Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities) (29 page)

S
ORRY, DIDN’T MEAN TO WAKE
you,” Grady said when her bedroom door creaked, jolting Sophie from her strange, alicorny dreams. “I just wanted to check on you.”

Sophie sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as Grady crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed. “I also wanted you to know how sorry Edaline and I are that we got so upset yesterday.
We
should’ve been comforting
you
—not the other way around.”

“It’s okay. It was hard news.”

He cleared the thickness from his throat. “I still can’t believe it. But I went to Everglen this morning and saw for myself how . . .”

He didn’t finish, and Sophie was grateful.

“Wait—what time is it?” She capped her hands to open her drapes. The sun blazed high in the sky, like it was almost midday. “How long did I sleep?”

“We didn’t want to wake you. Dex stopped by, but we told him we were letting you rest and you’d see him tomorrow. You’ve been through so much.”

She had. But still—how many hours had she lost?

“Edaline’s over at Everglen, trying to help Della figure everything out. Will you be okay if I leave you alone here?”

“Of course. Where are you going?”

His hand moved to the Ruewen crest clasping his jewel lined cape, and Sophie realized he was dressed in an embroidered tunic and fine linen pants, with his hair immaculately combed. He looked almost regal as he sighed and said, “I’m going with Tiergan to speak to the Council. Someone will need to take over Alden’s duties.”

Sophie frowned. “You’re agreeing to be an Emissary?” She was glad he’d finally come around, but . . . why was he willing to do it for Alden and not her?

“Alden did so much for us,” he said, reaching out and stroking Sophie’s cheek. “It’s the least I can do.”

His eyes brimmed with the tears, and Sophie felt her own well up too. She blinked back the sadness. She wasn’t going to cry for Alden—she was going to fix him. And if Grady and Edaline weren’t going to be home, she knew exactly where to start.

She hugged Grady goodbye and waited for the house to fall silent. Then she threw her covers off and ran for her bedroom door and . . .

Slammed into a wall of rock-hard goblin muscle.

“Ow, Sandor!” She rubbed her forehead. “What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

She tried to move past him, but he blocked her with his beefy arms.

“Will you relax?” she asked. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“If you’re not going anywhere, then why won’t you tell me what you’re doing?”

“Aren’t I allowed to have any secrets?”

“Secrets hinder my ability to protect you.”

“I don’t need your protection for this.”

“You always need my protection.”

His stubbornness made her want to tear out her hair. She settled for tugging out an eyelash.

“Fine,” she said after several deep breaths. “I need to look around a room that Grady and Edaline don’t like me to go into, and since your job is to report everything I do—”

“That’s not my job,” Sandor interrupted. “If it were, I would’ve told them how you sneak out of bed to read by the light of the moon jars you keep in your desk.”

Her jaw fell slightly.

His thin lips twisted into what she assumed was a smile.
“You didn’t really think I couldn’t hear you, did you? My senses detect everything.”

Everything except the mysterious “visitor” who tried to take Silveny.

“My job is to protect you, Miss Foster,” he continued. “If you’re awake, so am I. But I’m not here to chaperone you. If something you do isn’t dangerous, there’s no reason for me to report on your behavior. So it would be easier for both of us if you would stop trying to hide things from me.”

Sophie studied his face, trying to decide if she could trust him—though she didn’t really have a choice, thanks to his super-goblin-hearing.

“Fine—if you must know, I need to look around Jolie’s room.”

“You’re trying to find out if she was murdered.” It wasn’t a question, so Sophie didn’t answer, and it proved once again how closely Sandor was paying attention.

“So will you let me by, or not?” she asked.

“On one condition. If this quest you’re on takes you beyond these walls, I
will
be coming with you—and you will not try to stop me.”

Sophie sighed. Having an enormous weapon-toting bodyguard on her tail was going to make the whole “stealth” part of investigating pretty impossible. But she doubted she’d really be able to sneak away. “As long as you don’t tell anyone what we’re doing until I’m ready.”

His eyes narrowed as he considered that. Then he extended his hand and they shook, cementing the deal.

