The light flared to life when Mr. Forkle followed, as if the sensor only responded to him. “You don’t look impressed,” he noted as Sophie blinked in the sudden brightness.

“It’s just… not what I was expecting.”

She’d been imagining his secret office for years—and she’d always pictured a cross between a spaceship and Hogwarts, with fancy architecture and all kinds of high-tech gadgets and mysterious contraptions. Plus clues to who Mr. Forkle truly was, and plenty of hints about Project Moonlark. Instead, she’d found herself in a curved white room that made her feel like she was standing inside a giant underground egg. Soft light poured from a single bulb, which dangled off the end of a thin chain above a round, silver table. The walls were smooth and bare—as was the floor—and several small grates in the ceiling flooded the room with icy drafts.

That was it.

No windows. No doors—except the one they’d come through, which had sealed silently behind them. Nowhere to sit. No decor of any kind. Not even any books or scrolls, despite Mr. Forkle’s love of research.

“And here I thought you’d learned that things in the Lost Cities are rarely what they seem,” Mr. Forkle said, pressing his palm against the wall. The light bulb flickered twice before it flared much brighter and projected a grid of images across every surface of the room, as if the office was tapping into thousands of camera feeds displaying elves, goblins, ogres, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, and humans going about their daily lives. Every few seconds the images shifted, making Sophie wonder whether she’d catch a glimpse of the entire planet if she stood there long enough.

“Still nothing?” Mr. Forkle asked.

She shrugged. “It’s not that different from Quinlin’s office in Atlantis. And I’m pretty sure a lot of human leaders have rooms like this too—not showing all the other species, but… you know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Mr. Forkle tapped the wall to make the images disappear before he placed his palm flat against the silver table. “What about this, then?”

The metal surface rippled at his touch, stretching and splitting into a million thin wires that made it look like a giant version of one of those pin art toys Sophie used to play with as a kid. He tapped his fingers in a quick rhythm, and the pins shifted and sank, forming highs and lows and smooth, flat stretches. Sophie couldn’t figure out what she was seeing until he tapped a few additional beats and tiny pricks of light flared at the ends of each wire, bathing the scene in vibrant colors and marking everything with glowing labels.

“It’s a map,” she murmured, making a slow circle around the table.

And not just any map.

A 3-D map of the Lost Cities.

She’d never seen her world like that before, with everything spread out across the planet in relation to everything else. Eternalia, the elvin capital that had likely inspired the human myths of Shangri-la, was much closer to the Sanctuary than she’d realized, nestled into one of the valleys of the Himalayas—while the special animal preserve was hidden inside the hollowed-out mountains. Atlantis was deep under the Mediterranean Sea, just like the human legends described, and it looked like Mysterium was somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. The Gateway to Exile was in the middle of the Sahara desert—though the prison itself was buried in the center of the earth. And Lumenaria…

“Wait. Is Lumenaria one of the Channel Islands?” she asked, trying to compare what she was seeing against the maps she’d memorized in her human geography classes.

“Yes and no. It’s technically part of the same archipelago. But we’ve kept that particular island hidden, so humans have no idea it exists—well, beyond the convoluted stories we’ve occasionally leaked to cause confusion.”

“Huh.” Lumenaria had reminded her of Camelot when she’d been there, so that must be where some of those legends came from. The elves liked to play with the lore of their world, weaving in conflicting fantastical details, to make it that much harder for humans to believe in it.

She leaned closer, wondering how accurate the map’s details were. She hadn’t been to Lumenaria since the collapse, and it looked like the glowing castle was now fully rebuilt—with much higher walls. A new tree also stood next to the Four Seasons Tree, perhaps as a memorial for those who’d died in the attack. “And humans really haven’t found the island? It’s right by France and the United Kingdom—and boats go through the channel all the time.”

“You’ve seen how powerful our illusions are,” Mr. Forkle reminded her.

Sophie’s stomach soured.

Vespera had designed most of the optical illusions that shielded the Lost Cities from detection. And out of all the Neverseen’s leaders, she was the most ruthless. She saw violence as a solution—and was always claiming that Sophie and Keefe would never be “ready.” For what, they didn’t know. But it seemed safe to assume it had something to do with Keefe’s “legacy.”

“It helps to see our world this way, doesn’t it?” Mr. Forkle asked, moving to Sophie’s side. “I’ve been coming here a lot lately to strategize.”

“Does that mean you have a plan?” she asked, even though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“It’s a work in progress.” He sighed when her hands curled into fists. “I understand your impatience, Miss Foster. But some things cannot be rushed.”

Her laugh sounded as bitter as she felt.

They’d been trying to take down the Neverseen the entire time she’d been living in the Lost Cities. And here they were, years later, still with no clue what the Neverseen were up to or where they were hiding.

She and her friends had been trying to figure out how to make their next move ever since Tam was taken, but all they had to go on were the same worthless leads they’d wasted too much time on already.

Fake caches.

A missing starstone.

Way too many confusing symbols.

The key to Lady Gisela’s Archetype, but not the book that the key opened.

Tiny fragments of shattered memories that didn’t make any sense.

And no matter what truths they pieced together or what risks they took, the Neverseen were always five million steps ahead of them.

Put simply: They were losing.

And Sophie was sick of it.

“The Neverseen have proven to be more formidable than we expected,” Mr. Forkle admitted. “And their changes in leadership have made anticipating their tactics particularly complicated.”

“We have too many enemies,” Sophie muttered.

“We do indeed. And their individual visions do not always perfectly align, which has caused additional confusion. But we still know far more than you’re letting yourself admit.”

“Like what?” She turned to face him, crossing her arms. “I’m serious. Tell me one useful thing we’ve learned.”

“I can name many, Miss Foster. And so can you. You’re simply overlooking them because you’re upset that you haven’t gotten the answers you want—and I understand that inclination. But you’re far too smart for such ill-reasoned logic. Which is why I brought you here, to make sure you’re seeing the bigger picture.”

He tapped another rhythm against the table, and the pins shifted, making new landmarks emerge among all the others: Gildingham, the goblins’ golden capital, which seemed to be tucked among the Andes Mountains—and probably inspired the human myths of El Dorado. Ravagog, the ogre stronghold on the Eventide River, which was apparently hidden in the lushest part of central Asia. Loamnore, a city Sophie assumed was the dwarven capital, since the enormous metropolis was under the Gobi desert rather than above it. And Marintrylla, an island near New Zealand that was probably the trollish capital and seemed to be an intricate network of caves and bridges.