“Try to sleep,” Elwin told her, pulling her blankets back into place when she tossed them aside.

“But I’ve been sleeping for three days!” she reminded him.

“That wasn’t restful sleep,” Elwin insisted.

“It must’ve been, because I’m not tired,” Sophie argued.

“I can fix that,” Flori offered from the doorway. She padded over to the bed, singing a lullaby about windswept branches dancing in perfect harmony to the rhythm of the breeze, and the flowers on Sophie’s canopy filled the air with their sweet, soothing perfume.

“That’s not fair,” Sophie grumbled through a yawn.

“Yeah, wow,” Keefe said, rubbing his eyes as he stumbled to his feet. “If I don’t go now, I’m going to be drooling on your desk—unless you need me to stay.”

Sophie couldn’t tell if he was asking her or her physicians. Either way, she told him, “Go home, Keefe. You’ve been stuck here long enough.”

He shook his head, studying her with sleepy eyes. “I’m never stuck with you, Foster. Someday I’m going to make you see that.”

“Sounds like I’d better get Hunkyhair home,” Ro said, striding out of Sophie’s closet in a silky pink gown that somehow looked both right and wrong with her armor strapped on top of it. “I was bored,” Ro added when she noticed the way everyone was staring, like that explained her new fashion choices. “I’ll bring the dress back tomorrow.”

“Keep it,” Sophie told her. “You… look really good.”

Ro glanced down, sliding her hands across the shimmering skirt, then rolled her eyes and muttered something about sparkles going to her head.

* * *

“You look better,” Biana told Sophie the next morning, glancing at Stina. “Doesn’t she look better?”

“Does she?” Stina asked, with her trademark brutal honesty. “I mean, she’s not so greasy anymore, but she’s still awfully pale.”

“It’s fine,” Sophie told Biana, before she could argue. Edaline had brought a mirror over when Sophie insisted on doing the sponge bath herself, so she was very familiar with her pasty skin and shadowed eyes and overall grayish pallor.

She definitely still had some major recovering to do.

The good news was, Elwin and Livvy had finally decided Sophie could have some pain medicine, so she could actually move without constantly wanting to say “ow.”

Keefe had also been sweet enough to stay at the Shores of Solace that morning so she’d be able to have all the “classified” conversations with her team.

And Mr. Forkle had kept his promise and taken Dex to Watchward Heath. They were supposed to be there all day, since it was a lot of camera feeds for Dex to tweak. But it was progress, and Sophie could at least feel like she’d played some small part in making it happen.

The news from Loamnore was less encouraging.

Nubiti had found ten more magsidian stones hidden in the same corridors where the deserters had sabotaged other things before fleeing the city. And while none of the stones had exactly the same facets, they were all a similar size and shape, and their cuts followed a similar pattern—close enough to be clear that the same person or group had made all ten of the new stones, as well as the three they’d found in the Grand Hall.

And the stones were all hidden in places where magsidian wasn’t supposed to be.

And all were impossible to remove.

And no one seemed convinced that the putty Nubiti had covered them with would solve the problem.

Wylie was still in the dwarven city, working with Nubiti to see if there was a way to determine how the stones responded to light without starting another fire.

“That’s not the information we need, though,” Sophie realized after Biana finished her update. “The Neverseen aren’t going to attack with light. They’re going to attack with shadows.”

“You say that like it’s a fact,” Stina noted. “But we don’t actually know if that’s true. The way those stones in the Grand Hall reacted to light couldn’t have been an accident. Someone planned that—lined them up so the beams would ricochet perfectly. So light has to be important too.”

“I know,” Sophie told her. “But no one’s ever said that magsidian can’t be cut to serve multiple purposes. I think we need to get a Shade down there and see what they can figure out.”

Stina sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that—so I’m calling ‘not it’ for being the one to convince Lady Zillah to go down there. She’s… intense.”

“I’m pretty sure it needs to be the Council who talks to her,” Sophie realized, “since they’ll need to work out the visit with King Enki. But someone needs to tell the Council—and make them understand that even if King Enki doesn’t want to cooperate, we need to know what a Shade can do in Loamnore, both with these stones and on the King’s Path.”

“I’ll talk to my Councillor contacts,” Biana promised.

“And I’ll hail Oralie and Bronte a little later,” Sophie decided. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

Stina and Biana shared a look.

“More bad news?” Sophie guessed, sitting up a little taller to prepare for it. “Nothing with Linh, right?”

“No,” Biana promised, glancing at Stina again. “It’s just… Stina and I finally had a chance to meet with Lady Cadence.”

Sophie stopped breathing. “You asked her?”

Biana nodded, eyes shifting to her feet.

Stina stood taller. “She definitely isn’t your biological mother.”

“She isn’t,” Sophie repeated with the last of the air in her lungs—still not quite ready to breathe again.

She isn’t.

She isn’t.

She isn’t.

“That’s good news, right?” Stina asked. “You didn’t want her to be your biological mom, did you?”

“No,” Sophie said, forcing herself to suck in some air—and triggering a whole lot of coughing—which unfortunately made her very aware of all the places she was still very sore from almost dying, even with the pain medicine. So there were several seconds filled with a lot of cough—“ow!”—cough—“ow!” before Sophie managed to grit out, “I’m definitely glad I’m not genetically related to her. But… do I want to know what she said after you asked her? Probably not, huh?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Biana promised—and the “that” told Sophie everything she needed to know.

She held up her hands before Biana could continue. “Never mind. Whenever Foxfire’s back in session, I’m going to have to train with her every week, and I’m pretty sure the only way I’m going to be able to do that without dumping curdleroots on her head is if I don’t let you finish that sentence.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Biana assured her again. “But… yeah, you’re probably right.”

“She did say one interesting thing, though,” Stina noted. “She said the Black Swan is too smart to have your biological parents’ abilities match yours. It’d be too much of a giveaway—especially since your abilities are so rare. That kinda makes sense, don’t you think? Like how Bronte isn’t your biological father even though he’s the only Inflictor? So I guess when we figure out more names, we should try to pick people who don’t have your abilities.”