“It is,” Sophie had to agree.

Keefe shook his head. “Nah—it’s two totally different things. Foster was, like… planned and researched and tested and hidden away and monitored and guided and protected. I mean, say what you want about the elves who signed up to be your secret genetic parents,” he told Sophie, “but as far as the Black Swan goes, they tried really hard to do right by you. Meanwhile, my mom was apparently like, ‘Eh, let’s drink this stuff that’ll almost kill us and see what happens to our baby!’ And then it didn’t work, so she was like… ‘I know! Let’s make a Shade do some stupid trick when my son’s already way past manifesting age and see if that fixes it!’ And then her Shade died, so she was like, ‘No worries, I’ll kidnap this surly guy with ugly bangs and make him take over!’ So… clearly her planning skills need a little help—but I guess we already knew that because of how many times the Neverseen’s plans have just been, like, bizarre.”

“Keefe,” Sophie tried again.

But he kept right on going, turning to pace the empty bedroom as he told her, “The more you think about it, the more it all makes zero sense, doesn’t it? Like… I know we’ve joked about me being your nemesis before, but—”

“You’re not my nemesis,” Sophie assured him.

“I’m not,” he agreed. “I’m older than you, for one thing. But… either way… it’s looking like… I don’t know… but you know what I do know? As I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted by my bodyguard—this means I now have a totally epic new way to disappoint Mommy Dearest! And—”

“Keefe!” Sophie jumped in front of him and grabbed his shoulders—both of them jolting from her enhancing. “Sorry,” she said, dropping her arms. “I forgot I don’t have my gloves on. And will you please take a deep breath and hear me out for a second?” She waited for him to nod before she told him, “Okay, first: I definitely agree that your mom’s plan sounds pretty ridiculous—but that might be because we don’t have all of the information. Or it might be because the pieces we’ve gotten came from damaged memories and Alvar. Or it might really be that crazy. Either way—you can’t let that make you take this any less seriously—”

“Oh, I’m taking it seriously,” Keefe assured her. “And I guarantee, Foster—there’s no way I’m letting my mom trigger that ability.”

“Good—because that’s my second thing,” Sophie told him. “Remember how you’re supposed to be staying far away from the Neverseen—and anything that might possibly be connected to them? I’ve been letting that slide these last few days so we could make some progress on your missing memories—and we’ve ended up having a big showdown with your mom and a run-in with Alvar, so we’re pretty lucky that something horrible didn’t happen. And now we have a much clearer sense of the dangerous weirdness your mom is planning, so…”

Keefe backed up a step, shaking his head. “Uh-uh, Foster. You’re not making me sit all of this out.”

“No, that’s my job,” Ro corrected. “Remember that bet you lost?”

“Yeah, but—”

“There’s no ‘but’!” Ro interrupted. “And if you even think about rebelling, keep in mind that I still owe you some major payback for that amoeba stunt, so do you really want to find out what’ll happen if we add ‘violated the sacred terms of our bet’ to the punishment I’m planning? You know how creative I can be, Hunkyhair. You know I’ll make sure you’re never quite the same.”

Keefe sighed and sank onto the bed, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. “So… what? I’m just supposed to go back to drawing in my little notebooks while you guys deal with all of this?”

“Deal with it how?” Sophie asked, plopping down on the bed beside him. “You’re making it sound like we have an actual plan—and you know that’s not how this works! We’re going to be stuck trying to puzzle out all of these random pieces of information for who knows how long. You won’t be missing out on anything, except watching me fail epically at being Team Valiant’s leader and Fitz’s girlfriend.”

“You’re not failing at either of those things,” Keefe assured her quietly.

“Oh, I definitely am,” Sophie mumbled, kicking her heels against the bed. “I still haven’t checked in with my teammates today, even though I told them I would. And I just let Alvar escape—and you know how much Fitz is going to love hearing that.”

She stared at the verdigris bands on her thumbs, tracing her finger over the engraved initials—SEF and FAV. They’d been a gift from Fitz—a symbol of their Cognate connection. And she rarely got to see them now that she was always wearing gloves—which felt like a metaphor somehow. She just couldn’t quite figure out the significance.

Keefe sighed. “Well… at least those are two easy problems to fix. We’re done here, and it’s still early enough for you to hail your teammates as soon as you get home, right?”

Sophie glanced out the window, noting that the sun was still a few hours from setting.

But she was sure it’d be dark by the time she was done talking to Fitz.

“Let me handle Fitzy,” Keefe told her, obviously feeling her mood shift.

And Sophie started to shake her head, but he reached up, gently grabbing her chin.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he told her, ignoring the loud sighing sounds that Ro was making. “And letting Alvar go wasn’t all your idea. Plus, I’m the one who benefitted from it.”

“But—”

“Let me handle Fitzy,” Keefe repeated. “He’s my best friend, and I’m an Empath. I know how to get through to him better than anyone.”

Keefe did seem to have a way of helping Fitz keep control of his temper. But…

“I’ll only agree to this if you promise me one thing,” Sophie said as he dropped his hand from her chin. “You have to tell Fitz that I was a part of what happened with his brother. No taking all the blame on yourself. I’m serious,” she added when Keefe started to argue. “Promise me that, or I’m going with you when you talk to him.”

Keefe nodded slowly. “All right, Foster, I promise I won’t cover for you.”

“Do you also promise you’ll go back to focusing on your memories?” she pressed, and Keefe flopped back on the bed. “And that you’ll do everything you can to stay far away from the Neverseen?”

He clearly wasn’t happy about it. But he told her, “Yeah. I’ll keep hiding from my legacy.”

And they both tried to believe that his mom would let it be that easy.

* * *

Sophie wasn’t sure how much Keefe wanted her to share about their recent discoveries when she group-hailed Stina, Dex, Wylie, and Biana. But she decided her teammates needed to know at least some of the details so they would understand what they were up against.

She left out all the stuff about weird fertility treatments and focused on the fact that Keefe’s mom would probably be having Tam try to use shadowflux to trigger some sort of extra ability in Keefe.