“Dead legs?” Sandor interrupted.
“Hunkyhair commanded me to sleep so I couldn’t stop him from leaving,” Ro admitted. “And his command to wake me up only worked halfway. I was strong enough to sit up and shred his ridiculous bedsheet bonds. But even after I freed my legs, they still dragged for a little while.”
“It was more than a little while,” Elwin argued as the floating medicine vials drifted into the satchel slung across his shoulders. “Took me nearly an hour to get her circulation back to normal. And by then, it would’ve been too late to catch up with Keefe.”
“You didn’t know that! I’m sure he went home to Daddy Dearest’s to pack the rest of his stuff before he went over to Blondie’s—and I’m sure he spent a while at Blondie’s feeling all weepy and conflicted about abandoning her. We should’ve checked!”
“You should have!” Sophie agreed, shooting a death glare at Elwin.
He’d saved her life so many times, she never would’ve expected him to let Keefe down like this.
Elwin scrubbed his fingers through his dark, messy hair. “Pretty sure I can guess what you’re thinking, Sophie. But… I’ve seen how terrified Keefe is to use his voice right now—and how hard he’s fought to stop himself from giving any commands. So if he was willing to tell Ro to sleep and didn’t even stick around long enough to make sure she fully woke up, something big must’ve scared him away. And maybe we should trust that he knows what he’s doing.”
“Except—spoiler alert—Funkyhair never knows what he’s doing,” Ro argued, tossing Boo Boo at Elwin’s head.
Elwin caught the fluffy boobrie with his mind. “I think he actually did this time.”
“Ugh, you sound like Grady,” Sophie grumbled, still not sure she’d forgiven her adoptive father for letting Keefe go. “I had to remind him how little Keefe knows about humans and how easily he could end up in jail—or worse.”
Elwin winced.
Ro muttered a string of inappropriate Ogreish words. “I’m assuming that means our boy’s planning to hide with the only creatures that are even more annoying than goblins?” She flung the rest of the stuffed animals at Elwin. “See what you’ve done?”
Elwin scrambled to catch his fluffy friends. “Hey, we all know that even if we’d dragged Keefe back, he just would’ve run away again—maybe after using commands that caused serious problems.”
“Not if I’d gagged him and chained him up in my father’s dungeon!” Ro snapped back.
“Or if I’d talked to him!” Sophie added—even though some of her recent conversations with Keefe hadn’t exactly gone well.
Elwin hugged his snuggle buddies. “I know this is hard to accept. I’ve been struggling with it too. But… Keefe needs to take control of his new abilities—and I think he might have to do that on his own. I’d been hoping that Kesler and I could create elixirs to help, or that Dex could build some sort of gadget. But so far we’re getting nowhere—and until we do, Keefe’s going to make himself sick worrying about hurting someone or getting manipulated by his mother or—”
“That’s why the dungeon would be perfect!” Ro interrupted. “I also know a lovely bog that looks and smells like all the vomit in the world went there to die. A few days floating in that sludge and our boy will be begging to head back to Sparkle Town. Except now we have to find him first—and apparently he could be anywhere on the planet, because of course he decided to hide with the species you elves gave way too much land to, but we can discuss your Council’s absurd ruling choices another time. First… let’s think.” She twisted one of her bright red pigtails around her clawed finger. “You lived with humans for a while, right, Blondie? Is there anywhere that’d be a particularly good spot for sitting around, feeling sorry for yourself?”
“You’re not going to the Forbidden Cities!” Sandor reminded Sophie.
“Try and stop us!” Ro countered.
“The problem,” Sophie cut in before Sandor could draw his sword, “is that Keefe spun to a random facet on his pathfinder when he leaped away. Logic isn’t going to help us find him.”
Ro heaved a dramatic sigh. “Then I don’t suppose there’s some fancy mind trick you can use to track him down, is there, Little Miss Moonlark?”
“Not from this far away. I can’t hear his thoughts if he ignores me. And I can’t track his mind if I don’t know where I’m supposed to feel.”
“Ugh. Yet another reason I’ll never understand why you elves care so much about your elf-y abilities.”
Sandor’s snort sounded like agreement—and Sophie didn’t necessarily blame either of them. The Black Swan had modified her genetics and given her more abilities than any elf had ever had before. And still, more often than not, she was outmatched and underprepared.
“Can’t you track your charge?” Sandor asked Ro. “Surely you keep him covered in one of those enzymes you ogres love so much.”
Sophie’s heart did a backflip. “That’s right—I forgot about aromark!”
But Ro shook her head. “My boy made me promise I wouldn’t expose him to anything that would require melting off his skin if we needed to remove it. And after what his mommy’s put him through, I figured… fair enough.”
Sophie couldn’t fault Ro for that—but Sandor apparently could.
“A bodyguard’s job is to keep track of their charge, not cater to their wishes!” he snapped.
“No, our job is to protect our charge, which I can do just fine with these.” Ro waved her hands in front of the rows of daggers strapped to her muscled thighs.
“How are those protecting him right now?” Sandor countered.
“I’ll admit, I wasn’t fully prepared for my boy to learn how to knock everyone out with a single word.” She shuddered. “But you would’ve been just as dead-legged as I was—and if you think those silly disks you like to sew into Blondie’s clothes would’ve changed anything, you’re delusional. He would’ve ripped those out in two seconds.”
“Only if he could find them.” Sandor’s smile was so smug, it made Sophie want to tear through everything she was wearing.
But it didn’t matter. “Fighting isn’t going to help us find Keefe,” Sophie reminded them.
“It isn’t,” Ro agreed. “But for the record, if I have been giving my boy a little more breathing room, it’s only because I could tell he was on the verge of a meltdown. Plus, I was waiting for him to realize that he’s looking at these new powers all wrong. Sure, accidentally numbing his friends is less-than-awesome—but he also doesn’t have to fear Mommy Dearest anymore! Next time she shows up, he can just command her to sleep. Or better yet, tell her to jump off a sparkly building—problem solved!”
Sophie wished it would be that easy. “I’m sure Lady Gisela has a way to protect herself.”
The Neverseen were always five steps ahead.
Sometimes ten.
Or fifty.
Then again, she’d managed to find their secret storehouse and burn it to the ground. That’s why the inferno had felt like Sophie’s first real victory—and why she had to be ready to make lots more terrifying decisions.