KEEFER Of The Lost Cities

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next day, Keefe and Fitz went to the library to pick up their posters. Lady Lindra was there already with their posters in front of her. She had a pencil and an eraser and was leaning down so that her glasses had slipped to her nose.

They approached her slowly and stood there for a little bit, waiting for her to notice.

That was when Keefe noticed her erase something on his poster and write it in his handwriting.

"Uh...." He mumbled. "What are you doing?"

She glanced up and made a face. "Go ask the other librarian."

Keefe looked at Fitz. He shrugged and tried again. "Lady Lindra?"

"What?" She snapped.

"We need our posters."

Her head snapped up and she realized who they were.

"Oh... uh..." Keefe was pretty sure he saw a hint of an embarrassed blush rise up on her cheeks. "I wasn't doing anything."

"Uh huh.." Keefe said, making sure he put just enough sarcasm so Lady Lindra could notice it. She seemed pretty oblivious to.. the world in general.

"Hmph. You should be grateful. I fixed your posters so now there's no way you won't get a 100."

"Uh.. thanks?" Fitz said, though it seemed more like a question. "You didn't need to."

"Nonsense. You would have gotten 95's on this if it weren't for me, according to my work from when I was in Foxfire."

She held up a poster.

Okay then..

"How did you forge our handwriting? So perfectly, too."

"I'm a polyglot and a conjurer. I can mimic people's voices and kind of got a hang of writing like whoever I mimic too."

"You can mimic me?" Keefe asked, his voice going an octave higher and getting much sharper.

Lady Lindra's jaw dropped. "You're a polyglot too?"

"Nope. I just got a lot of practice. Living with a polyglot and all."

"Hmm." She didn't say anything else and stared off into the distance, so Keefe and Fitz just grabbed their posters and left.

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

As soon as Keefe was handing Lady Belva his poster, a loud ringing pierced his ears, and he jerked up from where his head was in his arms on the desk.

Lady Belva stopped droning on and on about the star and glanced at Keefe and then the speaker in the room.

She pulled Keefe to his feet and dragged him out of the room. "What's going on?" Keefe asked.

"Emergency evacuation." Lady Belva said. She let go of Keefe's elbow and Keefe followed her through the crowd of students and mentors.

Eventually, Keefe lost sight of Lady Belva's blue cape, but he followed the rest of the students to the leapmaster.

NOOO! He had to go home?

That wasn't fair. What did he ever do to deserve that?

He scanned the crowd of students but couldn't find anyone he knew.

When it was his turn at the leapmaster, he glanced around for the last time, wondering what in the world was going on.

Foxfire never evacuated the school. He didn't even know they had alarms.

A school full of Elves with super abilities doesn't really have a lot to worry about. It must have been really bad.

He closed his eyes and was at Candleshade when he opened them again.

His mother was there already.

"Hello, Keefe." He didn't answer. She went on, unfazed by his unwillingness to look at her. "I heard Foxfire was evacuated." He didn't say anything. "Do you know what it was about?"

With his mother, silence was the best answer.

"I don't suppose it had anything to do with your Sophie Foster?" She hissed her name like it hurt her to say. His mom had never seen Sophie. What was that all about?

He finally looked up, and said the first thing that had come to his mind. "She's not mine."

Lady Gisela rolled her eyes. "Your father said it felt like you were quite taken with her." His jaw dropped, but she continued. "He also said she seemed quite interesting. She was hiding something."

She paused, as if she expected him to know. He shrugged.

That was the wrong reaction. She leaned closer and raised her eyebrows. "So you know?"

He took a step back. "I don't even think she's hiding anything. Empath, remember?"

"As if I could forget." She muttered. She was making no sense.

"Can I go inside now, please? It's freezing outside."

She moved out of the way, deep in thought.

Keefe walked up the path to the front door and paused. He didn't want another confrontation with another one of his parents, so he went through the back door and ran to the vortinator.

The familiar feeling of his stomach being left on the first floor comforted him, and he sat on his huge bed, staring at the empty first floor of his room.

Foxfire never evacuated. Ever. Not even drills.

And what was that about Sophie? Why did his mother just suddenly seem so.. Interested?

Keefe couldn't deny that she was hiding things. BIG things, he knew.

Maybe even world-changing things.

But if his mom decided that she wanted to know what Sophie was up to too, then Foster would be in even more danger.

Keeping secrets in the Lost Cities never ended up good.

Keeping secrets from his mom always ended up worse.

He hailed Fitz.

After a few seconds of ringing, Fitz's face popped up.

"What's up?" Keefe asked Fitz.

"You hailed me."

"Right. Do you know why Foxfire evacuated?"

"No. I was wondering the same thing."

"Does Alden know?"

Fitz's eyebrows furrowed. "Dad's not home. He left right after me and Biana came home."

"Do you think he had something to do with it?"

"Maybe. It's possible." Fitz stopped and glanced around. "I heard him say something to mom about Sophie."

Keefe's eyes widened, but he wasn't surprised. "Of course she had something to do with this."

Fitz nodded. "I know what you mean."

"You seem to know more about her than anyone else."

"Well.."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you were the one that brought her here. How do you think she keeps so many secrets?"

"I don't know. Secrets are a hard thing to carry around. It was hard lying to everyone when I was looking for her."

"Mhm."

Neither of them said anything.

FItz broke the silence. "Wanna come over tomorrow?"

"Yes please."

"Okay then. I have to go now. See you tomorrow."

"See you." Keefe said. Fitz's face flashed out.

~Zara