Keeper of the Lost Cities

Principal Alina congratulates the students who passed but warns that those who got less than 85 on a test must study hard or they’ll flunk the final. Sophie got three scores below 85. Meanwhile, she manages to send a thought clear across campus to Fitz, surprising him and astounding Tiergan.

Sophie continues to puzzle over the mysterious clues—fires, Moonlark, Black Swan—that surround her. She dreams of fires that trap her human family. Wondering if a Pyrotechnic elf is involved in the fires that keep erupting in the human world, Sophie tries to research pryokinesis at the school library. The librarian says most books on the topic are banned, but she takes Sophie’s name and promises to send any works she finds to her locker.

At home, Sophie sneaks onto the second floor and searches for Grady and Edaline’s offices. The first door opens on Grady’s; it’s jammed with books, scrolls, and papers, but Sophie doesn’t dare jostle anything for fear of alerting Grady. The second door reveals Jolie’s old bedroom. It’s gray with dust; a photo shows a girl at 16 with curly blond hair to her waist, smiling with her happy parents. The third door leads to a room filled with old trunks, unopened gifts and letters, and dusty books. To touch the books would reveal Sophie’s presence, so she turns away.

For Universe class, Sophie must gather light from six selected stars and find a seventh that fits the pattern. She and Dex go at night to a meadow where, using her photographic memory, Sophie quickly finds the stars Dex needs. He attaches a small bottle to the back end of a stellarscope, captures a flash of light from the first star, and then does the same for the remaining stars. The bottles glow in different shades. Sophie realizes they’re the basic colors of the spectrum, but they’re missing green. Dex remembers that the star Zelenie will provide that color, and they capture a green flash from it.

Sophie’s six stars provide the colors “silver, gold, black, white, copper, and green” (292). On a hunch, she says, “Elementine,” and finds a region deep in space that should house that star. When she flips the switch on the stellarscope, it becomes blisteringly hot, and she drops it in pain. Her hand is injured; she retrieves her Imparter and calls Elwin.

Elwin light-leaps to the meadow and examines the dark blister on Sophie’s hand. He applies a salve and a powder, then wraps her hand in a cloth soaked in Youth. Elwin has never heard of an overheated stellarscope. He says, “It’s always an adventure with you, Sophie” (296). The salve doesn’t quite work, so Elwin light-leaps away to find a different medicine.

While they wait, Dex complains about her friendships with Fitz and Biana and asks what she does upstairs at the school’s Level Four. Sophie can’t tell him. He asks if Fitz knows, and she admits that he does. Irritably, Dex complains about feeling left out. Sophie says that, as her best friend, Dex should tone down his resentment of the Aldens. Dex is pleased to learn that he and Sophie are best friends, so he agrees.

Elwin returns, and his second salve heals Sophie’s burn completely. He examines the bottle with the light captured from Elementine. It’s not even warm, so he wraps it and places it in Sophie’s satchel. He warns her to be careful with it.

In Universe class, Stella unwraps the seventh bottle. It’s ice-cold but shines blindingly bright. Sir Astin warns her away from it because it contains Quintessence, or light in its purest form, and is powerfully explosive. He scolds her for not seeing the star pattern: metals. She replies that, for some reason, she thought the answer lay with the star Elementine.

Sir Astin asks how she learned that name. She thinks it must have been in one of the star charts, but he says it’s one of five unmapped stars whose light must never be bottled: “You’ve broken a very serious law, Sophie” (302).

Firefox is evacuated. Sophie’s trial takes place in Tribunal Hall in Eternalia. Alden sits with her; Elwin, Dex, Sir Astin, Grady, Edaline, and Dame Alina are also attending. Before them on thrones sit the 12 Councillors, including Bronte, Oralie, Kenric, and nine others. Goblins stand in front of the thrones to protect the Councillors. Sophie wonders why the judges need protection in a society that Alden says is wonderfully safe.

The chief Councillor, Emery, has Oralie take Sophie’s hand while he asks her a series of questions. Sophie answers that she doesn’t know how she learned of Elementine and doesn’t know why it occurred to her as the solution to her science project. Oralie confirms that Sophie is telling the truth.

Emery questions Sir Astin, who says the star list he gave Sophie was chosen randomly from a set of lists prepared by other Mentors. The Councillors confer, their thoughts mediated by Emery’s telepathy, and conclude that Sophie is innocent. The tribunal will be kept secret. 

Outside the hall, Dex says it’s “the coolest day ever” (309). 

Alden leaps with Sophie to a set of identical crystal castles on the outskirts of Eternalia. The Councillors live here. One, Terik, brings her to a parlor, where he takes her hands and telepathically listens to her mind. He does so for 10 minutes, during which he says only “fascinating” and “incredible.” Terik concludes that her mind contains something unique, “something strong,” but he doesn’t know what it is (315).

