CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Sophie pushed open the door to Physic's office. The masked healer was spooning Lia starkflower stew as she shivered.

"Hello, Sophie."

"Hi, Physic. How are you doing?"

She grimaced. "I'm holding up. But it's taking all my strength just to hold this place together."

"What does that mean?"

"Conjuring is one of the most mysterious and unexplored talents, Sophie," she said. "Some Conjurers barely have any power at all. Others never learn half of what they can actually do. And now reports are flooding in from our Washers of talents going out of control in the Lost Cities. Talents are being amplified. Little kids are manifesting years before they should. A hurricane swept away a human city yesterday. It won't be the last disaster to happen because of this problem."

"This is all because of Juline?"

"She was killed by Alina during her interrogation. Alina tried to Beguile her into revealing our location. She resisted by scratching herself. So Alina Beguiled her into freezing herself, inch by inch."

"That's disgusting."

"What's done is done. I'd be more worried about the repercussions. Juline's death changed everything—even our talents. And everyone in the Cities knows what a monster Alina is now. There have been reports of rebellion."

"Finally."

"Do you really think that's a good thing? The Council is under Alina's thumb now. They'll kill the rebelling elves."

"You'd prefer a world ruled by evil?"

"Of course not. There's a third option here, Sophie. It's time for the Black Swan to go back to the Lost Cities and set things right again. No more bloodshed. No more fear. We'll instill a new government. Elves with mind-control talents won't be allowed in positions of power anymore. No more Beguilers, Inflictors, Mesmers—Sophie, where are you going?"

But Sophie was already gone.

She found Fitz walking in circles on the roof.

"Fitz!" She grabbed his arm. "We have to leave."

"If you can convince the Black Swan to leave Perspeculum, I'm all up for it," he said, a bemused expression on his face.

"But that's what the Black Swan is planning to do! They're trying to solve everything themselves, Physic told me. Can't they see it'll ruin everything?"

I thought Physic was different. But she's just like the rest of them.

"We have to leave the Black Swan, Fitz. Go save the world on our own."

"Sophie . . . we need the Black Swan."

"Do we, though?" she said. "I mean, look at us. We fought the Neverseen. We changed Exillium. We even brought down an ogre city, all on our own."

"Technically, that was all Linh," Fitz mumbled. Sophie pretended not to hear him.

"And all the Black Swan is doing now is preventing me from being who I was meant to be."

"Sophie. Stop. You're not thinking this through."

"Fitz, the elves and the ogres are at war! I won't sit around in this mirror waiting for the problem to go away anymore, because it's not going to go away unless we stop it ourselves."

He was quiet for a long moment. Sophie started to worry. What if he said no? Would she have to go on her own?

"Alright, we'll go," he finally said. "But only if the other six agree."

Sophie was flooded with relief. "They will."

They found Biana first. She was experimenting with her amplified ability. She had turned herself partially invisible so it looked like she was a pair of hands suspended in midair.

Sophie explained why they had to leave.

"The Black Swan will sacrifice anything in order to keep the elves safe. Their new government will be just as bad as the old one."

Biana wasn't impressed.

"I've known that for a long time, Sophie. Why do you think I escaped?"

"So you can make shadows do anything you want now?"

Tam flicked his wrist, and shadow peeled off the wall and absorbed itself into Keefe's hair. His platinum hair was now a midnight black.

"Does this answer your question?"

"Whoa." He ran his hand through it. "So cool."

"It's nice to see you two getting along," said Sophie. The shadow in Keefe's hair vanished.

She repeated to them what she had told Fitz.

"I'm up for it, Foster," said Keefe.

"Yeah," Tam agreed. "It's time we started running our own show."

"Wait." Stina was huddled in a corner. "Let me come too."

Linh placed her hand on Juline's cold forehead. Slowly, the ice began to melt away. It took her blood with it and washed the wounds clean.

"Dex, how are you feeling?" Sophie asked as she walked in.

"Not good." He looked at his mom's ravaged face. "But I'm not going to break. It's just . . . how will my dad tell the triplets?"

Sophie didn't have an answer for that. But Fitz did.

"When my dad broke, I felt angry," he started. "I felt betrayed and alone. But most of all, I felt helpless. He was lying in bed, unconscious, probably never going to wake up, and I couldn't do a single thing to help. I needed to do something. I couldn't heal my dad, so I wanted to get back at Fintan for what he had done. That was the only thing I could think of, for a while.

"Sophie has something to say. And if you join us, you can get revenge on Alina and the Council."

Dex raised his head. And so did Linh.

"I'll only slow you down," said Lia after Sophie was finished talking. "I'm human. I can't fly or run super fast or hold my breath for longer than a minute."

"But you knew Juline was dead."

Lia looked down at her shoes. "I did."

"Knowing stuff like that can be pretty useful."

"I guess so."

"Where's Physic?" asked Linh.

"She was feeling sick and went to her room before you came," said Lia.

"Enough about Physic. If you won't come with us, we're all going to stay here and it'll be your fault," said Sophie.

"Ugh. Fine. Let's just go already."

Sophie was the last to leave the hospital. As she left, she noticed the door to Physic's room was open a crack.

"Physic? Are you feeling okay?"

She didn't answer, so Sophie pushed the door open wider. But Physic wasn't in the room.

Instead, there was a woman with wavy blonde hair facing away from her. They caught eyes through the mirror. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of turquoise.

"Hello, Sophie. I knew you'd come back to see me," said Jolie Ruewen.

A/N: Kinda regretting that last chapter just because the tone was so out of whack compared to the rest of the story. I might go back and edit it later, but it's probably not worth it.

This chapter was mostly a setup, but now that things are getting interesting writing is actually making me excited again, yay! Oh and also, I think that the scene with Sophie, Dex, and Della at the Nightfall door would probably have been the cover image if I had designed the cover. If you were interested.