She was determined to avoid clarifying the situation for as long as she possibly could.

“You didn’t answer Grady’s question about how it went with Mr. Forkle,” Edaline reminded her.

Sophie shrugged. “It was Mr. Forkle. How do you think it went?”

Grady grinned. “That bad, huh?”

“Pretty much.” She told them about the weird egg-shaped office, the 3-D map of the Lost Cities, and Mr. Forkle’s theory about the dwarves being the Neverseen’s next target—but couldn’t bring herself to repeat his fears about Tam. She also decided not to mention the fact that she and her friends might be attacked much more personally.

“That’s more information than he usually gives you,” Edaline noted when Sophie had finished.

“I know. But… it still feels like we’ve narrowed it down from a million possibilities to a thousand—and that’s assuming Mr. Forkle’s even right.”

“I think he is,” Grady said, his gaze focusing on some invisible point in the distance. “It would explain some of the things I’ve been looking into with the dwarves.”

“What things?” Sophie asked, glancing at Edaline, who looked equally curious.

Grady blew out a breath, knocking a few strands of his blond hair off of his forehead. “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to share. My assignments were classified—and I’m not saying I won’t tell you, so no need to give me that look, kiddo. I just think I should speak with the Council first, to save us a whole lot of drama. I’ll head to Eternalia as soon as I make sure Wynn can’t become a gorgodon snack.”

Wynn nickered in protest.

“The gnomes and I can finish up without you,” Edaline offered, reaching for his bundle of glowing wire.

Grady pivoted away. “This is much heavier than it looks.”

“So?”

When he still wouldn’t hand it to her, Edaline snapped her fingers, making the spool disappear. Edaline was a Conjurer, so she could pull things back and forth through the void—or hide something in the nothingness and drag it back when she needed it.

A second snap did the same to the sack she’d had over her shoulder.

“Should’ve thought of that earlier,” Edaline said, smoothing her amber-colored hair. “Sometimes I forget that I don’t have to do things the way you do.”

Sophie occasionally had the same problem. It didn’t always feel natural to rely on her abilities—and she was even worse at remembering to use any of her elvin skills. Things like telekinesis, levitating, channeling, darkness vision, breath control, and body temperature regulation were all feats that every single elf was capable of achieving. But their world put so much emphasis on special abilities that people rarely used their skills—or even thought about them—and that was turning out to be a dangerous mistake. Particularly since the Neverseen made their members train in their skills every day.

Fitz and Biana’s traitorous older brother, Alvar, had even used breath control and body temperature regulation to cheat death in the troll hive at Everglen. And Sophie was dreading the day she’d have to face him again. She hadn’t trusted Alvar, but… she hadn’t been as suspicious of him as she should’ve been either. So she’d stopped Fitz from knocking Alvar unconscious when Alvar started acting strange on the night of the Celestial Festival.

A tiny part of her wasn’t sure if Fitz had truly forgiven her for that mistake—and she wouldn’t blame him if he hadn’t. Alvar had been the one to let the Neverseen in through Everglen’s gates and brought them to the illegal troll hive. He’d claimed he was trying to expose the “Vacker legacy,” but Sophie still didn’t understand exactly what that meant. It felt like there was still some larger revelation coming—and knowing Alvar, it wasn’t going to be good news.

“Go shower and change,” Edaline told Grady, brushing green Verdi feathers off of his black tunic. “You can’t meet with the Council smelling like a wet dinosaur.”

“See, and I think that’ll make it more fun,” Grady countered. But he headed toward their shimmering glass-and-gold manor without further protest.

“And you should tell your friends to come over,” Edaline said to Sophie. “That way they’re here when Grady gets home and fills you in on what he’s been working on.”

“Yeah, that’d probably save some time,” Sophie agreed.

Her voice was a touch too high-pitched, though, and Edaline’s eyes narrowed again. “You haven’t had anyone over in more than a week…,” she said slowly.

“I haven’t?” Sophie asked, trying Keefe’s trick of answering questions with questions.

It didn’t work.

“Nope. Not since we came home from Atlantis.” Edaline added an eyebrow raise to hint at the part she wasn’t saying.

Sophie focused on stroking Wynn’s velvet-soft nose.

“I thought you would’ve at least wanted to spend a little time with Fitz,” Edaline pressed. “The last time he was here—”

“I know,” Sophie interrupted, trying not to think about how tightly Fitz had held her as he’d spun her around to celebrate the safe arrival of Wynn and Luna.

She knew she couldn’t hide her “unmatchable” status forever—especially since she and Fitz were Cognates, and the rare telepathic connection required absolute honesty in order to work most effectively. But… she’d been trying to hold off on telling him until she had an actual solution to share. And she’d wasted too much time counting on Mr. Forkle, so now she needed to come up with a plan for finding out who her genetic parents were—fast.

And sadly, she didn’t have much to go on. The only clues Mr. Forkle had given her over the years were that her genetic parents had no connection to each other, and hadn’t been told who the other was—which meant she’d have to look for them individually, instead of searching for a couple. He’d also sworn that he wasn’t her genetic father, since there’d been a time when she’d wondered. And he’d ruled out the two other theories she’d come up with: Grady and Edaline’s daughter, Jolie, and Councillor Kenric.

Of course, that was assuming he’d actually told her the truth about any of that, which was a fifty-fifty bet.

And even without all the matchmaking misery, she honestly wasn’t sure how to act around Fitz. They weren’t dating—but they weren’t not dating either. Some of their friends knew. Some suspected. And at least one might not be very excited when he found out for sure.

Basically, everything was a mess, and the whole “romance” thing was turning out to be way less awesome than it had looked in human TV shows and movies.

Edaline sighed. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on. I know there’s something.”

“I can tell you,” Bo offered, reminding Sophie why he was her least favorite bodyguard.

“No, you can’t,” Sandor snapped. “Our ability to protect Miss Foster would be severely hindered if she felt she couldn’t speak freely around us.”

“Does that mean all three of you know what she’s not saying?” Edaline asked Sandor, Bo, and Flori.