“Flip all you want—I have nothing to hide,” Keefe said, leaning back in his chair. “But I should warn you, that also means there’s nothing else interesting in there. Mommy Dearest did a good job of making sure I wouldn’t recover these memories. Why do you think Foster’s pushing you so hard for this one?”
“What about the memories in those?” Mr. Forkle asked, pointing to the green and brown notebooks still sitting on Sophie’s desk.
Keefe scooped them up and held them out. “I mean… if you’re looking for a particularly inspired visual re-creation of the Great Gulon Incident, then you’re about to be super excited. Otherwise, not so much. Oh, and if you flip the pages at just the right speed, you can watch the moment the gas erupts.”
Mr. Forkle’s lips twitched with a smile as he took the notebooks. “And here I thought you had nothing to do with that event.”
Keefe smirked. “Not saying I did.”
Sophie didn’t bother asking. She’d been trying to get someone to tell her what happened during the Great Gulon Incident for years and had never gotten a straight answer.
And now definitely wasn’t the time to sidetrack the conversation.
Especially when Mr. Forkle pointed to Keefe’s chest and asked, “What about the notebook tucked away in your cape pocket? Are you going to show me the memories in there, or do you have something to hide after all?”
Keefe straightened up, placing his hand over the pocket, like he was afraid Mr. Forkle was going to try to snatch the gold notebook away. “How did you know?”
“I have very sharp eyes. Far sharper than you and your friends realize.” He handed Keefe back the silver, brown, and green notebooks without paging through them. “Truthfully, Mr. Sencen, I neither want nor need to see your full recorded life history. I just need to trust that you’ll come to me when and if you recover something pertinent. Given what happened with the Council and the meeting with King Enki, I’m realizing it’s time for all of us to aim for a higher level of transparency.”
“Said the guy who still won’t tell me who my biological parents are,” Sophie felt the need to point out.
“Ohhhhhh, she has you there!” Livvy added.
“She does indeed,” Mr. Forkle said through a very long sigh. “But it sadly doesn’t change where we stand on that particular issue. Sometimes a mystery must remain unsolved.” His eyes locked with Sophie’s. “And someday you’ll understand why I had to protect this secret. In the meantime, I’m willing to grant your request. I’ll bring Mr. Dizznee to Watchward Heath at his earliest convenience and let him program the cameras to search for the man in Mr. Sencen’s drawing.”
“And you promise you’ll let us know the second you find him?” Sophie countered. “No holding back information while you conduct your own investigations?”
“Well, I suspect that Mr. Dizznee will program the feeds to notify him of any matches long before anything alerts me, so this is likely a moot point. But you have my word that if the cameras locate this mystery man and I’m the first to acquire that information, I’ll pass it along to you and Mr. Sencen immediately—but note my use of the word ‘if,’ Miss Foster. I fear you’re feeling a bit too confident in this plan’s success and forgetting that there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to find this man. Watchward Heath is an unprecedented monitoring system—but it’s not without its gaps. The man may also have altered his appearance in some significant way since Mr. Sencen saw him in this memory—a change of hairstyle. Adding a beard or mustache. Gaining or losing weight. Even the simple inevitabilities of human aging, like wrinkles and hair loss, could be significant enough to make the cameras disregard him as a viable match.”
The words might as well have been a giant pair of scissors, snipping the threads of excitement that had been stitching Sophie’s newfound hope together.
She’d been living with the elves for long enough that she’d forgotten how much more humans change than the elves. Everyone in the Lost Cities stayed mostly static once they reached adulthood. An elf looked the same at thirty as they did at one hundred thirty and three hundred thirty and one thousand thirty and on and on and on. The only notable difference would be the points of their ears or how they chose to cut or style their hair.
Maybe that was even why the London cameras hadn’t found the guy.
“Don’t look so disheartened,” Mr. Forkle told her. “I should be able to help Mr. Dizznee create some basic algorithms that will allow the cameras to predict the most likely appearance alterations and search for those as well. There will still be a margin for error, of course, but—”
“You would do that?” Sophie interrupted.
“Of course! That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, Miss Foster,” he chided. “I fear you’ve lost sight of who I am. Allowed the fact that I’m unable to share information about your genetic parents to feel like an enormous chasm between us. When the reality is so much simpler. We’re still on the same side. We still share the same goals. Still crave the same answers. So how about we endeavor to focus on those similarities from this point forward?”
He extended his hand for a handshake, and, after a quick glance at Keefe, Sophie reached out and took it.
“Excellent,” Mr. Forkle said. “I’ll explain all of this to Mr. Dizznee as soon as he returns from Loamnore this evening, so he can make any necessary preparations before I bring him to my office.”
“Why is he in Loamnore?” Sophie asked.
Mr. Forkle released her hand. “That’s classified information.”
“Right. And I’m the leader of Team Valiant,” Sophie reminded him.
“You are. But no one else in this room has the necessary clearance. And it’s best if you don’t use your telepathy right now.”
“It’s best if you don’t do anything right now,” Elwin added, before Sophie could suggest asking everyone to clear the room, “except drink a bottle of Youth, have some broth, and try to sleep. Give us at least the rest of today to get you a little stronger before you start diving into all the stressful conversations. Save the updates and worrying for tomorrow.”
“Elwin’s right,” Livvy agreed, handing Sophie a bottle of Youth as Edaline conjured up a bowl of pale, purple-toned broth for her to eat. “I know you’re itching to get back to work—and I get it. Believe me. But right now, your focus needs to be on your recovery or you’re going to slow the process down. And the good news is, your friends are brilliant and talented and every bit as determined as you are, so it’s not like you have to worry that nothing’s getting done. They’re out there right now kicking butt and taking names. And you have to be here. So make it worth it. Get as much rest as you can.”
Sophie sighed and forced herself to take a bite of broth, which was somehow both a little sweet and a little salty. “What is this?”
“Panakes blossoms steeped with a few herbs Flori recommended,” Edaline explained. “She thinks it’ll speed your healing.”
Sophie finished the whole bowl, and it eased some of the aching in her limbs, which made her want out of that bed even more.