And as they leaped home—with thirty seconds to spare—she couldn’t believe how easy it had been.

Maybe Dex was onto something with the whole “spontaneity” thing.

But she should’ve known that the universe would never let her day end with something so easy.

Mr. Forkle was waiting for her in the Havenfield pastures—along with Grady and Edaline—and the dented line in the grass made it clear that all three of them had been pacing.

“What’s wrong?” Sophie asked, dropping her bag of biscuits.

“Nothing,” Mr. Forkle told her, shuffling forward and retrieving her snacks with his ruckleberry-swollen hands.

“Then why are you here?” she countered, glancing over his shoulder at Grady and Edaline, who looked… tired.

Or maybe “wary” was a better word.

Mr. Forkle handed Dex her bag and turned to pace again, his bloated legs moving slower than usual.

Sophie assumed he was about to demand a lot of information about why they’d been in London. Instead, he told her, “I’m here because I never anticipated the Council’s decision to appoint you as a Regent. And as far as I know, my brother didn’t either. It makes me wish he were here, so we could talk through the implications together. But that… is not possible.” He cleared his throat. “So it seems the best option is to allow you to make your own decision, even though it will be no simple choice.”

“What decision?” Sophie asked, jumping when Dex hooked his arm around hers.

She hadn’t noticed how unsteady her legs felt until she had someone to keep her better balanced.

“It’s multifaceted,” Mr. Forkle told her, “so I think it might be best to take you somewhere that will help the advantages and consequences feel far more real than they ever will standing here, surrounded by sunshine and grazing animals.”

“Sunset,” Grady corrected.

“Grady’s right,” Edaline said. “If this is going to be a long, drawn-out process, don’t you think it would be best to wait until the morning?”

“I wondered the same thing before I made my way over,” Mr. Forkle admitted. “But… I fear I may have already waited too long.”

He turned to Sophie, offering her his right hand as his left hand held a crystal up to the light.

A blue crystal.

The kind that only led to the Forbidden Cities.

“Come with me, Miss Foster, if you think you might be ready,” he said quietly.

“Ready for what?” Sophie asked as Sandor jumped in front of her and Dex tightened his hold on her arm.

“You may come with us,” Mr. Forkle told Sandor, shuffling around him with an unexpected amount of agility. “You may not, Mr. Dizznee. This is a moment best kept between Miss Foster and me.”

Dex raised his eyebrows at Sophie, clearly not sure if she wanted him to let go.

Sophie felt just as uncertain, since that meant it probably had nothing to do with where they’d just been.

“Ready for what?” she repeated.

Mr. Forkle stepped closer, offering his hand again. His eyes had never looked more ancient—or more desperate for her to listen to him—as he said, “Ready to face the truth behind one of your powers.”

FIFTEEN

SOPHIE RECOGNIZED THE ELEGANT TUDOR manor with cut-glass windows and its vibrant green lawn even before the world had fully glittered back into focus. And the realization of where she was made her smile and feel like she’d had her legs kicked out from underneath her at the same time.

“This is my human family’s house,” she whispered, needing to say it out loud to make her brain accept it.

As that reality sank in, so did the icy panic. “Are they in danger?”

“They’re perfectly safe,” Mr. Forkle assured her, tightening his grip on her hand to stop her from sprinting up the driveway and tearing open the front door.

Sandor drew his sword anyway, sniffing the air as he scanned every tree, shrub, and shadow.

“You can relax,” Mr. Forkle told him. “I’ve taken numerous precautions to ensure that our visit today poses no risk to Miss Foster’s family—or to ourselves. Including bringing one of these.” He removed an obscurer from his pocket. “What would the neighbors think if they saw a goblin warrior waving around a sword?” His smile faded as his eyes shifted back to Sophie. “After what happened with Vespera at Nightfall, I’ve made it a habit to check on your family every single day. Most of the time I simply observe them through a Spyball. But occasionally I’ll hail your sister to ask a few questions or—”

“You do?” Sophie had to interrupt.

She couldn’t decide if she was touched, nervous, or really, really jealous when he nodded.

“It’s the best way to assess their situation,” Mr. Forkle explained. “Though sometimes I’ll also leap here to walk the grounds and search for signs of trouble—which I’ve never found any trace of, by the way. And none of that has anything to do with why I’ve brought you here. I simply wanted you to know that your human family is being thoroughly monitored and protected.” His forehead creased with a much deeper kind of wrinkle than the lines caused by the ruckleberries. “I’m the one who dragged them into all of this without their knowledge or permission, so you have my word that I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that nothing bad will ever happen to them again.”

“Then why are we here?” Sophie asked.

Mr. Forkle turned his face toward the sun, which Sophie realized was still several hours away from setting.

Her brain had started to calculate what that meant as far as the relative time zones between where she lived at Havenfield and where they were—until he told her, “I brought you here to give you your missing memory back.”

Sophie froze as something dark and buried—but never gone—stirred deep inside of her, and a pair of terrified green eyes flashed through her mind, along with a piercing scream.

Sophie, please—stop!

She stumbled back, crashing into a wall that was both lumpy and solid and somehow moving, not realizing it was Sandor until he spun her around, taking her shoulders and shaking her gently.

“Do you need us to get you back to Flori?” he asked, his voice even squeakier from the worry. “You’ve gone pale, like you do whenever the echoes are stirring.”

“No,” Sophie said, refusing to give the darkness that kind of control again.

She closed her eyes, imagining her mental strength as a glowing sphere, letting it grow bigger and bigger and bigger until she could shape it into something more useful. She chose a giant cartoon-size mallet, then pictured it pounding at the threads of black that were curling into a much-too-familiar clawed shape—Bang! Bang! Bang!—until the darkness was nothing more than a smear of shadow.

She washed away the last of the black by replaying her happiest memories.

Silveny nuzzling her tiny babies after they’d safely emerged from the makeshift hive.

Fitz twirling her around in his arms.

Dex hugging her without any awkwardness.

Keefe clinging to her hand, like she was the only thing holding him together.

Grady and Edaline telling her they loved her.