He stepped aside to let her pass, but shadowed her down the stairs and through the quiet second floor hallway, stationing himself outside Jolie’s door.

“I’ll keep lookout, in case your family comes home,” he explained.

“I . . . Thanks.”

Maybe having Sandor on her side wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Especially since she had a feeling she was going to need all the help she could get.

SOPHIE TRIED NOT TO THINK
as she rummaged through Jolie’s things. Then she didn’t have to feel bad about disturbing the careful peace of a dead girl’s bedroom. She was just a mindless force with a single purpose: find something.

Something to tell her . . . well . . .
something.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all she had.

She checked all the obvious places first: under the bed, between the mattresses, in the desk. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary—though it was strange how much Grady and Edaline had kept everything the same. Books were still marked to the page Jolie had been reading, tiny pots of lip color—long since dried up—were still carefully arranged on her dressing table, even a half-finished bottle of Youth still waited on the small table next to the bed.

Sophie moved on to the closet, which was filled with fancy gowns covered in frills and lace. Most of them were in shades of purple—another detail about the vision Prentice had shown her that seemed far too accurate to be coincidence. But it still didn’t give her any clue what the scene meant.

On the highest shelf Sophie spotted two small silver chests that were stacked on top of each other. She pulled them down, coughing as a shower of dust rained around her. The bigger chest was filled with small trinkets, most of which Sophie couldn’t identify—tokens that must’ve meant something for Jolie to keep them, but told Sophie nothing. But the second chest was filled with folded slips of pink-toned paper, bound with a red satin ribbon. Sophie stepped out of the closet, peeling back the lace curtains on the nearest window so she’d have enough light to see the words written in faded black ink.

The pages were all signed,
Yours always, Brant
.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a high-pitched voice shouted, startling Sophie so much she dropped the stack of letters.

Papers fluttered everywhere, and Sophie glared at Vertina’s face in the mirror. “Don’t worry about it.”

Vertina’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, girlie, I’ve lived here a lot longer than you—so if you think I’m going to just sit here and let you raid Jolie’s things you’re—”

“Lady Ruewen just leaped back on the property,” Sandor called from the hallway.

“—seriously delusional.” Vertina finished. “You can’t just—”

Sophie scrambled to the floor, ignoring Vertina’s ongoing tirade as she tried to gather all of the scattered letters.

She knew she wouldn’t have enough time to put the letters back in the closet—and she hadn’t had a chance to look through them anyway—but she wasn’t sure how to sneak them out. She wished the Black Swan had made her a Conjurer as she stuffed them behind her back in the waistband of her pants, hoping she’d be able to slip up to her room without Edaline noticing the rectangular bulge under her tunic.

She ran for the door and ducked into the hallway
right
as Edaline came up the stairs.

“Sophie?” she asked, frowning as she glanced from her to Sandor, to Jolie’s room. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry,” Sophie mumbled, trying to think of an explanation that wouldn’t seem suspicious. “I know I’m not supposed to go in there. I just . . . I was worried about Vertina. She seemed so lonely the last time I was here, I thought maybe I should come visit her occasionally.”

She held her breath and tried not to move when she felt Sandor reach behind her and grab the letters from their horrible hiding place. If he ratted her out, she was going to strangle him—but he slipped them behind his back as Edaline sighed and shook her head.

“You have no reason to apologize, Sophie. This house is your
home. I’m sorry if you felt like there were places you weren’t supposed to go.”

“You don’t have to say that. I know this room is special.”

Edaline smiled. But it wasn’t a happy smile. “No, this room
was
special. Now it’s just a room. And I think . . .” She hesitated for a second, then stepped forward and threw open Jolie’s door, letting her eyes wander over the space before she said, “I think it’s time to let go.”

“I—wow—really?”

“I don’t know . . . I watched Della today, clinging to every tiny thing Alden had ever touched like it could somehow bring him back, and I could see how much worse it made everything. This
stuff
isn’t going to change anything. So maybe . . .” Her voice faded away.

