“Loki,” Sophie repeated, tempted to roll her eyes. “You named yourself after the Nordic trickster god?”
“Actually, he was inspired by me. Do not credit me for the insane stories humans made up—especially that one about the stallion. But as I said, I’ve always been partial to that part of the world, and in my younger days I may have had a bit too much fun there. It was so easy to take on disguises and cause a little chaos. And over time my escapades morphed into the stories of a shape-shifting trickster god. So I thought it only fitting, as I assumed yet another disguise, that I accept the title officially as part of my new identity.”
“Guys, I think the Forkster just became my hero,” Keefe said. “And is anyone else wondering about the stallion?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Granite promised. “And getting back to relevant things, have you all ensured that your forms are accurate?”
“Mine is,” Biana said, handing hers back.
Sophie was about to do the same when she noticed a field her eyes had glossed over the first time. “What does ID mean?”
“That’s your inception date,” Mr. Forkle said. “The moment your life began.”
“But the date you put is months before my birthday.”
“Of course. Birth comes after inception.”
“Wait—I remember seeing something about this in one of those human movies my dad has,” Dex said. “Humans celebrate birthdays, right?”
“Most of them, yeah,” Sophie said, wishing her brain could work faster. She could tell there was something important she was missing, but she couldn’t seem to catch up to it.
And then it clicked.
“Wait—do elves count age from this ID thing?” she asked.
“Of course,” Mr. Forkle said. “The day you were born is simply the day you took your first breath—no more significant of a milestone than when you spoke your first word or took your first step. And don’t worry, despite your unusual beginning, I was very careful to ensure your inception wasn’t affected. There were only seconds between the moment I sparked your life and the moment I had you safely implanted in your mother. Her belly button even turned pink and popped out like it would’ve if she were an elf—I still can’t understand why it did.”
The important thought Sophie had caught nearly slipped away in the deluge of super-weird information.
“Okay,” she said, counting the months on her fingers to double check. “My ID and my birthday are nine months apart.”
“Technically, they’re thirty-nine weeks apart,” Mr. Forkle corrected. “It should’ve been forty, but your mother delivered a week early. I’d worried that meant something had gone wrong, but it was a flawless delivery, even if watching her fight through the labor pains made for one of the longest nights of my life. Honestly, it’s incredible human women ever choose to have children. The agony they go through is unimaginable.”
“It doesn’t hurt for elves?” Sophie asked.
“Not at all,” Della said. “It’s exhausting, of course, and there are a few moments where it’s difficult to find a comfortable position. But then they hand you your beautiful baby, and the baby gazes up at you and says hello, and your heart just melts.”
“It talks?” Sophie asked, then remembered Alden telling her months earlier that elvin babies spoke from birth. It sounded even stranger now that she could picture it.
“Your speaking caused quite the uproar,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though luckily no one could understand the Enlightened Language, so they thought you were babbling. I spent the majority of your infancy inventing excuses for the elvin things you did.”
“Okay,” Sophie said, wishing he’d stop with the weird-info overload. “But what I mean is . . . I’ve been counting my age from my birthday.”
Mr. Forkle didn’t look surprised.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“How could I? Humans built everything around their birthdays. As long as you were living with them I had to let you do the same. And since you’ve been in the Lost Cities, we’ve had so little contact. I assumed someone would notice, since your proper ID is on your Foxfire record—and in the registry. But I don’t think anyone realized you were counting differently.”
“Alden wouldn’t have thought to check,” Della agreed. “Neither of us knew humans didn’t count inception.”
“So wait,” Biana jumped in, “does that mean that by our rules Sophie is—”
“Thirty-nine weeks older than she’s been saying,” Mr. Forkle finished for her.
Fitz cocked his head as he stared at Sophie, like everything had turned sideways. “So then you’re not thirteen . . .”
“Not according to the way we count,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Going by Sophie’s ID, she’s fourteen and a little more than five months old.”
Keefe laughed. “Only Foster would find a way to age nine months in a day. Also, welcome to the cool fourteen-year-olds club!”
He held out his hand for a high five.