“That’ll take forever,” Dex warned.

“It will,” Fitz agreed. “But it’s better than nothing. And he could start with the Lodestar mirror, since I still think that’s a weird coincidence.”

“It’s worth a try,” Sophie decided. “And Fintan will probably be impressed when Keefe pretends he figured all of this out.”

“And you can ask Gethen about it,” Fitz added. “I still can’t believe you’re doing that without me—what’s the point of being Cognates if they don’t let us work together?”

“It’s almost as ridiculous as assigning her a bodyguard and then not allowing him to accompany her on dangerous missions,” Sandor shouted from the hallway.

“I’ll be fine,” Sophie told both of them. “I’ve handled Gethen before.”

She was more worried about the fact that they were only giving her fifteen minutes. In that short time, she’d be lucky if she coaxed one piece of information out of him.

“What’s the most important question,” she said, “out of all of our questions?”

“What do you mean?” Fitz asked.

“I mean, what’s the one thing we absolutely have to know—more than anything else? I’m trying to figure out what I need to focus on during the conversation.”

The last time, they’d needed to learn anything they could about the gnomish plague and what might’ve happened to Keefe’s mother. But this time the threat came in so many fragments and pieces and mysteries.

Should she ask what the Neverseen wanted with Grady and Edaline? Or about Keefe’s legacy and the mysterious door into the mountain? Or should she try to get specifics about the Lodestar Initiative, and what it had to do with “test subjects” and “criterion” and Keefe’s theory about a “gathering.”

All of those were crucial—but were they crucial enough to be her one play in this crazy, confusing game?

The more her mind tossed the question around, the more she realized the Neverseen had tipped their hand. It didn’t matter what she thought was important. It mattered what they cared about—what they’d wanted so desperately that they’d taken a tremendous risk.

Which meant she needed to ask Gethen what the Neverseen wanted from Wylie.

FIFTY-FOUR

THE TRICK WITH Gethen is to make him think we’re interested in one thing, so he doesn’t have his guard up around the stuff we really need,” Sophie told Fitz as they both stared at the page she’d not-so-creatively titled: Plan for Tricking Gethen.

The rest of the paper was blank.

And had been blank for days.

Sophie was starting to worry it would be blank for the rest of eternity.

Six days had already passed since Councillor Oralie told her they’d be visiting Lumenaria—and since the meeting was still scheduled for Friday, that meant they only had two days left to figure it out.

The most logical option—in Sophie’s opinion—was for everyone to stop babying her and let her use her genetically enhanced telepathy. But the suggestion had been unanimously voted as the Worst Idea in the History of Bad Ideas. No one was willing to give the Neverseen’s only Telepath a chance to mess with Sophie’s head. So Mr. Forkle would be doing all the dangerous mental searching, and Sophie would once again be relegated to the role of “distractor.”

“This isn’t going to work,” she mumbled, leaning back against the side of her bed. Her legs were going numb after so many hours of sitting on the floor, attempting to brainstorm ideas with Fitz. “Keefe and I were the distraction last time, so Gethen will be ready for that play—especially since he knows everyone’s super overprotective of me.”

“Then make the distraction so big he can’t ignore it,” Fitz said.

“Okay, but how?”

Annnnnnnd . . . they were back to where they’d been stuck for the last six days.

Overall, their group had made almost zero progress.

Keefe’s updates had morphed into super-short answers before he’d tell her “gotta go—try not to worry” and turn his attention away. He had managed to tell Sophie that Fintan gave him an important assignment as a reward for solving the symbol’s riddle—but everything after that had been “yes,” “no,” and “relax, Foster.”

Dex, meanwhile, had made several attempts to build a version of the Neverseen’s gadget. But so far, all he’d done was burn a hole in the floor of his bedroom. And Tam’s search for a shadowprint of the symbol at the Silver Tower was going sloooooooooooowly. The Lodestar mirror had nothing significant, so now he was stuck going room by room by room.

Linh chose to spend her days at Alluveterre with Wylie. He’d woken up when Maruca and her mom visited, but hadn’t talked to anyone since. The only things he responded to were Linh’s Hydrokinetic tricks. She’d even earned half a smile when she’d shaped the water into a graceful dancer and let it splash and twirl all over the room. But it wasn’t enough to stop everyone from worrying about Wylie’s sanity.

And Biana might’ve chosen the most impossible project of all, deciding it was time to fix their friendship with Marella—even though she knew Marella would be suspicious of her motives. So far, the only words Marella had said to her were, “I liked it better when you guys had forgotten about me.”

Even their latest skill lesson with the Exillium Coaches had been more exhausting than educational. They were supposed to channel their energy into the ground and cause a tremor. But Sophie was the only one in her Hemisphere who’d pulled it off—and her mighty earthquake had lasted two whole seconds. The feat seemed especially embarrassing when she compared it to the way the dwarves could crack the earth with a single stomp of their hairy feet. And it made Sophie wonder if the whole skill-training program was going to be a waste. Maybe over time the elves would learn to impress. But at the rate they were going, it would take years.

Even the Coaches seemed disheartened. Coach Rohana had told Sophie, “Half the battle is getting the mind to commit—but everyone still thinks these skills are ‘common’ and would rather go back to training in their abilities.”

At least Grady and Edaline had found a useful way to spend their days. They’d arranged regular meetings with Lady Cadence to learn as much as they could about the ogres before the Peace Summit. Their conversations usually focused on the complicated politics between the species. But when Sophie and Fitz headed downstairs for a snack, they found the adults in an intense discussion on how best to manage King Dimitar’s temper.