Sparkle (KOTLC) {Completed}

14

"Where's Alvar?" Sophie asked, while Janessa still tried to wrap her head around all the information she'd been given with so few details. Alvar. The guy who'd betrayed them, Biana and Fitz's older brother, the reason she got stuck with the Neverseen.

"Somewhere safe." Squall promised. For some reason, Janessa almost felt angry about this. How come he got to be safe? Then, Biana's arm tightened around her and she remembered this wasn't all about her. Biana needed her just as much as she did.

"It's been a busy night, and an even busier morning." Mr Forkle said. "I need you kids to promise to hold off your questions till the end, or else we'll never get through this."

The seven of them nodded and Sophie joined the group on the couch on Biana's other side.

After a few back and forth conversations on what to start with, Mr Forkle decided Alvar was the most pressing issue. While Sophie checked in on the Vacker parents, who had bruise-like bags under their eyes, Janessa leaned off of Biana, holding the hand wrapped around her shoulder, and asked with her eyes if the brunette was ok. Biana nodded shakily back, a slight smile twitching at her lips.

As the conversation led to Bronte being a lead for finding Sophie's human family, Janessa turned her attention back to the adults.

"It's come to my attention you are in the possession of Fintan's cache." Bronte said, looking at Dex.

Janessa turned to him with a raised brow. Wow, yet another thing she didn't know. She really needed to catch up soon.

Dex frowned back at her, complaining mentally about having to work with Bronte to open the cache.

"Plan on coming to my office every day until we gain access." Bronte said and Janessa winced in sympathy for the dimpled boy.

"We've also spoken to Lady Gisela." Granite added. "She was so shocked to hear about the state of Nightfall that she agreed to meet me there to see it herself."

"Please tell me you arrested her." Biana begged. Janessa nodded in agreement, remembering the effects she'd had on her son back when they'd been at Alluveterre.

"We considered it, but she is too cautious to not be prepared for that." Mr Forkle replied. "Apparently, the Neverseen also stole something important of hers—the Archetype."

"Did she say what it was?" Fitz asked. Janessa twitched at the sound of his voice, feeling guilty about having almost forgotten he was there.

"Only in the vaguest possible terms."

Sophie had a thoughtful look on her face before she asked, "Did she say anything about what Nightfall was supposed to be?"

"She said it's a testing facility, designed to measure worthiness. But she refused to say who she'd been planning to test or what would happen to those 'worthy' and 'unworthy,' or how those determinations were made—even when I suggested that the Black Swan might be open to a bargain. The only other information she gave me was to confirm that the third level in Nightfall was used for their soporidine experiment—and she only confessed to that when I revealed we had Alvar in our custody." Granite continued.

Janessa winced in sympathy as Fitz snapped, "Why would you tell her that?"

"Because I had to make her think I revealed a crucial secret." Granite explained. He proceeded to share that Gisela had revealed some details about soporidine, the drug that Alvar was under.

Physic then told them that Prentice was also under soporidine. Sophie immediately lashed out at Bronte.

"Hey, Soph, you don't know if it was him. You shouldn't accuse him so quickly." Janessa pointed out. When Sophie turned her ferocious glare at her, Janessa tensed and wondered if she should have just kept quiet. Exactly what she needed, to give her sister more reasons to hate her.

Councillor Bronte and Mr Forkle then proceeded to confirm that the Council hadn't been the cause of Prentice's condition while Physic wondered if Tam's manipulation of shadowvapour could help; the bangs boy readily agreed to help.

"How did Wylie take the news?" Linh asked immediately. Janessa wondered when they'd grown close; it was obvious the serene girl cared about him a lot. "Did someone explain soporidine?"

"I answered all his questions." Lady Cadence said.

"And I made it clear the Council had nothing to do with his father's condition." Bronte added.

Sophie frowned and stared intensely at Mr Forkle. She really needed to work on not being obvious when she was talking telepathically with someone. Janessa pursed her lips and leant more into Biana, waiting for her sister to speak out loud. The brunette's clear, relaxed emotions at her actions that spread through her made everything feel better.

The adults then told them that it was in fact one of the dwarves working at Exile who had then left their station there that were probably the ones who applied the soporidine.

After some time hypothesizing the conditions behind Prentice's original mindbreak, the Black Swan leaders present revealed it would soon be time for Sophie to attempt to heal his mind.

Sophie immediately perked up and seemed ready to try right away, messy hair, pyjamas, and all. Janessa sent a small smile her way, but Sophie didn't return it, seeming just awkward. Her smile fell, but she deserved it. Sophie couldn't be blamed for that reaction.

Then as the subject of Sophie's human sister came up, Janessa perked up.

"Natalie? Is she ok? Can I see her?" As Janessa spoke, she could tell something was very wrong from the waves of anxiety coming from Sophie strongly enough to make her start to choke. "So-phie. What..." Janessa gagged. "What's wrong?" As Janessa choked again, Biana pulled away from her and both her and Dex were staring at her concernedly. "I forgot how strong your- emotions are."

As she looked over, Bronte was kneeling in front of Sophie and soon the anxiety faded to the fainter buzz of stress that had been wafting off Sophie earlier. Janessa grabbed Biana and Dex's hands, trying to focus only on Biana's clear emotions and Dex's warm, indecipherable ones, letting them overpower Sophie's.

"Emotions? You're an empath?" Mr Forkle asked, frowning, a worried look in his eyes. 

Janessa froze, reading the look in his eyes and realizing that Oralie was an empath. Hesitantly, she replied, "yeah, I did. While I was... you know. That's a story for another time, though."

Dex and Biana's hands in hers tightened simultaneously. 

"We should get back to the subject. Natalie." Janessa said, lip twitching.

Bronte then revealed the Council knew most of the details about Natalie's whereabouts already and requested to meet her. Everyone looked at Sophie waiting for her answer.

"For what it's worth, I'd love to meet her." Edaline said with a fragile hope wavering in her voice.

That decided it. Janessa couldn't make eye contact with Sophie after that, not sure if she had earned the right to see Natalie again after everything that had happened.

Biana nudged her and smiled at her brightly, the clarity of her emotions once again flowing through Janessa and clearing away her worries. Biana would always be there, no matter what.

**************

A/N

Ok, so lowkey had a lot of fun writing this and now I really wanna continue this fic cuz I am actually so proud of it. Thank you so much to everyone who's left comments, it makes me feel so good about myself and inspired me to write this chapter. Also, I originally was gonna ship Dex and JJ, but now with Biana, I don't know. I like them both. I might make JJ and Biana the ultimate platonic ship, but I haven't decided. For now, I'll just keep building them both up and see what happens. Either way, I'm really excited to see exactly where I go with this.

Love you all :)

-Minnie