“In a way, yes. We’ve placed her at Tiergan’s house and made it clear that she’s not allowed to leave—and Bo has been tasked with making sure she’s constantly supervised. But… we’ve yet to schedule her Tribunal. She’s being cooperative enough that we don’t want to risk changing her attitude.”

Sophie’s jaw tightened. “Cooperative enough isn’t the same as cooperative! Has she told you anything new about the Neverseen? Like where any of their hideouts are, or any insights into their plans, or—”

“She’s answered all of our questions honestly,” Oralie assured her. “I’ve monitored her reactions closely during our conversations. But… so far, she hasn’t shared anything particularly useful. Then again, neither has Tam. And neither did Keefe, after he escaped, as I’m sure you remember. The Neverseen are incredibly cautious with what they allow their members to know. And there’s been no indication that Glimmer’s holding anything back from us—at least not beyond her name and what she looks like.”

“She still hasn’t taken down her hood?”

“She says she doesn’t feel safe—and yes, we could force her to,” Oralie added before Sophie could make that exact suggestion. “But the Council feels she’ll be more useful to us if we make her a willing ally—and I agree. So we’re giving her a little space—a little time—to see if she’ll choose to trust us before we try anything more drastic.”

Sophie opened her mouth to argue—and realized she had no idea what she wanted to say.

She’d watched Glimmer voluntarily help Lady Gisela with her dangerous plans for Keefe—and heard Keefe’s mom champion Glimmer’s loyalty.

But.

Glimmer had also been the one to turn on Lady Gisela in Loamnore and set Tam free from the bonds that had been controlling him.

And yet…

Glimmer was the one who put those bonds on his wrists in the first place.

They also hadn’t figured out how Lady Gisela had escaped.

Given her injuries, she would’ve needed someone’s help—and while it was possible that a few dwarves remained loyal to her, it was also just as possible that Glimmer was trying to do exactly what Keefe had attempted when he ran off and joined the Neverseen, and was pretending to switch sides to try to take down her enemies from the inside out.

Tam seemed to trust her, though… and he barely trusted anybody.

So basically, Sophie had no idea what to believe.

“I want to meet with her,” she decided, wishing she’d demanded it sooner.

She’d lost so many days sitting by Keefe’s side in the Healing Center.

And yet, she needed to get back to him as soon as possible.

“I should be able to make that arrangement,” Oralie agreed after a second. “But we need to keep pursuing other leads as well. There’s a good chance that Glimmer knows nothing—or that what she knows is now outdated, just like Fintan.”

“Okay, but what leads?” Sophie hated the whine in her voice, but she was done convincing herself they had something to go on when they didn’t.

Oralie chewed her lip, pressing so hard that her teeth left tiny dents. “Well… do you think you can find Alvar again?”

The name hit like a thunderbolt, stirring up enough anger, sorrow, and regret to make Sophie dizzy.

“I don’t even know if he’s still alive,” she mumbled.

The last time she’d seen Alvar, he’d looked… grim.

That’d been one of the reasons why she and Keefe were willing to let Alvar escape in exchange for a little information. The risk of him hurting someone before his time was up had seemed pretty small.

“Still, I think it’s worth trying to track him down,” Oralie told her. “Maybe Fitz or Biana would know some places he might go to die in peace.”

“I suppose I can ask them,” Sophie said, feeling ready to vomit just thinking about it.

Biana might not handle it that badly.

But Fitz?

Fitz had the worst temper.

Especially when it came to anything to do with his brother.

But… Alvar was a Vanisher. And he’d already admitted that he’d used his ability to sneak around the Neverseen’s hideouts, trying to gain leverage in case he ever needed it. So he might know something about the caches.

Or maybe there was something he hadn’t told them about stellarlune.

He might’ve even heard of Elysian.

“I’ll talk to Fitz when I go back to the Healing Center,” Sophie promised, reminding herself that they couldn’t afford to waste any time.

And maybe because she was dreading that conversation so very much, it took her longer than it should have to realize that the crisp, accented voice shouting inside her head wasn’t just a flashback from her memories.

SOPHIE!

SOPHIE!

SOPHIE!

FITZ? she transmitted back, stumbling over her feet when he responded with a brain-splittingly loud FINALLY!

WHAT’S WRONG? she asked. IS KEEFE OKAY?

If something happened…

HE’S FINE, Fitz assured her. BETTER THAN FINE. THAT’S WHY I REACHED OUT. I FIGURED YOU’D WANT TO KNOW THE GOOD NEWS RIGHT AWAY.

He paused long enough that she would’ve clobbered him if he’d been closer.

Then he told her, KEEFE’S AWAKE.

- TWO - KEEFE

OKAY, FOR THE TEN-ZILLIONTH TIME: I’m fine,” Keefe promised as Elwin snapped his fingers and replaced the glowing blue orb around Keefe’s head with a neon yellow one. “You don’t have to keep testing me.”

Especially with balls of superbright light, which were not helping with all of the pounding going on in his brain.

The pounding didn’t mean anything, by the way.

That’s why he didn’t bother mentioning it.

Of course he had a headache!

His mom had just tried to kill him—again!

Sure, she’d claimed it was simply the next part of her evil plan to make him into her own personal super-elf—but that was basically the same thing. And she could order Bangs Boy and the Flasher girl with the weird nickname to blast him with as many freaky shadow-bolts and light beams as she wanted.

It wasn’t going to change anything.

He still hated his mom.

Still planned to destroy her creepy organization.

Still had notoriously awesome hair—even if he was probably rocking some major bed head at the moment.

So… he was good.

Everything was good.

Well. Maybe not everything.

He wasn’t a fan of the way Elwin kept blocking him from getting up, because apparently he was supposed to “rest” for a couple of centuries. And he certainly wasn’t enjoying the Headache of Doom. Or how twisty and churn-y his insides felt—but he didn’t mention that, either, because he already knew why his spit tasted so sour.

His mom…

She must’ve gotten away again.

Otherwise he would’ve woken up to a whole lot of high-fiving and celebrating.

Instead, he’d found Fitz and Elwin staring at him with tired eyes and extra crinkly foreheads—and he didn’t know why he was so surprised. Things hadn’t exactly been going well before he blacked out, given that pretty much everyone on his side was unconscious and his mom had just gotten exactly what she wanted.