“There will be no blasting!” Mr. Forkle told him. “And again, there is no ‘we.’ You kids are not a part of this. Go upstairs to your rooms. And you”—he wheeled on Calla—“need to explain yourself when we return.”
“I can explain on the way,” Calla said. “You’ll need me to bring you to Brackendale.”
“You can’t leap,” Sophie agreed. “He said something about sensors.”
Mr. Forkle sighed. “Then Amisi can—”
“She doesn’t know her way around as well as I do,” Calla interrupted. “And she doesn’t know where we were today. So you can take my help now and be angry with me later.”
“All of us should be going,” Keefe said.
“For the last time, Mr. Sencen, you are staying here!” Mr. Forkle snapped. “And I do not want to hear another word about it!”
“We’re wasting time fighting,” Sophie said, stepping between Mr. Forkle and Keefe. “Every second we delay gives the Neverseen time to prepare.”
“You will not change my mind,” Mr. Forkle added. “We’re going. You’re staying.”
“What if something happens to you?” Della asked the Collective.
“If we’re not back by sunrise, have Amisi alert our Proxies,” Granite told her.
Sophie waited for Mr. Forkle to assure her they didn’t need to worry.
Instead he said, “Upstairs. All of you!”
“Come on,” she told her friends, who looked just as nervous as she felt. “There’s something else we need to work on.”
“It better involve studying your lessons,” Mr. Forkle warned.
Sophie didn’t bother replying as she dragged Keefe toward the stairs. He fought her for a second, but eventually gave in.
No one looked at each other or spoke as they climbed to the tree houses. The only sound was the slow melody of Calla opening a new tunnel into the earth to bring the Collective to confront the Neverseen.
TWENTY
KEEFE GLOWERED AT the campfire in the boys’ common room, keeping his back turned to all of his friends. “I can’t believe you went to face the Neverseen without me!”
“And me,” Fitz added.
“And me,” Dex said.
Both boys had very noticeably chosen beanbag chairs as far from Sophie and Biana as the room allowed.
“We didn’t know that’s what we were doing,” Sophie said, holding out her arm so Della could smear ointment on a deep scratch. “Calla only told us there were weird whispers in the forest—and she needed us to leave right away.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Biana added, uncoiling the knot in her hair and looking way too good for someone who’d just survived a showdown with their enemy. “I’m pretty sure Calla only brought me because I happened to be there.”
“It’s a good thing you were,” Sophie told her. “You stopped me from making a ton of dangerous mistakes. And I never would’ve thought to throw my pendant at the force field.”
Warm spots colored Biana’s cheeks. “I just remembered what Fitz’s note had said about the smallest things being the most dangerous and I thought . . . why not?”
“Well, it was brilliant,” Sophie said. “You saved us.”
Biana smiled. “Anytime.”
Keefe ruined the moment by grumbling, “But you didn’t learn anything! You had the Neverseen right in front of you—you talked to him!”
“I know,” Sophie mumbled. “I tried to trick him into telling me something, but he was too smart. And when I tried to probe his mind, I couldn’t push through the force field.”
“I bet we could’ve done it together,” Fitz said.
“Maybe,” Sophie admitted. “I wish you could’ve been there.”
“Me too. Don’t run off like that again, okay?” he asked.
“I’ll try not to.” Sophie hoped his small smile meant she’d been forgiven.
“And we did learn something super important,” Biana added. “The Neverseen guy we met today went to Exillium.”
“Does that mean he’s the Boy Who Disappeared?” Fitz asked.
“It seems like it,” Sophie said. “And even if he isn’t, now we might have a way to find out who he is.”
“Already on it,” Dex said, running toward his bedroom. He raced back a minute later holding a Dexified Imparter, with wires jutting out the corners of the small silver square.
“I put all the stolen Exillium records on here,” he said, twisting the wires and tapping the screen. “We’re looking for Psionipaths, right?”
Sophie nodded. “There can’t be many of those, can there?”
“You’d be surprised,” Della said, treating a thin scratch on Biana’s cheek. “The talent can be unstable, like pyrokinesis. Not quite as dangerous, but it’s one of the most common abilities among the banished.”
“Well, we still know his age range and his special ability,” Sophie said. “That will have to narrow things down. And once we figure out who he is, we’ll work on finding him—assuming the Black Swan hasn’t caught him already.”
Dex frowned. “Looks like there’s eight guys with that ability who were at Exillium at the right time. And none of them ever made it back to the Lost Cities.”