At Havenfield, Alden gives Sophie a beautifully bound book called a memory log. On its blank pages, she’s to project any important memories, along with all her dreams. She mentions a recurring nightmare in which her human family tries to escape a burning house. Alden tells her that Grady and Edaline’s daughter, Jolie, died that way. He asks her to record those dreams but not mention them to Grady and Edaline.

The memory book’s images of her nightmares trouble her. She hides the book away and then pulls out her scrapbook. She looks at the picture on the cover: It shows her, age 11, building a sand castle at a human beach. The shape of her castle is identical to the Councillors’ castles.

Realizing that her mind has been tampered with, Sophie tears the photo off the front of the scrapbook and hides it in another book in her library. It’s wrong to do this, but she needs to think about it first.

She plots the six stars that led her to Elementine and finds that they point right at it. She wonders if someone wanted her to bring the star’s quintessence to the school, where it would blow up. She worries that the Council might decide she’s dangerous—maybe she is!—and harm her. Fearing that her memory log will fall into the wrong hands, she places it in the bottom of her satchel, where it’ll be with her at all times.

At school, Tiergan transports her illegally to Hollywood. They sit on a bench across the street from the Chinese Theatre, where costumed characters make Sophie and Tiergan’s capes look inconspicuous. Tiergan asks about her memory log; Sophie doesn’t want to talk about it but wonders aloud if she’s a bad person. Tiergan says definitely not.

She asks why Prentice would abandon her to the humans. Tiergan says he’s not her father; his crime was hiding her among humans. Prentice was a Keeper for the Black Swan, a group of rebels who name themselves after a creature that shouldn’t exist but does. The secret he kept was Sophie’s location. At the Council’s command, Alden performed a “memory break” that renders a victim insane but reveals his secrets. Prentice now lives in exile, his mind a wreck. It’s why Tiergan is so angry with Alden.

Sophie spends hours each day with the memory book but finds no more new memories. Biana notices she hasn’t visited in a while, so she needles her about it, and Sophie, who wants to avoid Alden, finally relents. She has so much fun that she decides she can relax and let the Council worry about Black Swans.

As finals approach, Sophie notices that her hands-on classes are her weakest: In those, her mind keeps pulling her back to incorrect human science. Dex offers her a drug, limbium, that clears the mind. Sophie can’t use it while taking the final, but maybe it’ll help her study, so she agrees.

In the locker room before PE, she takes some limbium, but immediately her mind gets fuzzy, her skin heats up and forms welts, and she has trouble breathing. She thinks it’s an allergic reaction. Dex picks her up and heads for Elwin’s office. On the way, someone else carries her. She blacks out.

Sophie wakes in Elwin’s office. She feels weak; her throat hurts. He gives her a potion, and her symptoms begin to clear up. He says Fitz and Dex await outside. They carried her to his office, where she threw up all over the office and Fitz. Elwin’s ferret-like pet, Bullhorn, screamed like a siren, something he’s never done. She cringes with embarrassment and tries to hide under the covers, but she can smell vomit on her clothes. Allergies are rare among elves; Elwin says it’s the first he’s seen.

Dex and Fitz come in. She apologizes, but they wave it off. They argue a little over who saved her. Fitz asks if this has ever happened to her before; she says once, when she was nine, but the doctors never figured it out. Elwin gives her a vial of the serum that saved her; it’s on a cord, and she hangs it around her neck.

Elwin light-leaps with her to her home. Edaline and Grady listen to his account of Sophie’s brush with death and grow pale with horror. Elwin says she just needs some rest; Sophie insists she’s already fine. Edaline and Grady help her upstairs to her room and tuck her in. Exhausted, Sophie says, “I love you guys” and promptly falls asleep (341).

She wakes to a horrible sound of screeching and runs outside. It’s dark out; Grady and Edaline are trying to calm an upset pterodactyl the size of a large eagle. The bird yanks on its leash, does flips, and tries to fly away. Sophie and the bird stare at each other. Sophie hurries to the shed, grabs an alchemy torch, rushes back, and sets fire to a pile of leaves. The pterodactyl dives into the burning leaves as if they’re a bath.

Grady realizes the creature is a flareadon, which has fireproof fur and needs flames, or it freezes. Grady asks how Sophie knew; she says it felt like she read the creature’s mind. Edaline is upset and angry, and Sophie realizes she has rekindled the woman’s memory of Jolie’s death by fire. Sophie apologizes; Grady sends her back to bed.

