Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 3) (3 page)

“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s not safe to teleport until I figure out what went wrong. It’s also not like there’s a cliff to jump off. And if we go back to Havenfield, Sandor will never let us leave—especially now that we can only leap outside the Sanctuary gates and wait to be let in.”

Keefe stared at his feet, looking about as unexcited by this idea as Sophie felt. His father definitely belonged on her list of People She Liked To Avoid.

“Silveny needs us,” she said, reminding herself as much as him.

“I know. But . . .”

“What?” she asked when he didn’t finish.

“I . . . don’t bring friends home.”

He fidgeted with the pin clasping his cape—the Sencen family crest. Two jeweled hands holding a candle with an emerald flame. His father had only given it to him a few weeks ago, even though most kids wore their family crest their whole lives.

“Okay,” Sophie said slowly. “I guess we’ll go back to Havenfield, then. If we run straight for the Leapmaster we might be able to get out of there before Sandor can stop us.”

“No, we won’t.”

Probably not. Sandor’s goblin supersenses would detect them the second they arrived.

“It’s still worth a try.” She dug out her home crystal—a pendant with a single facet—and held it up to the light.

Keefe glared at the beam refracting toward the ground. “This is stupid.”

He pulled out his own home crystal and created another light path.

Sophie didn’t have to be an Empath to feel the tension in his grip, or the way his fingers shook as they laced together with hers.

Her hands were shaking too.

But neither of them said anything as they stepped into the light. Then the warm, feathery rush pulled them both away.

THREE

W
HOA,” SOPHIE WHISPERED AS SHE
stared at the mansion looming over her.

Actually, mansion wasn’t the right word.

Skyscraper, maybe?

Though based on the squirmy feeling in her stomach, Ominous Tower of Doom might’ve been more appropriate.

“Yeah . . . my dad’s a ‘bigger is better’ kind of guy,” Keefe said as he led her through an iron archway with the word “Candleshade” laced into the design.

Sophie craned her neck, trying to guess how high the tower climbed. There had to be at least a hundred stories before the main building split into a series of narrow towers, each crowned with a curved golden roof that reminded Sophie of a flame. But there were no windows to count to tell her if she was right. The crystal walls were perfectly smooth, with no break except a single golden doorway, which was surprisingly small for such a massive place.

Keefe pressed his palm against the handle and the door swished open, gliding over the smooth black floor without so much as a hiss. The foyer they entered was empty except for a silver winding staircase that spiraled up and up and up some more, until Sophie lost sight of the twisting steps. The walls were just as smooth on the inside, but the crystal glowed with thousands of tiny blue flames tucked among the facets.

Balefire,
Sophie realized.

Only a Pyrokinetic could spark a balefire flame, and pyrokinesis had been banned for millennia—ever since an accident that killed five people. But that wasn’t why Sophie was struck by seeing it.

Balefire had been Fintan’s trademark—until he moved on to Everblaze.

Before she could block it, Fintan’s face filled her mind, and not the angry, rebellious Fintan she’d seen in Exile, or the reckless Fintan surrounded by neon yellow flames she’d seen when she probed his memories.

The pained, haunted Fintan after the memory break she’d helped perform, rocking back and forth in his cell, his screams echoing off the walls as she and Alden left him to his madness . . .

“You okay?” Keefe asked, grabbing her arm to snap her out of the flashback.

“Of course.”

“You realize you can’t lie to an Empath, right?

“And yet you try it all the time,” a deep voice boomed from above.

The sound of the stairway spinning to life muffled Keefe’s groan, and a second later, Lord Cassius stepped off the stairs and into the foyer.

With their blond hair and ice blue eyes, the family resemblance between father and son was impossible to miss—though Keefe’s artfully mussed hairstyle and untucked shirt stood in sharp contrast to Lord Cassius’s immaculateness.

“Miss Foster,” he said, flicking an invisible speck off his hunter green cape. “We run into each other again.” He tilted his head, gazing at the blindingly high ceiling with obvious pride. “There’s no other place quite like this, is there? But I’m guessing you didn’t come here to marvel at the architecture—especially since you’re supposed to be at the Sanctuary. So tell me, to what do I owe the honor?”

