𝓟𝐫𝗼𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝓢𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐞

Chapter #1 - Sophie

Chapter #1 - Sophie

"Sorry Blondie, but it's not my secret to share."

Sophie scowled. "So you do know more than you're letting on?"

Ro fake-zipped her bright red lips and tapped Sophie's nose. "Ooh, Blondie, you can be feisty. It's actually kind of adorable. Isn't that right, Captain Perfectpants?"

Fitz just narrowed his eyes. "Stop stalling. We need to know. Where is Keefe, and what did his mom do to him that made him leave?"

"If you really want to know..." Ro sighed, which gave Sophie hope. But then the ogre princess added, "Honestly. I don't know much more than what's in the letter."

Emphasis on much, Sophie thought.

Earlier that day, Sophie had been talking to Mr. Forkle in Solreef about "The Great Storehouse Burning"—as it had been dubbed—explaining what happened in immense detail. The conversation had been... empowering. It had felt so good to tell him about taking all the stuff from the storehouse. About setting the Archetype aflame. About drawing the moonlark symbol.

About watching it burn.

But then she leaped home.

When she saw Iggy's new mermaid-blue-with-tiger-stripes style, she'd assumed Dex had come. But then she saw a slip of paper, sitting right next to his cage. The letter that changed everything.

Keefe had run away.

"I'm going to be hiding the same way The Black Swan hid you."

Keefe had run away to the Forbidden Cities.

"Love, Keefe."

Tears streaked down Sophie's cheeks.

When Sandor saw Sophie's distressed state, he had rushed to make sure she was okay.

"Miss Foster? Sophie? Are you okay?" She handed him the letter, whole body trembling. By the end, Sandor's gray skin had turned very, very pale.

"That's..." He couldn't find words. "I'm sorry."

She didn't listen. The tears burned worse than the acidic fruits they sometimes served at Foxfire. Much, much worse.

Sophie knew Keefe had run away before—back when he had foolishly joined the Neverseen. But this time... this time was different.

Back then, he was running away to find solutions. This time, he ran to escape a problem. Back then, he promised he'd come back. This time, he said precisely the opposite. Back then, he asked Sophie not to hate him. This time...

"And I'm not going to ask you not to hate me. In fact, it's probably better if you do."

This time it was bigger.

Scarier.

There was barely any hope.

Barely.

But then Sophie thought back to Exillium training and how night vision worked. Even in the darkest of rooms, there was always a bit of light. A glimmer of hope. You just had to focus on it. Let your mind amplify it.

And that's exactly what Sophie was going to do.

Because the Neverseen may be smart, devious, powerful, and just straight up evil, but none of those things was their greatest asset. Their greatest asset was fear. They manipulated everyone—Sophie, her friends, The Black Swan—by taking advantage of their fear.

Well too bad, because Sophie was going to turn on her night vision and take a stand.

Take a stand, Sophie reminded herself as she let the light sweep her away. To Splendor Plains.

***

Back in the present, Sophie was completely grilling Ro.

She looked back and forth between the rebellious ogre and the letter. Back and forth. Ro and the letter.

"What. Do. You. KNOW?!"

Ro finally put her hands up in surrender. Her pinky finger probably had more muscles than Sophie's entire body.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you what I know to spare the Blondie theatrics. Our little moonlark is cute when she's angry, isn't she?" She turned towards the side where Keefe would usually be, but her smirk seemed to falter when she remembered he was gone. Or maybe Sophie was just imagining it.

"Basically, when Hunkyhair was talking on the imparter with Techy Boy—what was his name? Deck?"

"Dex," Sophie corrected. Her memory immediately went to the day she introduced Dex and Fitz to each other, only for Fitz to mispronounce his name as "Deck." Times had changed since then, that's for sure.

"Well, when Hunkyhair and Dexy were talking on the imparter—which has way too many sparkles, by the way—they realized Keefe's new ability was something big. Like, bigger than what you already know. I don't know the details, since SparkleDoctor didn't let me stay in the room." It took Sophie a moment to realize she was talking about Elwin.

"All I know is, it caused Hunkyhair to come up with these nightmare scenarios involving his mommy using his powers to destroy elf-y land. I thought he was overreacting, but then he used that creepy numb power on me before I could stop him with some toxic microbes. Did you hear that? Hunkyhair left BEFORE I could feed him any microbes! It's outrageous!"

"You know," said Fitz, "You don't have to call him that. Hunkyhair, I mean. Keefe isn't here, so it doesn't matter if you follow the bet." His accented voice choked up on the last sentence.

Sophie hadn't intended for Fitz to be there at her Ro interrogation. She hadn't meant to tell any of her friends about the letter yet, actually—because as soon as she told them, it would be real. But Fitz, as well as Biana, were already there at Splendor Plains. Apparently, Elwin and a few others were already aware of Keefe's "missing" status and were considering relocating Ro at Everglen for now.

As soon as they heard the news, Fitz and Biana had rushed over—clearly with the same intentions as Sophie. Sophie was the only one with a letter, however, so she begrudgingly showed it to the Vacker siblings.

As expected, they took it very differently.

With Fitz, there was a lot of yelling. And angry muttering. Though did he seem to try his best not to take it out on the others.

As for Biana, there was tons of sobbing and vanishing into a corner. Nothing that sounded remotely like words came from her section of the room.

Ro shrugged. "Eh. The name's kind of grown on me." Again, Sophie detected sadness in the ogre princess's voice.

Sophie was angry. Even though she got Ro to talk, she hadn't really learned any more than what was already in the letter.

Well, except for one thing.

Dex was involved.

"We need to hail Dex and see what he knows," Biana said, beating Sophie to the punch. It was the first time she'd spoken.

Sophie nodded, but as she pulled out her imparter, she got an unexpected call from Mr. Forkle.

"We might have found something in the Neverseen's scrolls," he said, "Something big."