Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities) (42 page)

A nest.

Tucked in the center was a small, mirrored trinket box with a familiar black curve worked into the latch. She closed her eyes and made a silent wish that this would be the answer she needed, then plucked the tiny cube from the twigs.

Inside she found another scrap of paper and a tiny black swan. Not a pin this time—a charm. Carved much more crudely, with jagged cuts and very little detail, which seemed strange. But she was sure there was a reason. She hoped the clue would make it clearer.

There were two lines of text on the note when she unfolded it, but her eyes only saw the first. A small sob slipped through her lips as she read the four words that changed everything.

We can fix you.

Y
OU OKAY IN THERE?” KEEFE
called, startling Sophie so much she almost dropped the note.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’ll be out in a second.”

She sank to the nearest rock, taking deep breaths to stop the shaking.

They could fix her.

They didn’t say how—this was the Black Swan, after all. But she was willing to forgive them for the lies and the secrets and the ways they’d messed with her life. Even if they were the bad guys—she would trust them if it could make her right again.

All she needed was to figure out the clue.

The note had another sentence. One that was just as vague and unhelpful as the other times she’d heard it:

Follow the pretty bird across the sky.

She studied the crude black swan charm again. It hardly qualified as a “pretty bird.”

Although . . .

She glanced back at the nest, where the sand was freshly dredged. There were no other footprints, almost like someone had popped out of the ground and then tunneled back in.

Dwarves.

Maybe
that
’s how the Black Swan were keeping tabs on her. And if they had dwarves on their side, maybe—

“One more minute or I’m coming in there,” Sandor called.

“I’ll be right out.” Sophie tucked the charm back in its pouch, along with the note, and shoved both in her shoe. Yes, she’d promised Keefe and Sandor she’d keep them in the loop, but this was about
her.
She hadn’t even told Keefe she needed to be fixed—and she intended to keep it that way.

But they’d never believe she didn’t find
anything
, so she grabbed some of the twigs from the nest and snapped off the ends until they fit inside the box. She checked her pockets, wishing she were more like Dex, always carrying interesting things. Then she remembered the trackers.

She felt along the edge of her cape, relieved when her fingers
touched the outline of a penny-size disk near the front corner. She didn’t have scissors—or time—so she tore the fabric with her teeth, grabbing the copper circle and slipping it in the box just as two silhouetted figures appeared in the cave’s entrance.

“I said I’d be right out,” she yelled as she ran to meet them, tripping a few times on the rocks.

Keefe smirked. “Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t find anything.”

“I wasn’t going to.” She handed him the mirrored box, and he dumped the contents into his palm.

“Twigs and a piece of scrap metal? Can’t they just say, ‘go here, do this, and have a nice life’? Seems like it would save a lot of time.”

“It’s not scrap metal,” Sandor corrected. “It’s a tracker.” He glanced at Sophie and she looked away.

“A tracker? Like, to lead us to them?” Keefe asked.

“I think it would only tell them where
we
are,” Sophie mumbled, heading out of the cave.

Keefe caught up with her. “So what’s the plan, then—and don’t lie to me, Foster, I can feel you hiding something.”

“It’s just a theory right now—I need to think it through.”

“You mean
we
,” Keefe said, hooking his arm through hers. “
We
need to think it through. Team Foster-Keefe!”

“Uh, now it’s team Foster-Dex-and-Keefe,” Dex said, marching over and taking her other arm.

Keefe shook his head. “That doesn’t have the same ring.
Though it could be handy having a Technopath around.”

“Look, guys, I really appreciate the help, but . . . I’m kind of tired, and there’s a lot of stuff floating around in my brain. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Depends,” Keefe said, narrowing his eyes. “Are you trying to get rid of us so you can go on secret adventures by yourself?”

Sophie willed herself to feel calm as she said, “I just want some time to think.”

“Uh-huh. Fine, you can have the night to think—but we
will
be revisiting this tomorrow. Come on, Dex, let’s go mess with some gadgets before dinner. I know the perfect place!”

