“Okaaaaaaay,” she said, trying not to drown in that deluge of information. She had a feeling she’d be wading through it for weeks and weeks to come. But at the moment she had one very important question. “Why would resetting the ability again change anything? We already know it didn’t help—”

“It’s not an exact science,” Mr. Forkle interrupted. “Nor does the limbium affect everything evenly. I was so focused on your telepathy that day—and the gaps in your mental blocking—that I didn’t give your inflicting the care that it needed. I also failed to realize that your inflicting was working incorrectly even before you faded, and therefore needed a much more fundamental adjustment. This time the ability would be my entire focus, and I’d target it differently.”

“But you still can’t guarantee that it will work, right?” Sophie pressed.

“There are no guarantees with any of this,” Mr. Forkle reminded her. “It’s all theoretical until we implement the treatments and see what happens.”

“Great. So… basically, you’re asking me to trust you with my life—again—while also admitting that you don’t actually know what you’re doing,” Sophie had to point out. “Awesome.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but—”

“Good, because it’s true!” Sophie jumped in. “I’m pretty sure I’d be better off—”

Her snarky comment was interrupted by a soft moan from her sister, who uncurled her legs and rolled onto her back.

“Amy?” Sophie asked, cringing as her sister opened her eyes and Sophie saw how red and puffy they looked.

Amy’s voice sounded like bits of crumbling gravel as she whispered, “Sophie? You’re still here?”

“Of course I am. Where else would I be?” She offered Amy the bottle of Youth that Mr. Forkle had just handed her and helped Amy sit up for a drink.

“I don’t know,” Amy admitted after downing half the bottle. “I guess I thought…” She looked away, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Those things I said to you—”

“I don’t even remember them,” Sophie assured her. “Seriously. In the memory it was just a bunch of noise. I couldn’t separate out the words—and I don’t want to know,” she added when Amy opened her mouth, like she was going to repeat everything. “Whatever you said doesn’t matter—unless you need to talk about it,” she added, remembering her earlier vow.

Amy pulled her knees into her chest, wrapping her shaky arms around them. “I’m just so sorry, Sophie. I can’t believe what a brat I was.”

“Um, you were six,” Sophie reminded her. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s a brat when they’re six.”

“Yeah, well that still doesn’t excuse what I said,” Amy mumbled.

“And what you said doesn’t justify my reaction,” Sophie argued. “Nothing justifies what I did to you.”

“It’s not what you did,” Mr. Forkle corrected. “It’s what happened. You need to start making that distinction. Inflicting is an incredibly volatile ability. And it manifested for you very young and very suddenly, in the midst of a situation where tempers were already running too high—and you had no knowledge of what was happening to you. Anyone would’ve lost control under those circumstances.”

“I guess you would know,” Sophie noted, finally calling out the huge revelation she didn’t know what to do with.

Honestly, she didn’t want to know what to do with it, because it was surely going to lead to other conversations she didn’t have the energy for.

But she had to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re an Inflictor?”

Amy and Sandor both drew in sharp breaths.

“I’m not,” Mr. Forkle said quietly as he stood and paced to the other side of the room.

“I know what I felt,” Sophie argued. “Inflicting’s the only way you could’ve flooded my mind with emotions like that.”

“It is,” Mr. Forkle agreed, squinting at Amy’s photographs.

“It wasn’t regular inflicting either,” Sophie pressed. “You sent me positive emotions. Even Bronte can’t do that.”

She winced at the name, deciding to save the questions that went with it for later.

“That doesn’t make me an Inflictor,” Mr. Forkle insisted.

“I’m fairly certain that it does,” Sandor noted.

“Yeah, isn’t that how talents work for you guys?” Amy asked. “If you can do the thing, that means you have the ability? If you can’t, you don’t?”

“Not in this case.” Mr. Forkle turned to the room’s largest window, parting the curtains and scanning the yard. “All I have is a handful of dormant Inflictor genes, which I wasn’t ever supposed to be able to use. They were simply part of a test.”

“A test,” Sophie repeated, not sure why the word made her stomach feel so squirmy until she realized, “You’re talking about Project Moonlark.”

“I am.” Mr. Forkle turned back to face her. “Despite our abundance of research, much of our genetic work was purely theoretical—and I wasn’t about to implement those theories on an innocent child and risk that something could go seriously wrong—even with the flexibility we were designing. Every tweak planned for your genes had to be properly vetted before I allowed it to be added to your genetic code. And since I wasn’t willing to risk anyone else’s safety, it meant playing the role of test subject myself. My brother and I split it up—he tested your Polyglot genes and I tested your inflicting. That way we could examine the effects in isolation.”

“What about her teleporting?” Amy asked. “And that other one—what’s it called again?”

“Enhancing,” Mr. Forkle said, beating Sophie to it. “Both of those abilities were ‘unplanned side effects’ of our other genetic modifications, so we weren’t aware that we needed to test them. In fact, we didn’t know about the teleporting until Miss Foster discovered it while trying to escape the Neverseen’s attempt to capture Silveny. And the enhancing I discovered during this incident.”

“Because it triggered the same time as my inflicting,” Sophie guessed.

Mr. Forkle’s smile was equal parts impressed and reserved. “I’d wondered if you would notice that part of the memory, with all the other chaos happening.”

“I did,” Sophie told him. “And I’m assuming it had something to do with your inflicting, since you were only able to do that after you touched my hands.”

“That’s my assumption as well—and it was definitely a surprise, in case you’re wondering, as well as a true testament to the strength of your enhancing ability, considering the ridiculously insignificant amount of Inflictor DNA that’s a part of me.” He lifted the hem of his tunic to reveal a palm-size round blotch on his hip where the skin was so pale, it almost looked translucent. And when the light hit the patch, his skin shimmered with tiny flashes in every color of the spectrum.

Amy gasped. “Did that hurt?”