In the morning, Grady and Edaline are still tense. Sophie asks about the flareadon. Grady says the creature—they’ve named it “Gildie”—is a stray that should be near a volcano. Sophie wants to practice reading Gildie’s mind, but Edaline bans her from the animals and tells her instead to study for finals. Upstairs, Sophie tries to read a dry textbook on firecatching but keeps turning to Iggy, trying to read his mind.

At school, Tiergan says he’s never known of anyone who can read an animal’s thoughts. If Sophie can transmit an idea to an animal, Tiergan will give her an automatic pass on her final. At home, she sneaks out to Verdi’s pen and sends to her, over and over, an image of her right paw until the dinosaur raises the paw. Edaline interrupts and scolds her for disobeying the rule about staying inside. Sophie pleads, “You have to stop acting like everything could kill me!” (349) Edaline says she has to worry and walks away.

At the house, Alden appears. Smelling of smoke, he sends a thought to Grady, who reels, stunned. He says he can’t do it, but Alden insists he’s the only person who can be trusted with it. Sophie asks what’s happened. Angrily, Grady commands, “Go to bed now!” (351)

The next morning, Grady and Edaline are gone, and they’re still out when she returns from school. Just after dark, they return. Sophie listens from the stairs: Edaline is sobbing; Grady soothes her and says, “Alden will find someone else” (352). She hurries back up to her room. When Grady checks on her, she asks what’s going on. He tells her not to worry. All night, she worries.

At lunch, Sophie asks Fitz what’s going on with Alden. Reluctantly, he admits that fires are happening near cities all over the human realm. This time, the flames are yellow, not white. The Council isn’t interested, but Alden thinks it involves the Black Swan.

At her locker, Sophie discovers a book on pyrokinesis. She goes to the library and thanks the librarian, who says she didn’t send that book. At home, flipping through it, she sees a drawing of an elf encircled by yellow fire. The caption reads: “EVERBLAZE: THE UNSTOPPABLE FLAME” (357). A series of memories pour through her mind. She contacts Alden.

At Alden’s office, Sophie shows him a chemical formula she wrote down when she saw the word “Everblaze.” Alden is stunned: That information is supposed to be top secret. She pulls out her memory log and shows him the picture from the cover of her scrapbook. Alden asks why she kept it from him; she says she was afraid of trouble.

Alden points to the bird emblazoned on the log’s cover. It’s a moonlark, which lays its eggs on the ocean, and the babies hatch alone. Moonlark is the Black Swan’s code name for Sophie. The Fosters went to a fertility doctor; Alden thinks he was a Black Swan member who implanted a specially designed embryo that became Sophie, complete with a photographic memory, powerful telepathic abilities, and a violent sensitivity to limbium.

The Black Swan wanted Alden to find Sophie, so they sent him the newspaper article about her turning down Yale, then set a ring of fires around San Diego, where she lived. Already, they’ve gotten Sophie to collect Quintessence, and they’ve sent her a book on starting fires, so she’s in danger. Alden tells her to contact him the next time any such thing presents itself. Sophie is scared; Alden hugs her and says they’ll figure it out.

At home alone again, Sophie has dinner, then sits with Iggy and the firecatching book. A Council messenger rings the doorbell and delivers a scroll for Grady. Resisting the urge to read it, she sets it on a table.

The fire catcher book’s instructions on sealing fire bottles trigger a memory of an unusually squat bottle, capped with gold, for holding flames. The process involves something called Lumenite.

She hears a ripping sound. Iggy is tearing up the scroll. She lunges for the scroll, but Iggy scoots away with a chunk of it. Angry, Sophie commands him to stop—Iggy stops—and let go of the paper. Iggy lets go. She grabs the pieces and tries to figure out how to glue them back together.

The paper reads: “In accordance with your request, adoption proceedings for Sophie Foster have been canceled” (368).

Iggy snuggles against her as if offering support. Grady and Edaline return. She tells them Iggy ripped the message scroll, then runs upstairs. She locks her door and refuses Grady’s repeated knocks. She cries herself to sleep.

In the morning, Grady says they need to talk after school. Sophie angrily accepts that they’re not a family, but she’s willing to keep up the charade: “Would you like a hug while we’re at it? Should I tell you ‘I love you’ again?” (371). Grady looks hurt; Edaline stifles a sob.

At school, Sophie mopes all day. Her friends try to chat with her, but she brushes them off. Biana drops a note in her lap that offers help if she needs it. Sophie’s touched but somehow feels even lonelier.

Back home, she lies on her bed and plays loud, angry music on her iPod. Grady comes in and tries to discuss things, but she refuses. He says it’s not her fault. She just wants to know when to pack and leave.

Returning her untouched dinner to the kitchen, Sophie sees light under Jolie’s door. She creeps over and listens. Edaline and Grady wonder if they made the wrong decision and if Sophie would still be willing to stay with them. Edaline wants to sleep that night in Jolie’s room, something she’d stopped doing a while back. Grady says ok, but he insists on staying with her.

