*Chapter Three*

"HELP!" SARAH YELLED. A few teens ran over to the gate, bemused when they saw Sarah.

"Hang on, I'll open the gates," said a dark haired boy that reminded Sarah of Alvar. Soon the gates clicked open and Sarah collapsed on the fresh grass, out of breath.

"Are you okay?" the voices blurred together. Sarah tried to nod, but she blacked out.

Soft teal-blue eyes found Sarah's. She was in an office with pretty aquarium tank floors and walls. "Are you okay?" It was a man with dark hair and fancy clothing. He reminded Sarah of royalty.

"I-I guess," Sarah gasped for breath. She was still trembling from the encounter with the kidnappers.

"I'm Alden," the man introduced, obviously waiting for Sarah to also announce her name.

"Um, I'm Sarah. I think?" she said with a wobbly smile plastered on her face.

"You think?" Alden asked, frowning. There was a pound at the door to the office.

"Hey! Let us in!" a male voice sounded.

"Please, Alden," came a female voice this time.

Alden sighed. "Fine. Come in." He opened the door and let in four wild-eyed teenagers. "See if you can figure out who this girl is. And what she's saying," he added with a puzzled expression.

Thus, the group arrived. A girl with blonde hair and kind brown eyes. A boy with artfully mussed dirty-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. Another girl with an elaborately designed outfit and long brown hair. And, finally, a boy with dark hair and teal blue eyes. The one that reminded Sarah of Alvar.

Just as Alden did, somehow.

"Sarah, this is Sophie," Alden indicated to the blonde girl, "Keefe," he said with a sigh, pointing to the boy with the smirk and carefully mussed hair. "Biana, my daughter" he nodded to the girl with the fancy purple tunic and leggings. "and Fitz, my son." The teal-eyed boy.

Sarah just nodded, biting her lip. Would they believe her. She glanced around, paranoid. "Are they coming?" she whispered.

"Who?" questioned Sophie.

"Them," stammered Sarah, her bottom lip trembling as she tugged at her pink curls.

"Who is 'them?'" Sophie asked gently. "Whoever it is, you can tell us." But she did glance at Alden from across the office and add quietly, "Be ready to call Elwin if necessary."
Alden caught it and nodded.

"Look who's talking," teased Keefe.

Sophie rolled her eyes, but turned back, her focus again on Sarah. "Well?"

'I don't know," said Sarah doubtfully. "You'd think I'm crazy."

"Well, your emotions are off the charts, and I'm standing across the room," Keefe commented.

Alden's eyebrows beaded together at Keefe's words. "Interesting," he whispered.

"Trust me," Sophie said with a sigh. "I don't believe I'd think anything crazy anymore."

Sarah shrugged. "Okay. Well, there's, um, Alvar, and Lady Gisela. I'm worried they might be chasing after me. There might be more, though. They called themselves the Neverseen, I think. I'm not sure."

Keefe stared at the wall, his fists clenched so tightly that they were pale white.

"Alvar!" Fitz muttered something incoherent underneath his breath, but from what Sarah heard, the words he said probably could have frozen fire.

Fire.

Sarah remembered it well. Her frustration leaked out of her in the form of fire. Hot, blazing, fiery fire. Fire rained down all over the papers on the desk, all over the wood.

"Again?" she said in a small voice.

Alden was speechless and frozen stiff for a moment before he remembered to run and get an extinguisher. Moments later, he returned. "I have the quicksnuff!" he shouted, tossing a bucketful over the blazes.

"I'm sorry. I totally lost control there," Sarah said, staring down at the floor. "Only weird things have been happening since this afternoon."


Sarah spread out her arms as she simultaneously thought.

Alden had asked earlier what exactly had happened with the Neverseen. He said it was for documenting reasons, although that just made Sarah even more jittery.
"I think Lady Gisela wanted to recruit me for this Neverseen group," Sarah confessed after she had elucidated the kidnapping. Her façade took on a puzzled look as she added, "And the strangest thing was, well, I forgot to mention she didn't call me by my actual name. She called me Karcey."

Alden sighed. "On top of Project Moonlark and the Lodestar Initiative, now there's this? Will this be a Plan Karcey?" he muttered under his breath.

Sarah cringed.

Alden blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sarah. I did not mean it that way. I'm glad this time one of the Neverseen's secrets has not eluded us. We're glad you came to us," he added spontaneously. He sighed again. "There are too many problems to deal with."

"I totally get the feeling," Sophie chimed in.

"Yeah, I think we all feel like that," Keefe added with a surreptitious smirk. His special trademark that Sarah had come to recognize.

Sarah had almost forgot the other teens were also in the room. She just sighed and twisted a loose strand of her pink-tinted hair, biting at the edges. The coarse hairs felt strange between her teeth, but she liked the sensation. It calmed her.

"Stop," Sophie said with a grin.

"What?" Sarah asked absentmindedly, tugging at her hair.

"You're biting your hair!" Sophie exclaimed, smiling reassuringly. "I pull my eyelashes out all the time. I've yet to see a bad habit with these perfect elves." She glanced back at her friends, sighing. All of them had their rapturous attention on Sarah. As she sighed, Sophie reached her fingers towards her eye.

Sarah smiled. Sophie made her feel as if they've known each other for ages. Instead, in reality, they only actually met each other forty-five minutes ago.

"The Collective will want to hear your gripping tale," Alden told Sarah.

"The Collective?" Sarah inquired, her palms sweating like crazy. She wiped them on her shirt.

"You'll see," Alden replied tersely.


Sarah stood in front of a group of very peculiar people- no, they were elves.
Alden had clarified that Sarah was indeed an elf, just like them. He had explained to Sarah that she was just like Sophie. They thought she might have been, somehow, the Neverseen's version of Project Moonlark. They were always one step ahead. Alden stipulated that the idea was very possible, considering how advanced they were.

Elves.

The word sounded foreign on Sarah's tongue.

Elves.

Sarah studied each elf carefully, hoping to make sense of their disguises.

They were each different. One of them, apparently the leader, was wrinkly and appearing to be rather aged. It didn't make sense to Sarah at first, because she had learned that elves had almost indefinite lifespans, and they kept their surreal youth appearance about them forever. They didn't physically age. It seemed impossible to Sarah, but it was also fascinating.

The leader was Mr. Forkle, as Sophie explained. He actually consumed special berries called 'ruckleberries,' in order to maintain his aged façade.

What a weird name, thought Sarah as she scanned the other elves.

They were all a part of some secret organization called the Black Swan. Unfortunately, Sophie couldn't expand on anything more than that. She said Sarah could only learn more about the Black Swan if she swore fealty.

There was Squall. She was encased in ice, and had a special ability known as a Froster.

Also, there was Granite, who was, yep, covered head to toe in granite; Blur was a Phaser and so he could break himself down into bits to pass through walls. He just stopped himself mid-transformation to obtain the slightly smudgy figure.

Then the last member was Wraith. He was a Vanisher. He was invisible except for his clothes, which floated midair. He made his body invisible but his clothes remained visible.

Mr. Forkle fixated his gaze directly on Sarah. "Begin."