of stubborn, worried faces.
She knew they were only trying to keep her safe—but she was really getting sick of having everyone question her and doubt her all the time and try to hold her back.
She was the moonlark.
This was what she was supposedly made for.
Wasn’t it time for people to start trusting her?
And didn’t the fact that she wasn’t dead—despite how many times the Neverseen had tried to kill her—prove that she was strong enough and smart enough and capable enough to know when a risk was worth taking and roll with whatever happened next?
Or… was she just getting more desperate and reckless?
“Look,” Sophie said, climbing up a few of the stairs on the curved central staircase to make it easier for everyone to see her. “We finally have an actual lead—and it’s for something we totally overlooked, so we’re lucky we’re getting a second chance. Whatever’s in that storehouse has been hidden right under our noses this entire time—probably while the Neverseen laughed at us for falling for their trick.”
“That’s no reason to go rushing over with only five minutes of planning,” Grady argued.
“Actually, it is. The Neverseen know we have Glimmer. So I’m sure they’re scrambling to protect anything she might know. They’re probably moving stuff and hiding stuff right now—as we speak. And we have this tiny window of a chance left—assuming we’re not already too late. So we need to move quickly. And stealth needs to be our priority. The bigger our group is, the harder it’s going to be to sneak around. So I’m fine bringing Sandor and Flori—and Bo can come too, since he’s in charge of Glimmer. But other than that, it should just be me, Tam, and Glimmer.”
Biana sighed. “You’re seriously going to make me remind you that I’m a Vanisher?”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t set off their sensors,” Sophie countered. “We’re going to a Lodestar hideout—those had lots of security.”
“Yeah—didn’t you need to have some sort of little black disk etched with the right piece of the Lodestar symbol on it to not set off all their sensors?” Fitz asked. “And now that I think about it, how are you going to get there? I doubt Glimmer’s going to know exactly which piece of the symbol matches the storehouse she mentioned—and even if she did, you’d need one of those gadgets that project the symbol, like we found in the Silver Tower.”
Those were unfortunately very valid questions.
Sophie didn’t have a good answer, except to say, “I guess if that’s all true, then we won’t be going to the Neverseen’s storehouse today. But I doubt Glimmer would’ve made the offer if she didn’t know how to get there.”
“She wouldn’t,” Tam agreed. “She’s way too smart for that.”
“I don’t know,” Biana muttered. “She did support the Neverseen for a pretty long time, so she’s not necessarily the shiniest jewel in the tiara, if you know what I mean. She may not even realize how