That was the worst part of being the moonlark—aside from having enemies trying to kill her all the time.

No one was ever quite who they pretended to be.

“What did he mean about you being ill?” she asked, trying to piece together as much of the real story as she could.

Oralie pressed her hand against her stomach. “The process of giving the Black Swan what they needed for your genetics turned out to be more involved than I expected—physically and emotionally. And Kenric stopped by right after I returned home from the procedure. I tried to hide it from him, but I nearly fainted just answering the door. So he insisted on taking care of me. But… I woke up alone. He told me he went home after I finally fell asleep. Apparently not.”

“And you’re the reason Quinlin thought his receptionist was reporting on him to the Council?” Sophie verified, remembering the first time Alden brought her to Atlantis. “Not Bronte?”

“It wasn’t like Bronte needed any convincing. All I did was suggest that Quinlin and Alden might be overstepping their authority—which they were. And then I made sure I received the reports on their activities so that I could monitor Alden’s progress and also remove any notes about you from the record. I was trying to protect you!”

Sophie had no idea what to do with that information, except to shove it into another mental box of Things She’d Have to Deal with Later.

Her brain was getting pretty cluttered with those.

Someday she’d have to get brave and try to unpack them. But for now, she turned back to the memory, watching Kenric hold up a hand to silence Oralie.

“Don’t bother with whatever lie you’re about to give,” he told her. “We both know I’m right. And… I understand. Or I’m trying to, anyway.”

“Kenric—”

“And if that’s why you have to stay, Ora, then I’m staying too.” He tucked one of her ringlets gently behind her ear. “You’re going to need all the allies you can get. Especially since someday the Black Swan is going to bring their moonlark into play. You know that, right?”

Oralie’s mouth started to form one word. But at the last second she changed to a hushed “yes.”

Kenric nodded gravely. “Do you know a lot of other things you aren’t telling me?”

“No. I swear, Kenric. That was part of the deal.” Her gaze shifted to her feet. “I’m completely separate.”

“Good. It’ll be easier to protect you that way.”

“I don’t need your protection!”

“Yes, you do. And you’ll have it. I’ll be right here by your side, even if I have to pretend that things between us are strictly professional. It’s okay,” he added, wiping away her fresh tears. “I knew this was how this conversation was going to go. Why do you think I’ve never said anything before? I just… had to say it—at least once. Just to see what would happen. And now seemed like a perfect time, since you won’t remember it anyway.”

Oralie closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “You can’t hide your feelings, Kenric. They’re there—every time I’m around you.”

His smile was heartbreaking. “I know. Empaths may be terrible liars—but they always find the deeper truth.”

“We’re not like Telepaths. We can’t bury it—or wash it away,” Oralie murmured.

“Very true.” Kenric tucked another ringlet behind her ear before he pulled her hood back into place and pressed two fingers against her temple. “Still, it’ll be hard for you to understand what you’re feeling without the context, right? So how about I help you with that? I think it’s time to put all of this behind us, don’t you?”

“What are you doing? You’re not supposed to—”

The projections blinked away, as if someone had flipped a switch.

In a way, Kenric had.

“Well,” Oralie said, curling her fingers around the cache and leaning against the trunk of the Panakes. “That… wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Me neither,” Sophie agreed, trying to figure out which emotion to go with.

The memory had been intense, and fascinating, and devastating—but also ridiculously disappointing, and maddening, and pointless.

That was all they had to help Keefe?

A new word that meant nothing, a vague mention of a conversation with Fintan about stellarlune—where he apparently didn’t know anything—and Kenric and Oralie’s star-crossed love story?

“It’s okay,” Oralie told her, slipping her cache into a pocket hidden in her gown. “This isn’t the dead end you’re thinking it is.”

“Why? Did it finally trigger the other memories?”

“No. But I know where we can find them. Kenric’s cache clearly has the information we need. That must be why he asked me to give it to you if something happened to him, and why he made sure I had a way to open it. It works differently than mine, since there are multiple memories inside, but the access sequence is actually a little easier.” She held out her hand. “I’ll show you.”

Sophie’s heart dropped into the sloshiest part of her stomach.

Oralie stepped closer, taking Sophie by her shoulders. “Please tell me the panic I’m feeling isn’t because you lost Kenric’s cache.”

Oh, but it was so much worse than that.

Sophie stared at her boots, knowing she had no choice but to explain the whole miserable mess—from Keefe stealing the cache away from her and using it to bribe his way into the Neverseen, to him taking it back when he escaped and then finding out that he’d actually stolen a fake.

Oralie tightened her grip on Sophie’s shoulders. “How could you not tell me about this sooner?”

“Uh, the Council hasn’t exactly been super supportive and friendly, remember?” Sophie argued.

“I have. And I could’ve helped you get it back!”

“How?”

“I… don’t know,” Oralie admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have found a way, or that you were right to keep this a secret!”

She had a point.

But Sophie wasn’t in the mood to apologize.

Oralie dropped her hands and stepped back, letting out a long, heavy breath. “This has to stop, Sophie. We have to start working together. No more secrets. No more lies. You don’t have to like me or forgive me—but you do have to trust me. And I’ll do the same for you. There’s too much at stake—and not just for Keefe. I don’t know what Elysian is, or what it has to do with stellarlune, but the fear I can now remember feeling in Kenric was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced from him. He was always calm and collected, even under incredibly fraught circumstances. So for him to be that worried…” Her voice hitched and she turned away. “We have to find his cache—now.”

“Okay, but how?” Sophie repeated.

Oralie stood taller, smoothing her gown. “I suppose we should start with you telling me everything you’ve already tried. Maybe that’ll help us spot something you overlooked.”

“We haven’t really tried anything,” Sophie reluctantly admitted. “There were too many other things going on. I did think about asking Fintan when I met with him, but our deal only allowed me to ask him one question, and there was something else I needed to know more. Plus, I’m sure the Neverseen moved the caches after he was captured, so anything he could’ve told me would be useless anyway. But… I guess we could try making another deal with him just in case—or wait. What about Glimmer? You guys have her in custody, right?”