Sophie tuned them out as Keefe plotted and schemed the whole way up the stairs. Dex secured the lock on the gate and asked her if she’d really be okay. She promised him she would, and the boys leaped away to cause who knew what kind of trouble.

Sandor stayed silent as she greeted Silveny, promised her she’d spend time with her later, and made her way inside. But as Sophie closed the door to her bedroom, he held out his hand. “I’ll need to ask the gnomes to resew that tracker into your cape before you go to school tomorrow.”

“Oh. You caught that, huh?” Why did he have to be so obnoxiously good at his job?

“What was really in the box?”

She stared at her feet. “Another charm. And a note.”

“I thought you weren’t going to hide things from me.”

“I had to this time—you’re not going to let me go and I
have
to. They say they can fix me, Sandor—and if anyone can, it’s them.”

“I thought you didn’t trust them?”

“I don’t know what to think about them. I just know I have to try. It might be the only way.”

His frown sank so deep it looked like his face was cracking. “I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t—”

“We made a deal. I’m coming with you or I go to your parents.”

“You can’t come with me, Sandor. Not if I’m right about the clue.” She stalked to her desk, digging out the other pieces they’d given her.

One pin, two charms, and two vague notes. Not a lot to go on, but if she put it all together . . .

“See this?” she said, holding up the newest note. “It says the same thing Prentice told me. ‘Follow the pretty bird across the sky.’ And I think it means this.”

She held up the black swan charm.

If a dwarf had delivered the charm, then maybe it was made of magsidian—and maybe the rough, crude cuts affected the pull of the stone, just like the flask that drew water and the pendant that drew light.

She held her breath as she picked up the charm bracelet and hooked the tiny swan next to the compass. Then she opened
the locket and held the compass flat in her palm, watching the needle spin and come to a stop on . . .

Somewhere between north and west.

“I knew it! The magsidian is changing where the compass points. So if I follow this direction, it should lead me straight to where the Black Swan needs me to go.”

“That can’t be right. It could be an impossibly long journey.”

“On foot, maybe. But the note says, ‘across
the sky
’—and they gave me an alicorn pin.”

Sandor’s eyes widened. “Absolutely not. You know that unstable creature won’t let me near her and I cannot allow you to fly off alone—especially without even knowing where you’re going.”

“But I
have
to. If they can fix
me,
then maybe I can fix Alden and—and maybe even Prentice.”

“That’s not worth risking your life for. You could be flying into a trap.”

“I’m risking my life anyway. You’ve seen what the light keeps doing to me. If I don’t take this chance, who knows . . .”

“I can’t Sophie. Maybe if your parents agree—”

“I can’t tell them about this.”

“Why not?” Grady asked, pushing his way through the door with Edaline right behind him. He glanced at the notes, and his face turned so red it looked almost purple.

“You have a lot of explaining to do, Sophie. Starting right now.”

SOPHIE HAD NO CHOICE BUT
to come clean about everything: the clues, her plan to fix Alden, her journal, the way the light was affecting her, Wylie’s theory. Elwin not knowing how to help . . .

“How could you not tell us about this?” Edaline asked as she reread the notes from the Black Swan.

“I don’t know,” Sophie mumbled.

Grady ran his hands through his hair, making it stick out. “Sophie, if your health is in danger, you
have
to tell us. We could get you help and treatment and—”

“Elwin already tried everything. If it’s really in my genes, then the only ones who can fix me are the ones who made me.”

Edaline sighed. “I can’t believe you told Elwin before us.”

“I didn’t. I blacked out at school. And Elwin agreed that we should wait to tell you guys until we knew more. You have enough to worry about already.”

“We do have a lot to worry about,” Grady said, gazing out the windows as the sunset streaked the sky with red. “But we still always want to know what’s going on with you. Honestly, Sophie, I know you’ve had to keep a lot of secrets in your life, but you have to stop hiding things. We’re here to help.”

“I know.” Sophie sat on the edge of her bed and twisted the ripped end of her cape. “I guess I was just . . . embarrassed.”

Edaline sat beside her, taking her hand. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Of course I do—I’m the Town Freak. Have you noticed
how people react when they see me? And how would you feel if you had people tell you that you were
malfunctioning
—especially if it were true?”