Sophie struggled to think of something to say.

“We can’t live in the past,” Edaline added, her voice louder. Resolved. “We have to let the hard things go—what happened to Alden proves it. I’m going to ask the gnomes to pack all of this up, and we can make this room into whatever you want.”

“Maybe you should—um—check with Grady first.” Sophie knew Edaline was right about moving on, but she needed more time to search Jolie’s things before they packed them all away.

“I guess,” Edaline agreed, letting Sophie lead her toward the door. “But you’re right about Vertina. We shouldn’t leave her alone in this dim room anymore. Would you like me to ask the gnomes to move her up to your room?”

It was hard not to groan.

Then again, the obnoxious girl did know Jolie. Maybe she knew something that would help. “Sure . . . but make sure they put her in a corner.”

Edaline smiled. “I don’t blame you for that. And then I think we should do something fun today. You start your first full year at Foxfire tomorrow—we should celebrate. Start some new traditions. No more living in the past.”

Sophie tried to smile back—but it felt wrong to celebrate and start a new year at Foxfire when Alden hadn’t been healed yet.

But Edaline was right, too. Life did have to go on. So she went upstairs, stashed Brant’s letters in the bottom of her desk drawer, changed out of her dusty pajamas, and spent the rest of the afternoon with Edaline, feasting on freshly made mallowmelt and custard bursts and playing with Iggy, who soaked up the attention. Grady came home in time for dinner, and even though he looked weary, he jumped right on board with the
starting new traditions
plan. He even promised they’d bring her to Atlantis whenever she wanted, so she could pick a new charm for her bracelet. It was one of the best nights she’d had in a long time.

After they’d tucked her in, though, Sophie snuck out of bed and retrieved Brant’s letters and her memory log. She started to grab a moon jar, but then she realized there was no point sneaking around. She snapped her fingers, flooding her room
with light as she crawled back under the covers. Iggy curled up next to her, and she rumpled his still-pink fur as she unfolded the first letter.

My Dearest Jolie
, the message started, followed by what might have been the sappiest love letter ever written. Sophie mostly skimmed—it felt strange reading something so personal—and moved on to the next, which might have been even sappier. Same with the one after that. Brant seemed to
really
miss his girlfriend while she was sequestered away in the elite towers—which was strange that he wasn’t there with her. Was he older than Jolie?

The next letter was some sort of gooey love poem, and Sophie was about to give up on the whole pile. But the next letter felt heavier than the others, and as she unfolded it, a small photo slipped into her lap.

She sucked in a breath as she stared at the happy couple before the fire destroyed them. Jolie looked exactly like she had in the vision Prentice showed her—which meant he must have known her in real life. And without the scar, Brant looked like a rock star, right down to the tousled hair and crooked smile.

Jolie had a silver cape with a unicorn pin clasping it across her shoulders, so the photo had to have been taken when she was a Level Eight, the last year of the elite levels. Unicorns were the final mascot.

Which meant it was only a few months before she died. Maybe even weeks.

Brant wore a green tunic with a black stripe across the chest and a crest over his heart: a red triangle crisscrossed by two gray lines set against a background of blue. Something felt familiar about the symbol—but Sophie couldn’t place what it was.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the blurry image forming in her mind. A blue sleeve with a similar symbol—though the colors were different. She couldn’t remember anything else, and it was only a quick flash. Like the rest of the memory had been lost.

Or
taken
.

She dropped the photo and scrambled for her memory log, projecting the blurry image before it slipped away. As she stared at it, another foggy image resurfaced in her mind.

Curled, squiggly lines stretched along the edge of a hot pink page.

She recognized the paper from an old journal she’d used to write in when she was younger—until she got bored with it. She only remembered using it to complain about the annoying things her sister did. But had she written something else?

She poked at the memory, tried to force it into focus before she projected it onto a fresh page. The image was dim and fuzzy, but she could see the sparkly edge of the pink book and the faintly curved squiggles written in the margin. She didn’t remember writing them, and they were too blurry to read what they said. But she could tell one crucial detail.