Inflictors were only supposed to be able to inflict negative emotions, but thanks to Sophie’s alicorn-inspired DNA, she could trigger positive emotions as well. She closed her eyes and replayed a bunch of memories that made her feel happy and calm, letting the feelings gather in her heart until it felt like her chest would burst. Then she shoved the heat away, sending it shooting across the water. She couldn’t tell if it was working, but the Hydrokinetic stayed quiet, so she kept sending additional waves.
She was so focused on her inflicting that she forgot about everything else. It wasn’t until two hands pulled her out of the lake that she realized she hadn’t been breathing.
“It appears we have a new record!” her purple Coach announced. “Forty-six minutes.”
“Forty-six?” Sophie gasped for breath, wincing at the burn in her lungs.
Her Coach helped her wade back to shore and gave her a fraying gray towel to dry off. “Take one hundred deep breaths and your head will clear.”
Around breath seventy-three, a shadow slid across hers and the Shade’s voice filled her mind. “You want to know what we know?”
Of course, she transmitted.
“Okay.” She waited for him to say something, but he turned and walked away.
After they’d gotten their beads and changed into their regular uniforms, though, he slunk up beside her and whispered, “Now or never.”
The Hydrokinetic girl held a scratched yellow crystal up to the sunlight, and Sophie tried to think through the risks as she reached for the Shade’s offered hand.
I’ll be back soon, she transmitted to Fitz.
The light pulled her away before he could respond.
FIFTY
THE LEAP FELT shakier than normal, or maybe that was Sophie. She couldn’t believe she’d left Exillium with two strangers—without even asking where she was going.
They’d leaped to a place that had probably once been a beautiful garden. But now the cascading vines and enormous trees looked withered and crunchy and speckled with plague.
“Where are we?” Sophie asked.
“Introductions first,” the Shade said, throwing back his hood and tearing off his mask.
The Hydrokinetic girl did the same, and Sophie was stunned by the similarities between them. They both had the same pink lips and creamy complexion. But the biggest similarity was their eyes—the palest of pale blue, with flecks of silver glinting in the sunlight. Touches of silver in their hair enhanced the effect. The girl’s waist-length jet-black hair looked like the ends had been dipped in platinum, and the tips of the boy’s jagged bangs glinted every time he tossed them out of his eyes.
Together they looked like K-pop idols, or like they’d stepped straight out of anime. But Sophie realized the more logical option was, “You’re brother and sister.”
“Twins,” the Shade corrected. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Why would it . . . ,” Sophie started to ask, then remembered how rare multiple births were in the Lost Cities—and how judgmental most elves were when it happened. “Of course not,” she promised. “I know what it’s like to be different.”
She threw back her hood and pulled off her mask, not missing the way they gawked at her eyes.
The Shade glanced at his sister before he said, “I’m Tam, and this is Linh.”
Sophie smiled. “I’m Sophie.”
“That’s a human name,” Tam said.
“It is.” Sophie realized then that Tam and Linh wouldn’t have heard any of the gossip about her. Judging by the length of their necklaces—long enough to wrap around their necks four times—they’d been at Exillium way before her arrival to the Lost Cities. In fact, she doubted they knew about anything that had happened over the last year, except whatever they’d seen in the Neutral Territories.
“So where are we?” she asked again.
“Home sweet home.” Tam kicked a piece of rotted, speckled fruit.
“It used to be beautiful,” Linh said. “We used to feel so lucky to have found it. But that was before the gnomes fell ill.”
“Wait,” Sophie said, climbing on a fallen trunk to get a better view. Farther down the weed-lined path she spotted a grove of black, collapsing trees with colored pieces of wood in their trunks, like doors. “Was this the Wildwood Colony?”
Linh nodded. “They used to bring us dinner every night, and I loved falling asleep to their songs.” She brushed aside a blackened vine as she whispered, “Do you know what’s happened to them?”
“Only that they’re in quarantine—and that they’re all still alive,” Sophie added to reassure her. “But wait . . . you’re the teenagers who made the footprints they found?”
“Who are they?” Tam demanded.
Sophie stumbled back a step as she told him, “The Council investigated after the colonists arrived at Lumenaria.”
The twins might look similar, but their personalities were opposites. Linh was a baby bird. Tam was a stalking tiger.
“I wouldn’t call it an investigation.” Tam snorted. “They didn’t seem to care. They were here for five whole minutes, scraped some bark and gathered a few leaves. They didn’t even ask us about the lights.” He pointed to the speckled forest in the distance. “We’d been seeing white flashes for weeks before the plague hit. We tried to find what was causing them, but it was coming from somewhere across the ogres’ borders.”