Sophie could picture it all so clearly—the miserable dynamic that Keefe grew up with in his parents’ cold, ostentatious tower. And all she wanted to do was squeeze into his chair so she could wrap her arms around him and prove that someone cared.

But she’d made Keefe two promises before he brought her there.

One: She’d do her best to avoid the memories she knew he probably wouldn’t want her to see.

And two: No matter what she saw, she would never pity him.

What she was feeling in that moment definitely wasn’t pity—but Keefe probably wouldn’t see it that way.

“Okay,” she said, taking a seat in the chair that Keefe had dragged over for her—and loving the way Lord Cassius’s jaw tightened when she curled her knees up and rested her feet on the clean white fabric. “I’m pretty sure the one thing we all agree on is that none of us want this to take any longer than it needs to. And you already know how this works, since you’ve been doing it with Fitz, so you don’t need me to explain anything to you, right?”

“Does that mean there won’t be any fancy moonlark tricks to wow me with the wonders of your telepathy?” Lord Cassius asked.

Sophie matched his smug smile. “I don’t need tricks to wow you. That’ll happen naturally, when I crash through every wall you put up and find all the things you think you can hide from me.”

Keefe whistled. “Okay, I’m not sure where all of this Foster confidence is coming from, but I’m here for it!”

Sophie’s cheeks warmed a little—but not that much.

Because she was feeling confident.

Maybe her head was still thrumming from the unbridled force of her inflicting.

Or maybe it was because she’d been a Telepath since she was five years old.

Either way, she knew beyond any doubt that her mind was powerful.

And Lord Cassius, for all of his bravado, was very, very weak.

She double-checked her fingernail gadgets—and her four layers of gloves—before reaching for Lord Cassius’s temples, since he was an Empath and his sensitivity to her enhancing would probably be stronger.

“The memories I want you to ignore are tinted purple,” he told her.

Sophie shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to decide what stays secret.”

With that, she pressed her gloved fingers against his skin—relieved when no warmth from her enhancing sparked between them—and shoved her consciousness into his mind, without bothering to ask for permission.

His mental barriers shredded like paper, and she crashed into the center of his thoughts, where everything was…

Quiet.

And tidy.

And still.

Usually minds were a rush of color and motion and sound and energy—like being surrounded by thousands of flickering holograms, each broadcasting its own vibrant soundtrack.

But Lord Cassius’s head was like stepping into a vast, pristine library—run by the kind of overzealous librarian who yelled at people for moving the books and took great pleasure in shushing anyone who made the slightest noise.

A lifetime’s worth of memories loomed around Sophie in ten precariously arranged stacks. Houses of cards tinted red, blue, green, orange, gold, silver, pink, white, black, and purple—as if Lord Cassius had been categorizing each of his thoughts and experiences before meticulously tucking them away.

Sophie wasn’t sure what the other colors meant—but she knew he wanted her to stay away from purple, so…

You’re so much like my son, Lord Cassius thought as Sophie focused on the shaky tower of violet-stained memories, wondering what would happen if she slammed her consciousness against it.

Would it all come toppling down?

As soon as you know something’s forbidden, he told her, it’s all you want. I often wonder if that’s part of the appeal for—

Sophie didn’t bother listening to the end of that sentence, too lost in the purple-tinted memory she’d focused on. The scene was slightly faded and blurred, since Lord Cassius didn’t have a photographic memory, but Sophie could still easily tell that she was watching a much younger version of him retrieve books from his locker in the Level One atrium at Foxfire.

He looked so uncannily like his son at that age that Sophie would’ve thought she was watching Keefe—if she hadn’t known that Keefe had skipped that particular grade level.

Then again, Lord Cassius also lacked Keefe’s easy swagger.

In fact, when she looked closer, she realized that his movements were rushed and tense, and the expression on his face was… nervous?

“Scared” actually might’ve been a better word for it.

She learned why a few breaths later, when a group of much taller, much more confident Level Threes sidled over to him, knocking his books out of his hands and messing up his hair.

Lord Cassius said nothing.

Did nothing.

But internally he swore that things would change.

Someday he would be better than everyone else—and then he would show them all.

The memory ended there—but something about the abruptness of it felt intentional. As if Lord Cassius had snipped off the rest, either to sort it somewhere else or to keep that part hidden.

So… I’m assuming you said the thing about the purple memories to distract me from the real stuff you don’t want me to see? Sophie guessed.

Or I don’t like anyone witnessing my moments of weakness, Lord Cassius countered—which might’ve been a believable explanation, if he hadn’t had the answer ready to go.

Your mind games aren’t going to work on me, she told him. And I don’t really get why you’re bothering to play them. Searching your memories was YOUR idea—YOU wanted to find out if there was something that Lady Gisela hid from you.

Yes, I’m aware. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to allow anyone to invade my privacy—and surely you’ve realized that something my wife stole wouldn’t be tinted purple, or red or blue or green or any other color, since that means I’m aware of it.

Actually, that was a valid point.

This part of his mind was so organized—so controlled—that anything missing or out of place would’ve been glaringly obvious.

She needed to find the rest.

The parts he couldn’t shape into the precarious narrative he wanted to display to the world.

The parts he’d tried to bury.

That won’t help either, he warned, but Sophie was already poking and prodding at the corners and shadows—the cramped little nooks and the cold, empty stretches and…

There.

A tiny crack.

A flaw in his well-honed mental armor.

All she had to do was slip through and…

… down, down, down she went—careening through a dark, lonely void.

Hurtling toward a sea of nightmares.

But then her fall seemed to slow, and the air thickened around her, nudging her back up, until she could see a fuzzy gray path.

Everything about it called to her.

Welcoming her.

Guiding her.

As if Lord Cassius was providing her with an escape, to spare her from the shadows.

But it was another trick.

Another defense.

And Sophie wasn’t afraid of the dark.

So she pushed back against the barrier and plunged straight into the mire. Sinking past glimmers of doubt and fear. Fighting her way through flurries of despair and hopelessness. Until she burst through to the other side, landing in an explosion of light and color and sound.