Шеннон Мессенджер - Keeper of the Lost Cities

THE HEALING CENTER CONSISTED OFthree rooms: a treatment area with four empty beds, a huge laboratory where strange alchemy experiments were brewing, and the physician’s personal office, where a familiar face sat at an enormous desk covered in paperwork.

“Sophie?” Elwin asked. “I figured I’d have to drag you back here to check up on you.”

“I know,” she said, very aware of the way Keefe had cocked his head toward her. “I have a tiny burn I need you to treat—no big deal.”

“Well, let me check it out.” As he got up, a slinky gray creature hissed and scurried across the floor. “Don’t mind Bullhorn,” Elwin said as Sophie backed against the door. “He’s harmless.”

Bullhorn looked like a demented ferret with beady purple eyes. “What is he?”

“A banshee. Adorable, isn’t he?”

“Uh, sure.” Bullhorn snapped at her ankles. Keefe laughed.

“What brings you here today, Keefe?” Elwin asked.

“Just helping a fellow prodigy, sir.”

Elwin grinned. “I notice you’ve had to miss your session to do it.”

“I know. Such a shame.” He sighed dramatically. “But Sophie needed help, so what could I do?”

“What, indeed? And I suppose you’ll be wanting a pass to excuse you.”

“What a good idea.”

“You always have been one to seize an opportunity.” Elwin handed Keefe a slip of paper. “Session won’t be over for another half hour, so I’d walk slow if I were you.”

“Oh, I can’t leave yet—not until I know Sophie will be okay.”

“Mmm-hmm. So, where’s the burn?” he asked Sophie.

She wanted to be brave in front of Keefe, but her arm still shook when Elwin put his funny glasses on and flashed a blue orb of light around her hand.

Elwin frowned. “This looks like an acid burn. How did you manage that?”

“Um . . . slight accident in my alchemy session.”

Keefe mimed a huge explosion, complete with sound effects. “Destroyed Galvin’s cape.”

Elwin dropped her hand, cracking up. “Wish I could have seen that ! Sorry,” he added when he caught her scowl. “Have a seat so I can treat it.”

He had Sophie sit on one of the beds and grabbed a small jar from one of the shelves. She tried to stay calm as he rubbed purple salve on the burn, but Keefe saw her flinch.

“Out of curiosity,” Elwin asked. “How did you explode the serum?”

“I’m not sure. I measured everything twice, and added it in the order I was supposed to, but when I whipped it, it exploded.”

“Whipped it?” Keefe interrupted.

“Yeah. At first I thought it said ‘whap,’ but I figured I read it wrong so I whipped it.”

Elwin and Keefe both burst into hysterical laughter.

“ WHAP means ‘wash hands and present,’” Keefe managed to explain between laughs.

Oh.

She was officially an idiot. Why didn’t she ask for clarification?

Elwin cleared his throat. “It’s an honest mistake. Could’ve happened to anyone.”

It didn’t. It happened to her . She knew she wasn’t going to live this down anytime soon.

“This is going to be epic !” Keefe said, confirming her fear. “I can’t wait for tomorrow!”

She sighed. At least that made one of them.

A HIGHLY EMBELLISHED VERSION Of the Great Cape Destruction spread through the school faster than the white fires in her old city, and Sophie knew Keefe had everything to do with it. Even her Mentors had heard about it.

Sir Conley joked that they’d have to work their way up to bottling fire in elementalism, so she wouldn’t burn down the school. Lady Anwen told her in multispeciesial studies that she hadn’t laughed so hard in 324 years. And Sir Faxon had to cancel his metaphysics lecture because he snorted lushberry juice all over his clothes.

Once again Sophie could feel everyone watching her as she wandered the halls—except this time they wanted to know her. Kids invited her to sit with them during lunch. They introduced themselves during orientation, between classes. They complimented her eyes. Dex told her the next week they were getting requests for brown-eye drops at Slurps and Burps. He was in the process of trying to create them.

Sophie couldn’t believe it. Overnight she’d somehow become . . . popular.

Grady was relieved when she told him. The more she belonged at Foxfire, the harder it would be for Bronte to get her expelled.

But she refused to take anything for granted. She still sat with Marella during lunch. Dex joined them when his detention was over, and Jensi slipped in a few days later—but he’d reached out to her on her first day, so he was allowed.

Plus, her sessions were incredibly challenging. Lady Galvin didn’t fail her, but she made her work on the opposite side of the room, which turned out to be a wise decision. Fires and explosions were a regular occurrence. The problem was, Sophie didn’t just have to learn, she had to unlearn a lifetime of human knowledge, where things like alkahest didn’t exist. All the laws she’d learned in chemistry were wrong, and tripped her up.

She had the same problem with some of her other sessions. Levitating was supposed to be impossible. So was catching wind in jars and bottling rainbows. She constantly had to remind herself not to trust her instincts, because they were all wrong, and even when she tried her hardest, she still messed things up.

Which was why her telepathy sessions became the highlight of her week. Every skill came effortlessly, and she was amazed at the things she could do with her mind. Tiergan taught her how to shield her brain from unwanted human thoughts—in case she was ever around humans again—and how to transmit her thoughts into someone else’s mind. She even learned how to project mental images onto special paper—like a psychic photograph.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t mind being a Telepath. It was actually pretty cool—and no one could deny her talent. Even Bronte wouldn’t be able to.

Too bad she had to keep it secret. It would’ve been fun to shut Stina up whenever she teased Sophie about needing remedial studies . Stina still hadn’t manifested a special ability, so it would kill her to know Sophie was a Telepath—being trained by the greatest telepathy Mentor ever. But she’d have to be patient. Stina would learn the truth eventually.

Plus, she had other problems. Biana avoided her like the plague, and Sophie had a strong suspicion she was keeping Fitz away from her. Two months had passed since she’d moved to Havenfield, and except for a couple waves across the hall, she hadn’t seen or talked to him. She missed him—more than she wanted to admit.

The next week Sophie finally saw Biana waiting for the Leapmaster without her snotty friend Maruca—another member of the I-Hate-Sophie-Foster Club—and decided to try reaching out.

Biana spotted her and cut in line, leaping home before Sophie could reach her.

The sigh Sophie let out sounded more like a growl.

“What’s wrong?” Dex asked, catching up with her.

“Biana. I don’t know what her problem is, but I’m really getting sick of it.”

“She’s just jealous. She’s used to being the prettiest girl in school.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he turned bright red.

Sophie knew her face had to be redder than his.

Neither of them seemed to know what to say after that, so she waved goodbye and leaped back to Havenfield without another word.

SHE CAME HOME TO TOTALbedlam. Grady and Edaline were struggling to subdue a very angry woolly mammoth, and the gnomes were chasing a small pack of rabbits with antlers.