“You guys are lame,” Fitz said as he trailed behind them up the stairs.
“Are you sure it’s smart to leave the boys alone?” Biana asked as she followed Sophie and Della to their tree house.
“?‘Smart’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Della admitted. “But we’ll sleep better than they will.”
The gnomes had been busy while they were gone, hanging glass orbs filled with swirling flashes of color all over their tree house. The effect was breathtaking, even if it also made Sophie squirmy when she realized the dots of light were some sort of iridescent flying bug.
Della’s bedroom had also been finished, and it looked like a presidential suite, complete with a private bathroom and a closet full of radiant gowns.
Sophie and Biana had new clothes too, and this time there were pants! Also: the world’s weirdest pajamas. Sophie had no idea why the Black Swan would choose a purple furry onesie—with feet. It was quite comfy when she put it on, but she was glad her windows had thick drapes so no one could see her padding around her room.
Next she needed to find a place to hide Kenric’s cache, but her options were limited. Her desk only had one drawer, and her canopied bed sat on an elevated platform with no space underneath. Her best choice was to tuck it into a hidden pocket in the strap of her purple backpack. The cache barely fit, but the lump wasn’t noticeable, and she slipped the Imparter into another pocket and dumped out everything else.
Her eyes welled with tears when she found Grady and Edaline’s note. They’d tied it to Ella, the bright blue stuffed elephant she couldn’t sleep without:
We will never be more than a few words away.
~Love, Mom & Dad
Sophie wasn’t sure what they meant, until she noticed the silver box they’d included. Inside was the teal memory log Alden had given her to record all of her dreams and triggered memories. And her illegal, unregistered Spyball from the Black Swan.
Her hands shook as she picked up the palm-size silver sphere and whispered, “Show me Grady and Edaline Ruewen.”
The Spyball turned warm, and a bright flash filled the orb, painting the sphere with an image of her adoptive parents. They sat with Alden in his curved office with sleek glass walls. Half the room was made of windows overlooking the lake, and the other half was a vibrant aquarium. Sophie knew the room all too well. She’d been in it often—usually when Alden needed to have an unpleasant conversation.
But Grady and Edaline didn’t look upset. In fact, all three of them were reading long yellowed scrolls. More scrolls were piled on the desk, the floor—every flat surface in the room. Sophie couldn’t tell what they were working on, but it looked important.
“Stay safe,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over their faces.
She watched for several minutes more, wishing one of them would look up. When they didn’t, she let the image blink away. She realized then, with a twinge of guilt, that she hadn’t checked on her human family in weeks—maybe even months. She’d been so distracted by all the huge problems she’d been facing, she’d . . . forgotten.
“Show me Connor, Kate, and Natalie Freeman,” she told the Spyball, using the names she wasn’t supposed to know. The elves had changed her family’s identities after they’d erased Sophie from their lives, fearing she might try to contact them. Being erased had been Sophie’s choice—her final gift to spare her family a lifetime of grieving a missing child. The only reason she knew who they were was because the Black Swan gave her the top-secret information.
The Spyball turned warm again, and when the image appeared it showed three different scenes. It must’ve been daytime where her family lived, because her dad was sitting at a desk in a windowed office, her mom was driving somewhere, and her sister was doodling on her notebook in a classroom. The normal, everyday moments looked so foreign compared to the things Sophie was now used to seeing.
“Is that your family?” a soft voice asked, and Sophie dropped the Spyball.
It rolled across the floor, stopping at Calla’s feet.
“Sorry,” the tiny gnome said, retrieving the Spyball and frowning at the images. “Everything looks so gray in their world.”
“Humans don’t have a lot of green in their cities,” Sophie agreed.
“Such a pity.” Calla handed back the gadget. “Plants are the best for soothing. In fact”—she hummed a song under her breath, and the vine growing over Sophie’s canopied bed bloomed with deep purple flowers—“I know you struggle with nightmares,” she told Sophie, “so I planted these reveriebells to give you sweet dreams. The secret is in their scent.”
Sophie closed her eyes and inhaled. The smell reminded her of gardenias, with a hint of vanilla, and something spicier too. Maybe ginger?
She could feel it settle into her muscles, making her shoulders relax.