Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(15)

“Thanks,” she mumbled, wishing she could swim so effortlessly. Within minutes he’d reached the elephant-size water dinosaurs.

“Eckodons are friendly, right?” she asked Biana.

“Of course.” Biana swam to a purple-toned eckodon and stroked the base of its neck. “See? Totally harmless.”

Sophie swam to a blue-toned eckodon and it made a gurgley, growling sound.

“That’s how it says hi,” Fitz promised, pulling himself onto his green eckodon’s back.

Sophie copied him while transmitting Friend over and over. Her tweaked genes allowed her to communicate telepathically with animals. She couldn’t tell if the eckodon understood—some creatures thought in images or emotions. Still, the eckodon didn’t chomp her head off, so she took that as a good sign.

Dex and Keefe, meanwhile, were having a very difficult time figuring out how to sit on their eckodon. After several hilarious attempts, they settled for Keefe facing backward with his arms wrapped around Dex, and Dex reaching around Keefe to hug the eckodon’s neck.

“You guys look so cute,” Fitz told them.

“Dude, your payback is going to be legendary,” Keefe warned.

“Lufterators in!” Mr. Forkle called, before Dex could add his own threats.

Sophie took one last deep breath and slipped the gadget into her mouth. She’d barely grabbed her eckodon’s neck before Mr. Forkle shouted, “Dive!”

Down, down, down they plunged, all the way to the bottom of the river, where the water felt cold and gritty. Sophie’s balefire pendant gave her just enough light to see Fitz as his eckodon swam up beside her. He held out a thumbs-up to ask if she was okay.

She nodded, taking several shallow breaths as he pointed to where Mr. Forkle and Della had taken the lead. Sophie was glad her eckodon seemed to be following on its own, since she had no idea how to steer a plesiosaur.

Fitz stayed beside her, with Biana right behind, and Dex and Keefe a little farther back. The eckodons swam at a steady pace until the shore dropped away and Sophie realized they’d reached the ocean. Then each eckodon stretched out its neck, tucked its flippers, and let out a piercing scream.

The shrill whine was louder than whale song, richer than dolphin squeaks, and powerful enough to part the tide. The sound pitched higher, then lower, swirling the water into a funnel that blasted the eckodon forward like a rocket. Whenever the vortex slowed, the creature cried again, blasting them faster and faster, until Sophie was sure they’d crossed the whole ocean. And maybe she was right, because when they finally slowed the water was tropical teal and swarming with colorful fish.

They surfaced minutes later, floating along a river that cut through an enormous underground cavern. A thin crack split the ceiling, letting in just enough sunlight to bounce off the glinting rock walls. Everywhere the light touched, life had followed, transforming the cave into a subterranean forest. The farther the river led them, the more the cave widened, until all Sophie could see in any direction was the ever-stretching paradise.

“Can you believe this place?” Fitz whispered.

Sophie inhaled the sweet, heady scents: honeysuckle, jasmine, plumeria—plus dozens of other aromas she couldn’t recognize. It definitely wasn’t the bleak cavern she’d expected after her previous experience with a Black Swan hideout.

“Okay, I am done with Dex snuggle time,” Keefe announced as he and Dex’s eckodon swam up beside Sophie’s. He leaped from his plesiosaur to hers and prodded Sophie’s eckodon to swim away from the rest of the group.

“Relax,” he said, tightening his grip on Sophie’s waist. “I won’t let you fall.”

That wasn’t why she felt nervous. The last time she’d sat like this with Keefe, they were flying with Silveny across the ocean. The alicorn had been carrying them to the Black Swan that night as well. Sophie hoped this time wouldn’t end so violently.

Keefe must’ve been sharing the same terrifying memories, because he whispered, “I will never let my mom hurt you again.”

“You didn’t let your mom do anything, Keefe. You know that, right?”

“You heard what Oralie said. The Council’s blaming my dad for not knowing what my mom was up to. But . . . he’s not the only Empath who lived with her.”

“You told me yourself, you can’t feel a lie—only the emotions that go along with it.”

“I still wasn’t paying close enough attention.”

“Why would you? No one assumes their family is evil.”

He tensed at the word and Sophie glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did. And she is. And I should’ve seen it.”

“You can’t do that, Keefe. Edaline told me once that hindsight is a dangerous game. The clues seem too obvious when you know what to look for. Believe me, I would know.”

She’d replayed her kidnapping—and Kenric’s murder—more times than she’d ever admit. And each time she saw more warnings she shouldn’t have missed. But she couldn’t let herself take the blame. The Elvin mind couldn’t process that level of guilt. Their sanity shattered under the weight of the burden. She’d watched it happen to Alden over his guilt from what happened to Prentice—an innocent member of the Black Swan he’d condemned to madness and Exile before he realized the Black Swan weren’t really the villains. The only reason he could still function was because Sophie had found a way to heal him.