Ana and Jolie sat in the same room she'd sat in yesterday, sitting on the bed in Jolie's physician office.
"I want you to sit here and try to work on your phasing. Remember, how phasing works is you can will your body to break down into smaller and smaller pieces and then put them back together." Jolie said, slipping her hood back on. "Just like light leaping. I'm sorry I can't help you, but I've been my physician responsibilities for too long. I told Gisela I'd start training you as my apprentice, but not now. Practice," she said, and left the room.
Ana concentrated, trying to walk through her bed.
I'm invisible. I'm invisible. You can't see me.
She was just about to walk through the bed when Jewel slammed her door open. "I need some sasquatch saliva," she muttered, slamming the door behind her. Then she wheeled on Ana.
"You were transmitting! Oh, Ana!" Jolie muttered, pulling off her hood. "Imagine you're three people. Isolate all three abilities. This is a trick I heard Councillor Oralie taught Sophie Foster. She has too many abilities as well. Think of three words to describe your phasing." Jolie sounded desperate, really desperate.
"Um. I don't know? Squishy?" Ana frowned. "Why do I have to do this?"
"It helped Sophie control her powers. Maybe it can help you."
Ten minutes later, Ana had chosen Squishy, Weird, and Annoying for her phasing, Helpful and easy for vanishing, and mysterious for her telepathy. But it still didn't work. Ana spent the rest of the day working on her phasing and telepathy. She practiced reading Jolie's mind- "you faked your death?!"- transmitting to Jolie, and tracking thoughts. Jewel even took her to Los Angelos, or the 'Forbidden Cities' as she called them, to practice blocking thoughts. Lady Gisela had her train in Vanishing with someone named Alvar, who emphasized that skills were just as, if not more, important than abilities. She still worked on phasing with Jolie in secret, in Ana's med room.
One day, after a hard day of training, Jewel was leading Ana to her room.
"Do you remember what I gave you?" Jewel asked Ana.
"Yeah, the mirror?" Ana said, confused.
"Give it to Sophie Foster," Jewel breathes. "Rotate the crystal five times to the right, seven up, and three diagonal, that'll take you to Havenfield. My room is on the second floor, across from the offices. It has lacy pink curtains. Hide the mirror there, let Sophie see I'm still here."
Ana gives her a tiny nod. All she's thinking is Jolie put the pathfinder in my desk! And now I can visit the Lost Cities freely! Wait a minute- how am I supposed to get back-
Jewel quickly pushed a small yellow crystal into Ana's hand. This must take me back here. Ana refused to think of the Neverseen's hideout as home.
"Tonight, the moonlarks fly," Jewel whispered to Ana as she closed the door.
Ana nodded. She had no idea what the phrase meant, but she knew Jolie wanted her to pass the message to Sophie.
After waiting a good two minutes (which felt like an hour for an ADHD demigod), Ana tapped the secret hatch in her desk, the secret drawer sliding open.
Yes!!
Ana snatched the pathfinder and adjusted it how Jolie told her to. She frowned. The crystal glowed, but there wasn't any light in the room to make a path.
Hey, wait, I'm a phaser! Wait, won't someone see me? - oh yeah, I can turn invisible! You can do this, Ana.
Ana grinned. "I got this." She allowed one deep breath, turning invisible, and phasing through the door with her pathfinder. She and Jolie had practiced holding her vanish while breaking down her body, so no one could see or touch her. Ana reformed, still invisible, hurrying through the halls of rooms, most empty, towards the shaft. Jumping out the doorway, she levitated to the surface. Lady Gisela had programmed the rock to open to Ana's DNA, and she'd assumed that Jewel had disabled her trackers in her cloak.
But she couldn't worry about that now. Jewel had given her a multispecies lecture. She'd also told Ana that Sophie had a lot of bodyguards. Since she didn't have any ash, and no way of getting any ash, she'd have to stay invisible and phased.
Ana held her pathfinder's crystal up to the fading sunlight, creating a path to the mysterious Sophie Foster's home. Or, in other words, Havenfield.
When she arrived, she did a double take. Jewel had told her all about her family's animal preserve, or rehabilitation center, but she'd never expected to find a fluffy dinosaur, or weird big purple groundhogs (verminions), or a golden-furred pterodactyl. (Flareadon)
Ana shrugged it off. She already knew Elves and the Lost Cities were weird, so it'd make sense that they'd have weird animals as well. Ana turned her attention to the crystal mansion that had been Jolie's home. She ran towards it, still invisible, but not phased. She started levitating, running on air toward the second floor. She could hear the goblins below her, sounding an alarm. She'd have to hurry. Quickly, she phased through the wall, and by pure luck, landed in Jolie's room. A flash behind the curtain quickly caught her eye, and she stashed the mirror behind the curtain.
"What did Jolie say," she muttered to herself.
"That's not important."
Ana slowly turned around to see a gray creature with a flat nose and squeaky voice with a sword pointed at her, dangerously close to her throat.
"No Neverseen will endanger my charge without my knowledge. The second you move, I strike," he added, as he noticed her arms drifting towards the pocket in her sleeve where she held her knives from her Aunt Thalia.
"May I speak?" Ana asked, her youthful tone clearly surprising the brute, who she'd recognized as a goblin. (Sandor)
"No." He answered. Ana's hands suddenly flashed, her daggers appearing in her hands, the goblin's sword swinging where her head had been half a second ago. She flashed her knives, blinding him, and knocked the sword out of his grasp, vaulting over him. She ran down the hall way, phasing through the guards rushing down the hall. She ran up the stairs, where she assumed Sophie's room would be.
Ana stopped in her tracks. The room was huge. Crystals dangled from the ceiling, lighting up the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows with shades drawn over them screamed threats. A bookshelf full of books. A beautiful, huge, canopy bed was set up in the middle of the room. And standing on it was a beautiful young elf in alicorn PJs with bedhead, brandishing a throwing star. She turned visible.
"Stop right there or I'll inflict," she warned.
"I'm sorry to bother you. But I had to pass a message." Ana cleared her throat, noting the girl's surprise. "Tonight, the moonlarks fly."
Ana phased, turning to run out the window.
"Wait!" The elf- Sophie Foster, Ana reminded herself. "What does that mean? Who sent that message?"
"I don't know, and your sister," Ana whispered the last part. "This is where she lived."
"Jolie?" Sophie breathed.
Ana jumped through the window.
A/N: I know that Alvar got left behind in the Everglen attack, but for the sake of the story, Ruy grabbed Alvar as Vespera leaped them away in Flashback.
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The Missing Prophecy (pjo/kotlc) book 3
Adventure(Takes place after all pjo books, during Legacy in kotlc) Nine-year- old Ana Jackson is on a mission to find the prophecy her mother got before she died. Ana's goal is to follow the clues her mother left and use the prophecy to defeat Echidna, and r...
