This whole time I’ve been thinking there had to be more to the plan than what you were telling me. But you’re seriously ready to grab the caches and go? You realize you’re standing in the Neverseen’s storehouse right now, don’t you? You think you’re going to get another chance like this? The Neverseen are going to have guards crawling all over this place anytime now.”
“Yeah, and that’s why we need to leave,” Sophie argued.
“No, that’s why you should be grabbing everything while you can—though, honestly, what you should’ve done is come here with your own little army and seized this place. Showed the Neverseen it was your storehouse now, and let them cry while you go through all their stuff. But you didn’t even think of that, did you?”
“No,” Sophie admitted, feeling her stomach knot up.
The knots twisted tighter when Glimmer told her, “And that’s why you guys always lose.”
“Glimmer,” Tam warned.
“No—I mean it,” Glimmer told him. “You keep telling me I should join your side because you guys are right about everything and fair and keep your word and blah blah blah. And maybe you do—but you also lose Every time. And now I know why! Do you think the Neverseen would leave a single thing behind if they found your storehouse? They’d grab it all—and keep some dwarves here to ambush whoever finally showed up to find out what was going on. That’s why they win.”
“That’s also why they’re creepy,” Sophie muttered.
“Maybe,” Glimmer agreed. “But what’s the point of being ‘better’ if you keep getting beaten? You want to do some actual good in this world? You need to take them down. And sorry, but from what I’ve seen, you guys just don’t have it in you.”
Sophie opened her mouth, dying to tell Glimmer she was wrong.
But… Glimmer had a point.
“Fine,” she said, racing back to the shelves. “Everyone, grab as much as you can.”
She wished she’d brought a Conjurer who could snap their fingers and send everything into the void. But she hadn’t thought of that, either.
The best she could do was stuff her pockets with all the vials she could carry, then load up her arms with scrolls.
Tam had a similar haul.
So did Glimmer.
But Sandor and Bo informed her that they needed their hands free to be able to draw their weapons.
And Flori was struggling to carry a thick black book—though Sophie’s pulse raced when she recognized it.
“That’s Lady Gisela’s Archetype!” she shouted. “Be super careful with that!”
She couldn’t believe they’d almost left that behind.
“And we should be good now—let’s go,” she said, holding Tiergan’s crystal up to the light. “We need to get out of here.”
Glimmer clicked her tongue. “You’re really going to leave the rest of this behind?”
“We don’t have a choice! We can’t carry any more, and we’re running out of time, and—”
“If I learned one thing from Gisela,” Glimmer interrupted, “it’s that there’s always a choice. And you’re about to make the wrong one—again. You already made a bunch of bad choices when you planned this mission, but it’s not too late to fix that.”
“How?” Sophie demanded.
“You tell me,” Glimmer argued. “You’re the moonlark, aren’t you? The one who’s supposed to lead everyone to victory. So lead!”
“How?” Sophie repeated. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to prove that you guys have any chance of winning this thing! And I think you know what you need to do—you just don’t want to do it. And that’s fine. I don’t even blame you for that. I probably wouldn’t want to either. But don’t ask me to sign up for your little cause, because I’m done losing. I’ve lost more than enough already!”
Sophie stared into the cowl of Glimmer’s cloak, wishing she could see the girl behind it. It might’ve made it easier to know if Glimmer was right or just egging her on.
But did she really need to see Glimmer’s face to know that everything she’d just said was true?
Hadn’t she already felt just as lost—just as hopeless—just as convinced that they were losing this fight?
And didn’t some tiny, angry part of her already have an idea for what she needed to do?
Her eyes drifted to the balefire sconces, watching the blue flames flicker.
They were designed to be contained.
To burn forever, without needing any fuel.
But she wondered what would happen if someone set them free.
Would they fizzle out?
Or grow much, much stronger?
“What is my moonlark thinking?” Flori wondered as Sophie set down her scrolls and reached for the Archetype, tracing her