I couldn't wait for Neverseen to come out, so I wrote my own version of what I think should happen. Of course it's not nearly as good as anything of Shannon Messenger's-and I didn't quite get all the characters right-but this is my first fanfic so please bear with me! Thanks so much for your support and your reviews are really appreciated!

Disclaimer: Shannon Messenger owns all rights to the Keeper of the Lost Cities series and the characters. I don't own anything.

ONE

THEY WERE OFFICIALLY ON THE road. Well, kind of. They weren't on a road. They were in the middle of a forest. And it was the middle of the night. After a short leap from Everglen to the Forbidden Cities, Sophie was in the middle of the Black Forest in Germany. It was gorgeous, but she was having a hard time appreciating the cold, especially with the constant complaints.

Keefe reached a hand up to tousle his hair, and freaked out when his hand got stuck. "My hair!"

"Yes, Keefe," Sophie answered sarcastically. "Your hair is messy. It looks just like it normally does."

"Normal! It looks normal!" Keefe turned to her, his face dead serious. "We need to find some serums now!"

And supposedly Biana's the princess. Sophie jerked as Fitz's transmission touched her mind. She still wasn't used having people in her mind, although she was getting better at it. At least she didn't immediately try to block him anymore.

Messed up, right? She transmitted back, getting a warm feeling in her chest when he winked back at her.

"Hey, you two," Keefe said, shoving between them. "No secret telepathic conversations. We're busy worrying about my hair!"

"Calm down, Keefe," Fitz sighed from ahead glancing down at his new, human watch. "Ten minutes. That is how long we have been in the forest since we leaped to the Forbidden Cities. If this is what the entire trip is going to be like, I am voting you off the island."

Keefe punched him in the arm, and Fitz punched him back, leading to a playful brawl ending with Fitz getting pinned by Keefe.

"Boys, boys, break it up," Biana scoffed. "Or I'll have to come in and break it up myself."

Biana fought dirty, and she could take both of the boys at the same time, any day.

Keefe immediately hopped off Fitz and helped his friend to his feet. "No need for the pretty princess to get her panties in a twist," he joked.

Biana shot him a glare and he immediately shut up.

"Remind me again why you can't just teleport all of us to the Forbidden Cities, Foster?" Keefe asked her.

"A—we're already in the Forbidden Cities. We're headed to Florence, Italy. And b—I'm not sure I can teleport myself and four other people. I had enough trouble when it was just me, Fitz, and Oralie. Adding two more to the mix might make us get trapped in the void."

"Aw, Foster. The last time we got trapped in the void we had a great time." He lightly punched her arm.

"We weren't trapped, we were just lost. This could be so much strain I'd lost you guys and we'd be stuck forever, not for a few minutes."

"I trust you, Foster. You can do anything," Keefe said confidently.

"I don't want to teleport unless we have no other choice," Sophie told him.

"But—"

"No teleporting," Sophie said, more firmly this time.

"Alright," Keefe said, putting his hands up in the air. "No teleporting. But why can't we light leap?"

"We left our pathfinders and nexuses back at Everglen for a reason, Keefe," Sophie said. "Leaps can be tracked."

"Yeah, but we leapt here. Won't they just track us here and then sic some goblins on us?"

"Yeah, but the whole point of leaping here was to get as much distance between our arrival area and the Black Swan as possible before the goblins show up."

"Sounds like a pretty bad plan to me. Now I can come up with some good plans. A little sparkly poop here, a little gulon nest there—"

"I get it, Keefe. You're a delinquent. Now can we focus please?" Sophie asked, consulting her iPod. "We're going to have to cross over two alps and through the rest of the Black Forest before we can make it to Florence. This is the route you saw, right Fitz?" She traced a finger over the screen in the path she thought they ought to take.

"The route seems correct. At the next stop I should verify it with the map in your mind. Is that alright?" he asked quickly.

"Of course." Sophie looked up into his eyes and her heart did that silly flutter thing again. She'd thought she was getting over that. She quickly looked away, before Keefe could sense the change in her emotions. But when she looked up, he was staring directly at her, sans the trademark smirk. At least he wouldn't tease her in front of their three companions. Or maybe just not at that second. Who knew what he'd do later?

"Dex, where are you with that GPS?" Biana asked the last member of their hodge podge party.

"Almost done," Dex answered, hard at work on his newest creation. He'd retrofitted a child's DS he'd found in the lost and found of one of the park services and was using it as a global positioning system so they could track their movements through the Forbidden Cities. Biana dropped back and walked next to him for a while, letting Keefe rejoin Fitz, and Sophie eavesdrop on their conversation. Sophie peeked over his shoulder to look at the paper he was reading. It looked like a bunch of gibberish, with lots of numbers and lines and symbols in strange places.

Biana was talking on, as usual, but Sophie watched Dex for a moment as he connected multicolored wires. He paused and looked behind himself, meeting her eyes for the first time since he removed her circlet yesterday. "Do you mind," he trailed off, then tried again. "It's just…really hard to concentrate…"

"Oh, I understand," Sophie said, taking a step away. He went back to work, and she hurried to catch up with the others. Biana stayed behind and talked at Dex, but Sophie wasn't interested anymore. She quietly followed Fitz and Keefe a little further, then stumbled and fell over a root, catching the end of Fitz's cape as she fell.

Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to her feet, but she couldn't stand on her own.

"Maybe we should stop for the night," she suggested.

"Of course," Fitz said, but she could hear the worry in his voice.

"I'm fine. Just, tired, I think. Yesterday took a lot out of me," she said, remembering all the scrapes with death she'd had in the last 12 hours.

As if he'd read her mind, Fitz said, "You haven't slept since Brant, have you?"

She shook her head and he helped her over to a nearby log. He set her down, then sat next to her and reached into her pack to grab a blanket. "I'm fine, really," she said, reaching to grab her pack. "I'm just a little tired."

He pulled out her blanket and handed her Ella, a bright blue stuffed elephant wearing a Hawaiian print t-shirt, as he tucked the blanket around her. "Thanks," she said, accepting Ella and hugging her to her chest. At thirteen, she might be a little old to have a stuffed animal, but Ella had helped her get through so many things, from the beginning of her telepathy when she was five, to leaving her human family, to now—leaving her elvin family behind as she once again headed into the unknown. While the others curled up around various spots in the small clearing, Sophie closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Thanks for reading and I hope you like it so far! Comment if you really want something to happen, and I'll see what I can do. I have about thirty-five chapters right now, and I hit a bit of a writing block. Probably will upload a new chapter every couple days so I have time to proofread and other lovely things. Thanks again for your guys' support! It makes my day! :)