Sophie glanced at Keefe, wishing he would jump in with one of his easy lies—but he was too busy staring at the floor like it contained the deepest secrets of the universe.

“We just . . . took a slight detour,” Sophie eventually said, avoiding Lord Cassius’s eyes.

He had a way of studying her like he could see straight through her—and maybe he could, because he cleared his throat and said, “Visiting a Forbidden City is more than a
slight
detour.”

When her jaw dropped, he laughed—a sharp, hollow sound.

“The hot waves of guilt wafting off you completely give you away,” he explained.

“You can feel that?” Keefe asked, sounding as stunned as Sophie felt.

Most Empaths could only read someone’s emotions if they were touching them. But for some reason—probably another side effect of her freaky, manipulated genes—Keefe could read Sophie’s from a distance. She’d hoped he was the only one who could, but apparently . . .

“You get your talent from me,” Lord Cassius reminded Keefe. “Though I’ll confess, female emotions are a bit harder to interpret. But that’s where simple deduction comes in. I assumed you wouldn’t miss your appointment at the Sanctuary without a
very
good reason. Pair that with your rather unique past, Miss Foster—and the reputations you both have for seeking out trouble—and it’s the most logical conclusion.”

It seemed like there were lots of other conclusions he could’ve come to.

Keefe must’ve agreed, because he stepped closer, touching his dad’s wrist. “That’s not how you knew.”

Lord Cassius pulled his hand away and patted the back of his already perfect hair. “Well, I was trying to spare our guest from witnessing an uncomfortable conversation. But if you must know, I
have
noticed that my blue pathfinder is missing.”

“And what? You think I took it?”

“Who else?”

Blue crystals were the only way to light leap to the Forbidden Cities, and they were restricted to specific members of the Nobility.

“It wasn’t me this time,” Keefe told him. “Check, if you don’t believe me.”

He held out his arm, daring his father to feel if he was lying.

Lord Cassius frowned. “How did you get to the Forbidden City, then?”

Keefe dropped his arm back to his side. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Actually, it does. I think you’re forgetting that your trip today was
illegal
—and I don’t mean that as a threat,” he added quickly, glancing at Sophie. “I’m sure you had your reasons, and that
Sophie
was careful while you were there. But if I’m going to keep this secret for you, I need to understand what I’m protecting.”

The smile he flashed came closer to reaching his eyes than any other smile Sophie had seen him give. But it wasn’t enough to make her trust him.

“You don’t have to keep it secret,” she said. “I’ll tell Alden the whole story the next time I see him.”

The sound of the whirring staircase drowned out Lord Cassius’s reply, and when it stopped a second later, Keefe’s mother swept into the room in a sleek dress and cape the same pale peach as her skin. Her tall, jeweled heels clacked on the dark floor and her blond hair was swept into a twisted updo—like she should be walking a red carpet, not standing in the empty first floor of her home.

“Why didn’t you tell me we had a visitor, Cassius?” she asked, clicking her tongue at her husband before turning to Sophie with a tight-looking smile. “I don’t think we were properly introduced before. I’m Lady Gisela.”

They hadn’t been “properly introduced” because they’d met at Alden’s sort-of-funeral, and Lady Gisela had been too busy sniping at her heartbroken son. But Sophie held her tongue, fumbling through an awkward curtsy as she said, “I’m Sophie.”

“Yes, I know. Even if you weren’t our world’s most infamous new citizen, my son talks about you all the time.”

“Not
all
the time,” Keefe muttered, going back to staring at the floor.

Sophie copied him.

“So are you staying with us for dinner?” Lady Gisela asked, “Or wait—I thought you two were supposed to be somewhere, doing . . . something.”

She tossed out the words like she couldn’t bother to remember the specifics.

“We are.” Keefe snatched Sophie’s wrist and pulled her toward the stairs. “In fact, I’m sure they’re waiting for us at the Sanctuary, so we should get going.”

“Not like that, you won’t,” Lady Gisela said, blocking them. “Honestly, Keefe, what am I going to do with you?”

Sophie wished Keefe would snap back with one of his infamously snarky answers. Instead he froze, like he’d become a statue of The Most Miserable Boy on the Planet, as his mom smoothed his shirt and straightened his cape. He didn’t even flinch when she licked her thumb and wiped an invisible smudge off his face. But he came back to life when she reached for his head.