Sophie sneaks back to her room. She wants to forgive them but thinks it’s easier to forget them.

In the morning, Sophie finds breakfast waiting on her desk. At school, she’s a little better, but still, she won’t discuss it. In her locker, she finds an envelope with a news article about deaths from a firestorm and a note, “You have to stop this” (379), attached to a silver pin shaped like a moonlark. She knows at once that the pin is made of lumenite.

She notifies Alden and then notices Keefe listening. He wants to know more, but she asks instead how he snuck into her locker after midterms. He says it was already open. She thanks him for the necklace, but he says he only gave her the candy.

After school, Fitz and Biana offer condolences about the failed adoption and say that Alden and Della applied to be Sophie’s replacement guardians. Sophie feels a surge of hope. Biana says it’d be great to have a sister to help her stand up against two brothers. Fitz agrees, saying Sophie already seems like a sister. Sophie doesn’t exactly want to be his sister. Still, it’s all a good thing.

Sophie visits the Vackers and describes to Alden the pendant she received. She fears it’s a bug meant to spy on her. Alden thinks it’s an unlawful leaping crystal to access the human Forbidden Cities. A Councillor named Fintan was the only elf to master Everblaze—others died trying—but the Council banned pyrokinesis. Fintan doesn’t fit the profile of a rebel, though. The Black Swan thus far has done several things that seem intended to get Sophie into trouble. Why remains a mystery.

Alvar interrupts: He’s been listening. Alden says the conversation must be kept confidential. Alvar nods and leaves. Alden sends Sophie home with a request to keep searching her memories: “Maybe your next revelation will finally lead us to the truth” (390).

By Monday, Sophie has learned nothing new about her mind’s hidden memories. After school each day, she studies in the caves because the house now feels too small. At school, she finally explains to Dex about the failed adoption. He’s angry to learn she’ll move in with the hated Vackers. They argue, and he stalks off.

At home, she receives a package. Inside is a “spyball” that permits the user to observe anyone, anywhere. Attached is a note: “You must help them” (395), and three names. She requests to see them, and the ball shows three people: her human parents and her sister. They’re huddled on the floor of an evacuation center. It must be the fires.

They’d never abandoned her, and she can’t abandon them now. She has to do something. For the moment, all she can do is watch them.

At dawn, she contacts Alden and tells him about the latest note. She wants to do something. He says she must wait, or he’ll have to send someone to keep an eye on her. He insists she visit him after school. She relents.

On her way out the door, she gets another package. It contains a squat bottle like the one she pictured from her memories of firecatching. Also attached is a pin shaped like a flareadon. A set of instructions—“Left three, down ten, right two”—suggest how to use the necklace to leap to the fires and gather evidence to show the Council. The note concludes: “You have everything you need” (401).

She realizes that even Gildie the flareadon is probably from the Black Swan. She can command the bird to fly into the flames and collect the evidence. She gathers Gildie, works the necklace, and leaps.

They arrive at a fire. Sophie prepares the bottle, sends instructions into Gildie’s mind, including a warning about not lingering in so dangerous a fire, and sets her free. Gildie grabs the bottle and disappears into the flames. The creature is gone a long time but suddenly returns with the bottle. It’s filled with yellow sparks, and its seal works correctly. Grabbing Gildie, she went back to Havenfield.

Grady sees her return. Angry, he calls Alden, who arrives with Elwin. Alden scolds her while Elwin calmly treats the mild burns and smoke damage she suffered. She shows the bottle of fire sparks to Alden, who’s impressed. He can’t rule out that such evidence might convince the Council to pardon her. If not, they also might exile her.

At school, Stina announces that Biana was forced to befriend Sophie so Alden could keep an eye on her. Biana protests and reaches for Sophie, but Sophie pulls away and walks off. She bumps into Fitz and Keefe. Fitz asks why she’s upset; she tries to get away, but he insists. She says he never wanted her to live with his family but was forced into it. Fitz protests, but Keefe pulls him away.

Sophie leaps to Havenfield and hurries toward the caves. Edaline somehow catches up and hands Iggy to her for company. Sophie thanks her and climbs down to the caves. There, she hurls rocks at the walls and kicks stones until she’s exhausted, then crumples up and sobs her heart out.

Burly arms pick her up abruptly. A caped figure presses a cloth covered in sedative against her mouth and nose. She struggles, then hears Dex’s voice calling to her. She sends him a thought: “Run, Dex!” She hears a yelp, and the arms let go. Iggy bit the assailant. She thinks, “Go get help!” and Iggy scurries away (417).

The captors drug Dex. His head lolls, and shortly, so does Sophie’s.