about Prentice and Wylie—but none of that really matters for this.
Things I know about Squall
She’s a Froster and covers herself in a thick layer of ice to hide her identity.
She’s actually Dex’s mom (Juline)—and technically my aunt.
She joined the Black Swan after she had the triplets and saw how much scorn they were going to grow up with (unless something changed).
She lied to her family to hide what she was doing—especially Dex and Kesler. Unfortunately, that’s how it goes with the Black Swan.
And… that’s pretty much it.
Things I know about Blur
He’s a Phaser and only lets himself partially re-form, so all I can see are blurry splotches of color sort of shaped like an elf.
One time, I did get a slightly better glimpse of him, and I could tell he was skinny with full lips and round cheeks. But I still didn’t recognize him.
Wow. That’s all I know about him—though I have a few theories for who he might be…
Things I know about Wraith
He’s a Vanisher, so all I ever see is his floating silver cloak.
According to Della, making the body disappear while leaving the clothes visible is called a “layered vanish,” and it’s super hard to do.
Huh. That’s all I know. I don’t even have any theories about his identity!
Things I know about Project Moonlark
I’m the moonlark—which means I get to have lots of people trying to kill me.
Calla came up with the name for the project because of the way moonlarks treat their eggs.
She also helped the Black Swan figure out my genetics, which are mostly based off alicorn DNA. That’s why I have brown eyes and can teleport. (And yeah, it’s hard not to feel like “the horse girl.”)
They chose a lot of the abilities they gave me because they were hoping I’d be able to use them to heal broken minds (since the Black Swan knew some of their members might endure memory breaks—like poor Prentice).
I grew up with humans, partly to make sure no one found me. But mostly so I’d understand humans differently from how other elves understand them. And I guess I do, but… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that information.
It’s possible I may end up manifesting another special ability (or more than one—anything’s possible at this point). But I hope not. Five is seriously enough!
My biological mother is Councillor Oralie, which means she lied to me every time she saw me for years (and signed me up for a genetic experiment and then totally abandoned me). I also can’t tell anyone who she is, because then she’d have to resign from the Council, and that would create so much chaos that it could give the Neverseen the opportunity to take control. So, lucky me—I get to be unmatchable!
The Black Swan loves to tell me I have a choice in all of this, and I guess I do for certain things. But it’s not like I can change my genetics. Or everything I’ve gone through. Or the fact that everyone’s expecting me to be this big important THING, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to do it.
Sometimes I wonder if the real reason the Black Swan won’t tell me what they’re planning is because they don’t actually have a PLAN. They just made their little moonlark and are expecting me to figure out the rest. Which, you know, would be pretty terrifying if I’m right. But at the same time… I kinda think it might be better—because if they do have a PLAN, then wouldn’t that mean they also knew exactly what the Neverseen were going to do and could’ve prevented it all from happening in the first place?
THE NEVERSEEN
The Neverseen LOVE using symbols. They might even love them more than the Black Swan loves making swan references. And this is their main one—the creepy white eye that stares at me from the sleeves of their black hooded cloaks. I swear this symbol will haunt my nightmares forever.
This is the “Lodestar symbol.” Took us forever to figure out what it was supposed to be and how it worked—and Dex was the one who finally solved it. Each one of those little “rays” is actually a special code that can be used to leap to one of the Neverseen’s hideouts. Unfortunately, by the time we figured that out, they’d abandoned all the hideouts and taken everything important away.
I sometimes call this the “Nightfall symbol,” even though it’s really Vespera’s signature. Each one