THIRTY-FOUR

THIS HAS EVERYTHING we know about the day Cyrah faded away,” Mr. Forkle said, holding up a golden orb the size of a gumball. “All the evidence we gathered suggested her death was nothing more than an unexpected tragedy.”

He spun the top and bottom in opposite directions until they clicked like a combination lock, then handed it to Dex.

Sophie and Fitz had brought everyone back to the boys’ old tree house to make sure their conversation wouldn’t disturb Wylie—and so Biana and Tam wouldn’t miss the update. Only Physic had stayed behind, wanting to run additional tests to triple-check that the pain they’d seen Wylie battling truly lived only in his memories.

“Do you always carry that with you?” Sophie asked Mr. Forkle, wondering how he fit so much in his pockets—and why she’d never noticed him carrying so many weird things before.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s similar to the Councillors’ caches, except it holds the things I need to remember, not the secrets I want to forget.”

“So then, there’s probably all kinds of info about Sophie on here, right?” Dex asked.

“There are files on all of you—and before anyone gets any ideas, let me assure you that I’m the only one capable of accessing that information. So can we focus on the fact that young Mr. Endal has given us an urgent project?”

“Right,” Dex said, squeezing the top and bottom of the sphere to make a hologram flash from the center.

Everyone scooted closer to squint at the projection, which started with a family picture.

Prentice looked like he’d been midlaugh, his eyes focused on his wife—whose auburn hair glowed wild and red where it caught the sun. Between them was the same six-year-old boy Sophie had spoken to in Wylie’s memories, and now she could see what an even mix he was of both of his parents. He had his mom’s smile and a dash of her creaminess to his skin, and his dad’s hair and eyes and nose.

“They were so happy,” she whispered.

“They were,” Tiergan said, wiping his eyes.

Dex twisted the gadget again, revealing a single document. “This isn’t much to go on.”

“I know,” Mr. Forkle said. “Cyrah was alone for her final leap. Wylie found her sometime after, and it was impossible to tell how long she’d been there. She was unconscious. Barely breathing. Wylie hailed Elwin for help, but the damage was beyond anyone’s skills. By the time Elwin called Alden to search Cyrah’s memories, her mind had grown too weak to recover anything. The last of her form faded not long after. All they could do was watch.”

Sophie blinked back tears as she imagined it.

In order to light leap, their bodies had to break down into particles small enough to be carried by the light. And the only way to re-form was to hold the pieces together, either with a bracelet-style gadget called a nexus—which all younger elves were required to wear until their mental strength reached a proven level—or with the power of their own concentration. If you lost too much of yourself . . .

There were worse ways to die, of course. In fact, out of all of Sophie’s brushes with death, fading had been the most pleasant. It started with shocking pain—but the agony soon eased, replaced with an irresistible rushing warmth that pulled like a gentle breeze, begging her to follow it to a world of shimmer and sparkle and color and freedom.

But it was a death all the same.

“Wylie tried to reach me after it happened,” Tiergan said, turning to stare out the windows. “He hailed me four times before he gave up and let Elwin hail Alden. Maybe if I’d answered, we could’ve recovered something from Cyrah’s mind.”

“Do we know where Cyrah leaped from?” Sophie asked.

“She told Wylie that she was going back to Mysterium—which matched what her registry pendant recorded,” Mr. Forkle said. “She went to take inventory of her stall.”

“Cyrah had a small sidewalk booth where she sold custom hair ribbons,” Tiergan explained. “It wasn’t as fancy as the boutique she’d had before Prentice was arrested. But very few nobles wanted to support the wife of a criminal, so she’d moved to a working-class city.”

“I went to that stall,” Biana said. “My dad took me when I was little—I still have the combs he bought. And I remember being surprised we went to Mysterium instead of Atlantis.”

“Alden was always trying to find small ways to assist Cyrah,” Tiergan muttered. “As if buying hair clips could make up for destroying her family!”

The words sliced through the room, too dull to draw any blood. But Fitz and Biana winced all the same.

“I’m sorry,” Tiergan told them. “I just hate having to think about this again. Wylie’s been through so much—and I keep trying to make it up to him. But no matter what I do . . .”

He pounded his fist against the window.

Sophie crossed the room and rested a hand on his arm. Tiergan wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person, but . . .

He placed his hand over hers.

She wished she could guarantee that everything would be okay—that they’d find a way to solve all of this. Instead she told him, “Wylie’s strong.”

“He is. He has to be. Just like you.” He squeezed her hand tighter before slowly pulling away. “I suppose the one small relief is that Prentice is unconscious through all of this.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Mr. Forkle said. “We cannot bring him back to a life where his son is in danger and his wife’s murder unsolved. He’d never survive it.”

“Am I the only one who doesn’t understand how murder by light leap is possible?” Tam asked. “An accident, I get. But aren’t we the ones in control of our consciousness?”

“That’s what I thought too,” Sophie admitted. “Otherwise, wouldn’t we wear nexuses our whole lives?”

“We remove our nexuses because technology should never replace the natural power of our mind,” Mr. Forkle told them. “And because we’re supposed to belong to a society where people would never violate the safety of another. But the sad truth is, if someone were to cause Cyrah severe pain right as she was leaping, it could’ve broken her concentration during the crucial transformation.”