I don’t—and I wish I did.

She could tell he meant it. Which was why she decided to answer when he asked again for the specific words Lady Gisela said to Keefe in London—and she didn’t just tell him. She filled his mind with her memory of the conversation, letting him watch the scene play out for himself.

And when they got to the part where Lady Gisela told Keefe to “embrace the change or it will destroy you,” something shifted in his mind again.

A soft quiver that grew stronger and stronger.

A mental earthquake that drove a deep rift through his consciousness.

And three new memories emerged, each one crackly and scratched, like watching a projection of a ruined piece of film—the same way Keefe’s recovered memory had looked. The sound faded in and out, and the scenes sometimes played too fast or slow or dropped away altogether. But Sophie soaked up every detail she could pull from the damage.

In the first memory Lord Cassius found his wife nearly convulsing on their bed—with five empty vials strewn across the floor. Her mouth had a strange glow as she murmured to herself, “Embrace the change,” over and over, and Lord Cassius scooped her into his arms and sprinted for Candleshade’s vortinator to get her to a physician. The scene faded out after that, and faded back in when he was standing under the Leapmaster, with Lady Gisela begging him to take her back—to let her rest—swearing it was nothing he needed to concern himself with. She told him it was a treatment that took a few minutes for her body to accept. And he’d felt how strongly she meant the words—how desperate she was to be alone—so he’d brought her back to bed.

The second scene was much harder to watch.

There were five vials again, this time flickering and glowing on the bedside table. And Lord Cassius sat next to his wife on the edge of their bed as she tried to convince him to drink them.

The memory distorted most of their conversation, but Lord Cassius didn’t seem to find anything familiar about what she was suggesting, so his other memory must’ve already been taken. And the soundtrack sharpened again as Lady Gisela promised, “This treatment will make you powerful in ways you can’t even imagine. You just have to embrace the change.”

She’d whispered something else Sophie couldn’t hear, but whatever it was, it convinced Lord Cassius to gulp down each of the vials.

And then there was pain.

Burning and freezing and stabbing and tearing and crushing and twisting and writhing.

Unending.

Unsurvivable.

Except somehow, he did.

Somehow, when he stopped fighting it, he became the pain.

And then everything faded into a black, dreamless oblivion.

The third memory was the shortest.

Lady Gisela leaned in and licked a silver panel on a glittering crystal wall, and a small compartment popped open, with two tiny bottles inside. The glass was blacker than anything Sophie had ever seen—as if the bottles had been carved out of the void—and Lady Gisela seemed to be giving Lord Cassius a long list of vital instructions.

The memory only preserved three scattered pieces of what she said.

“When the timing is right.”

“Embrace the change.”

And “the beginning of our legacy.”

THIRTY-NINE

SOOOOOOOOO… I’M ASSUMING THE crazy emotional spike I just felt means you guys had a breakthrough,” Keefe said as Sophie’s mind snapped back to the present. “And I’m also assuming it wasn’t good news, seeing as how Foster’s now as white as the armchairs, and Daddio reminds me of the way Ro looked after she ate those amoebas. In fact, we might wanna give him some room, so we’re not in a splash zone if he goes projectile, like she did.”

“If you think we’re ready to joke about that,” Ro called from the doorway, “you are sorely, sorely mistaken, Hunkyhair. But you can relax, Blondie,” she added as Sophie jumped to her feet. “I don’t hold you responsible for the Keefster’s extremely poor life choices. Why do you think your bodyguard let me in?”

Sandor tilted his head in and nodded as Ro sauntered closer, tossing her pigtails—which were now a bright fire-engine red—as she leaned over Keefe’s armchair and pinched Keefe’s chin with her red-clawed fingers, smushing his lips into a fish face. “You can relax too, my foolish, foolish boy—for now. Because when I pay you back? You’ll never see it coming. Count on that.”

“I will,” Keefe assured her, his voice distorted by the fish face.

“Good.” Ro held him like that a second longer, squeezing his face even tighter before she dropped her hand and turned to Sophie. “So, what’s this I hear about a breakthrough?”

“And don’t try to sugarcoat it, Foster,” Keefe added, rubbing his jaw, which now showed tiny dents from Ro’s claws. “I agreed to this because I trusted you to tell me everything.”

Sophie reached for her eyelashes. “I know, but—”

“We both know my imagination is probably fifty times worse than the reality,” Keefe cut in.

Which was probably true. But she still had to warn him, “This is a lot to handle.”

“Yeah, well… what else is new?” He forced a rather sad smile. “I’m serious, Foster. I don’t care if it’s a lot. I just want the truth.”

Sophie studied him for a long second before nodding. “It’ll be easier if I show you what we saw.”

“Are you going to show him our entire conversation?” Lord Cassius jumped in.

The warning in his eyes tempted Sophie to say yes. But… Keefe didn’t need his father’s warped views on love distracting him from these new revelations.

Lord Cassius deserved to sweat a little, though, so she kept her answer vague. “I’m going to show Keefe everything that I think is important.”

“Works for me,” Keefe told her, leaning back in his armchair. “Hit me with all the creepy family stuff you want—it’s not like it’ll be a surprise.”

Sophie hated how true that was as she reached for his forehead, making sure she had permission to open her thoughts to his before she pressed her gloved fingers against his temples.

I can handle this, Foster, he promised when his mental voice flooded her mind.

You have to, she told him. The trust here works both ways. You’re trusting me not to coddle you, and I’m trusting you to lean on your friends and let us help you through this.

His mind got a whole lot quieter when he asked, So it’s that bad, huh?

Sophie was about to say yes—but then she took a look at the thoughts flashing all around her. And Keefe was right: His imagination was worse than the reality. His head was a horror show of theories that felt very Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with Keefe turning into some sort of evil, murderous monster at Lady Gisela’s beck and call.

Your mom told us she didn’t mess with your DNA, Sophie reminded him.

Uh, yeah, and my mom lies, Keefe countered.

I know, but… you’re past manifesting age, right? And you still only have one ability.

Right, but I’m also supposed to “embrace the change”—remember?

Sophie felt herself flinch at the words and sucked in a deep breath, needing that extra second to work up the courage to tell him, Those were the words that triggered the broken pieces we found of your dad’s erased memories. You’re SURE you want to see them?