what happened after unlocked

chapter six ~ leads n' stuff

"No leaping. No transmitting. No using your abilities. No overwhelming yourself. And not too much physical exertion. Is that clear?"

Sophie groaned and nodded, ready to run out the door as soon as Elwin was done with her exam.

Elwin handed her one more bottle of Youth and snapped his fingers to run one more light orb over her. "Looks like you're pretty healthy today. Just don't go outside of Havenfield. If you really need to, hail me and I'll help you get wherever you need to go, or I'll get Fitz."

Sophie used the heel of her hand to rub one of her eyes. "Can I go now?"

As soon as Elwin nodded, she zipped out the door and made her way back out to Havenfield's pastures, and navigated her way through the different areas to find the baby alicorns again.

"Aw," Sophie squealed and sat down to their level. Wynn and Luna were having a little play fight. Now she could see why Linh made such a fuss about the alicorns; they were truly adorable.

"Hey, Sophie," Fitz said from behind her.

Sophie found herself gasping in surprise. "Hi, Fitz. What are you doing here?"

She stumbled to her feet and wiped the grass off of her leggings.

"I just came to see you," Fitz smiled, and his wistful expression made Sophie's heart leap.

"You don't have to."

"But I wanted to," Fitz blurted.

For a second Sophie didn't know how to respond. But she managed to find her voice after yelling at her brain to stop blushing.

"Um...have you found any leads on Keefe's location?"

"I went to Candleshade and we couldn't find anything, and then we tried all the other places Keefe had been, but we couldn't find anything at any of those places either. So...we're going nowhere, and I wasn't sure if you wanted to reach out to him so I didn't," Fitz said, running a hand through his hair and somehow making it look even better.

"Well, I'm still not allowed to transmit to him, but you can if you want to," Sophie shrugged.

"It's worth a shot, I guess. But how are you doing?" Fitz asked her, moving a little bit closer.

"I'm okay. Linh and Marella unleashed their water-fire power and I passed out for some reason and now I have to wear a nexus, but other than that, I'm good. Have you found any leads on where Alvar might be, though?" Sophie asked, trying to cover the nexus with her sleeve.

Since it was a specially designed half-sleeve it didn't work, and Fitz's eyes were trained on the teal jewels. "Nope. We're all back to square zero, I guess. So what happened with you and Marella and Linh?"

Sophie explained Marella and Linh's combined power and Fitz moved even closer. Oh, how she wished Fitz didn't still make her feel like this.

"Whoa," Fitz said after she'd finished explaining, and squeezed her hand in comfort. "I can't believe all this is happening to you and you're still amazing as ever."

Sophie's cheeks burned.

The moment was ruined by someone clearing their throat, and Sophie braced for the worst.

"You kids may want to come and see something," Mr Forkle said, looking very, very uncomfortable.

They both dropped their hands and backed away. "What is it?" Sophie asked, avoiding Fitz's gaze.

"We have a lead."

"Finally!" Sophie said.

"Not on Mr Sencen. It's about the Neverseen."