Forbidden ~ after unlocked

Chapter 19 - Sophie

Sophie wasn't expecting her first day back at school to be so jarring.

When she arrived the next morning, she was late of course, and the grounds were eerily silent. She hurried across the dewy grass and over to the doors of the glass pyramid. The smell of the morning she usually found comforting put her on edge today. Fog stayed low to the ground, although it curled and inched towards her as if it were alive. The gnomes that tended to the gardens looked up as she passed, stared for a moment, and then continued with their work. It felt like the whole campus was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

The orientation room was empty when she stepped in, and her footsteps taunted her with echoes as she hurried across the hall. Sophie found her way to the emerald halls of the level 4 wing, grabbed her books from her locker and rushed off to find Magnate Leto's office.

When Sophie finally reached the apex of the glass pyramid, she paused. She hadn't exactly left on good terms with Mr. Forkle yesterday. She reached her hand out, but before she had the chance to knock, a voice called out from the office. "You can come in, Miss Foster."

Sophie slowly opened the door and peeked her head. "How'd you know it was me?"

"I figured you'd be needing your class schedule."

"Yeah, I do."

"I've also had security cameras installed recently." Magnate Leto clicked his tongue, motioning to an iPad on the desk in front of him, displaying an image of the hallway outside his office where Sophie had just been standing. "You can never be too careful with all the recent Neverseen chaos."

"Right."

It was still hard to get used to how different Magnate Leto looked. His dark hair and piercing blue eyes were nothing like the ruckleberry smelling Mr. Forkle she was used to seeing.

Sophie cleared her throat. "For what it's worth, I wanted to, um, apologize."

Magnate Leto raised an eyebrow.

She took a deep breath, then let it all out in one go. "I wanted to apologize for freaking out on you yesterday and for going off to New York to look for Keefe without asking and for not being completely honest with you about what happened. Even though I still think you shouldn't tell the Council, I'm sorry."

Sophie expected a lecture, but instead he said, "Apology accepted. And we will be informing the Council this afternoon."

Sophie's shoulders dropped.

"You said you weren't being completely honest yesterday. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

Sophie hesitated. "Yeah... I think... I think I can teleport to people."

Magnate Leto leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers. "How so?"

"Well," she swallowed. "Yesterday when I was trying to teleport out of New York, I was thinking about Keefe, since we went there to look for him," she added the last part quickly before continuing. "He was the place or person I guess, I was picturing when the void opened. And I remember now that when we were at the airport, there was a boy being chased by the police across the tarmac."

"And you think that was him?"

"He had blond hair, and although I didn't see it, I'm pretty sure he levitated. He acted like Keefe would act too. But I realized only after we were back."

"Have you tried to teleport to him again?"

"Not yet."

Magnate Leto's expression was impossible to decipher. He sat still for a long time, staring off into space. Sophie really wished he would say something. The printer started running in the corner, startling them both in the silence of the room.