Grady took the notes from Edaline, squinting at them as he sat on Sophie’s other side. Several seconds passed before he asked, “So this is why you keep fading?”

“It has to be. How else could I fade with
two
nexuses?”

She held out both of her wrists, and her heart ached when she realized both were gifts from the Vackers.

Grady squeezed the Ruewen crest pin on his cape. “And you really believe they can fix you?”

“I believe they’re my best chance. My only chance.”

Grady got up to pace. He’d worn a small rut in the petal-covered carpet before Edaline stood and said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we should let Sophie go.”

“What?”
Sophie, Sandor, and Grady asked at the same time.

“They
made
her. So if there’s something wrong—and Elwin doesn’t know what it is—I think we have to let them try to fix it. Otherwise what do we do? Let her keep blacking out and fading? How many times can that happen before she doesn’t recover?”

“So we send her blindly into a den of murderers?” Grady snapped back.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Edaline said quietly. “But we do know that clearly the Black Swan can get to Sophie any time they want”—she pointed to the notes in Grady’s hand—“so if
they wanted to hurt her, they could’ve easily done it by now. And they haven’t. Maybe Sophie’s special because they made her. Or maybe it’s because we’re wrong about them. Either way, I just can’t believe that they mean Sophie any harm. And if they can fix her . . .”

Grady shook his head. “I don’t trust them.”

“I know,” Edaline whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “But I think this time we have to
try.
For Sophie’s sake.”

“This isn’t just about me,” Sophie reminded them when Grady didn’t say anything. “If they fix me, I might be able to fix Alden, too. Don’t you want that?”

“Of course.” Grady pulled away from Edaline. “I miss my friend terribly. But . . . do you know why I agreed to become an Emissary again, Sophie?”

“You said it was because Alden had done so much for you.”

“It was.” Grady wiped away a tear. “And what I wanted to pay Alden back for was
you.
Bringing
you
into our lives.”

Sophie felt her eyes burn. “I’m glad he brought me into your lives too.”

Grady strangled her with a hug. “I would give almost anything to have him back,” he whispered. “But I won’t give up you.”

“You won’t have to, ” Sophie promised. “They want to fix me, Grady. I
need
to believe that. I don’t want to be broken anymore.”

Grady sighed as he let her go, and he flipped through the
Black Swan’s notes again as he sat next to her on the bed.

He stopped on the one that had made Sophie the angriest.

Patience

Trust

Grady stared at it for so long Sophie started counting the seconds. Eighty-one had passed before he mumbled, “Okay.”

It took a moment for the word to sink in. “So . . . you’re going to let me get on Silveny and fly wherever the compass leads?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at Sandor. He was scowling—and his hands were clenched into fists—but he didn’t argue.

“You know I’ll have to go alone? Silveny won’t let anyone else come.”

“Actually, that’s where you’re wrong,” Grady said. “There is one other person Silveny trusts, and even though he’s
not
my first choice as an escort for you, he’s better than no one.”

Sophie couldn’t quite hide her groan. “You realize you’re putting my life in the hands of Keefe Sencen, right?”

“SO, LET ME GET THIS
straight,” Keefe said when Sophie was done explaining the new plan. “We don’t know where we’re going, or how long it’s going to take us to get there, and we’re flying to meet the Black Swan—who may or may not be evil murderers—and this whole thing could be a trap?”

“Pretty much,” Sophie agreed, tugging on her heavy velvet cloak. Edaline had insisted she dress warm, and it looked like Keefe had the same idea. He wore a thick gray cloak pinned with the Sencen crest, and dark boots and gloves. He
almost
looked responsible.

“Awesome! ’Bout time this project got a bit more exciting.” He glanced at Sandor. “Don’t worry, Gigantor, I’ll keep her safe.”

Sandor cracked his knuckles. “You’d better.”

It had taken a
lot
of convincing to make the overprotective goblin remove the trackers from her clothes. Sophie was afraid the Black Swan would be able to tell they were being monitored and would keep themselves hidden. Plus, she’d reminded Sandor that he wouldn’t be able to follow her anyway.