“Not the hair!”

“You and your ridiculous hair.” She reached for him again and he swatted her arm away. His hand barely touched her, but she still gasped and clutched her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she promised, glancing at Sophie.

But she was still rubbing her shoulder. And as she rearranged the peachy fabric of her cape, Sophie caught a glimpse of a red wound, near the top of her arm.

Lord Cassius stepped forward, blocking his wife from Sophie’s view. “You two should go. The Sanctuary is waiting.”

“Do you need to let them know we’ll be leaping outside, instead of teleporting in?” Keefe asked him.

“Actually, I think they were expecting that.”

“Why would they be—” Sophie started to ask, but Keefe dragged her onto the first stair.

“Ever been on a vortinator?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.” And she wished it didn’t sound so much like a carnival ride from her nightmares.

“Better hold on tight, then.” He grinned as she tightened her grip on his hand. “I meant to the railing.”

“Oh.”

Her face felt like it was on fire, and she’d barely grabbed the silver banister, when Keefe said, “Two Hundred!” Then everything turned into a spinning, sparkling blur of rushing air, and Sophie wanted to scream or throw up or pass out, but she didn’t have time for anything because they’d already stopped.

“You with me, Foster?” Keefe asked as she leaned against the rail, wondering if her stomach was still on the ground floor.

“Do you really ride that thing every day?”

“You get used to it after a couple of turns. Come on.” He offered her his hand, and Sophie was too dizzy not to take it.

It took ten deep breaths for her head to clear enough to realize they were in one of the golden-roofed towers. Dangling above them were more round crystals than Sophie had ever seen.

“The Leapmaster 10,000,” Keefe explained.

Sophie couldn’t even think of ten thousand places she’d want to go.

But there was one she was definitely ready to see.

“The Sanctuary,” Keefe said, making the Leapmaster rotate. A single crystal dropped low enough to catch the sunlight from the window. “Okay, let’s try this again.”

FOUR

T
HE WARM, RACING LIGHT DROPPED
them at the base of the Himalayas, and Keefe pulled his cape tighter around his shoulders.

“Couldn’t they have picked a warmer mountain range to build this place?” he grumbled as they trudged up the snow-covered path to the Sanctuary.

“I’m pretty sure they needed as much room as possible,” Sophie reminded him.

The Sanctuary housed all of the creatures that the elves had taken into protective custody—everything from dinosaurs to dodo birds, plus any animal that humans foolishly believed was “magical.” They even kept endangered species, wanting to make sure they continued to thrive.

The elves believed every creature existed on the planet for a reason, and to allow even one to go extinct would cause irreparable damage to the delicate balance of their world.

An icy blast of wind cut through Sophie’s tunic, making her wish she’d worn a cape. She always felt dumb wearing them—but braving the snow without a cloak was definitely dumber.

She also wished she’d taken Dex’s offer a few months back, and let him teach her how to regulate her body temperature.

“Here,” Keefe said, draping his cape over her shoulders.

“I’m f-f-fine. You d-d-don’t h-h-have t-t-to—”

“That would be a lot more convincing without all the shivering,” he interrupted. “Besides, it takes more than a little snow to get to me.” He flashed a smug smirk, but she could see he was already shivering.

“You don’t know how to regulate your body temperature either?” she asked, feeling her voice steady as Keefe fastened the warm cape under her chin.

“Eh, that only works when it’s sorta cold, not freezing. But no, I’ve never learned. That’s the kind of random skill you only learn in Exillium.”

The name caused a whole different kind of shudder.

Exillium was a school the Council had threatened to send Sophie to if she couldn’t hack it at Foxfire. She didn’t know anything about it, except that people kept telling her she didn’t want to go there.

“Why does Dex know how to regulate his temperature, then?” Sophie asked. The only school he’d ever attended was Foxfire.

Keefe laughed. “Are you really surprised his family would teach him something weird?”

“Good point.”

Dex’s parents were known for playing by their own rules and not following social conventions. His dad had even admitted that he designed their store, Slurps and Burps, to be intentionally bizarre and chaotic, just to make the stuffy nobles—as he liked to call them—squirm while they shopped for their elixirs.