The Goodness and Darkness of Our Souls

"Explanations, Now."

No . . . it can't be! He was crushed to death! Sophie's mind screamed. Could this be a prank? A trick? Or a distraction?

And what really threw her off was the perfection of his face. It seemed like not a scratch or scar was marred into his face. Since when did the Neverseen have such abilities to heal such wounds? That was impossible right? Despite the Lost Cities having technology more advanced than the humans, they didn't have the ability to heal or create fully functioning body parts of a damaged body. She'd seen it happen with Terik.

The Brant-face person stared at her as if he recognized her as well. His brows furrowed, knitting closely together as if it seemed like he was trying to place who Sophie was in his mind. And then, his eyes widened slightly—enough for Sophie to see the recognition of shock—as his lips parted, a single word escaping his mouth.

"Sage?"

Sophie tensed. Her name wasn't Sage. It was Sophie Foster and Sophie Foster alone. Maybe he was hallucinating. Or maybe she was the one hallucinating.

Maybe I'm going crazy. I mean there's no way these people are from another 'world', right? Sophie wondered to herself. Or maybe . . . they are who they say they are.

She fell back, moving off of him. But she couldn't take her eyes off of him, a million questions running through her head.

"Brant, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead!" Sophie said, disbelief in her voice.

Brant-face tilted his head in confusion, his brows knitting together. "Dead?" His voice came out in a soft whisper, unlike the raspy, bitter voice Sophie was used to.

Which flared anger in Sophie. They couldn't dare toy with her like this! "What sort of trick are you playing on me?!"

She started shaking her head, questions and emotions blurring and raging all inside her. "You can't be real, this is just another illusion. Another trick from the Neverseen just to throw me off my game."

She felt a hand press onto her shoulder and she turned around to find Keefe giving her a gentle squeeze, as if he was making sure Sophie was okay. She realized she was shaking and the warmth in his eyes comforted Sophie, feeling a wave of calmness flow through her as she stopped shaking. But then his eyes fell on the Brant-face member, growing wide with shock and disbelief. And dread started filling her stomach again.

Sophie looked around to find that the rest of the members of the "Everseen" restrained. To her relief.

Fitz had knocked out the vanisher, who laid unconscious on the ground next to his feet, Keefe seemed to have taken out the clone of his mom using his ability to manipulate the body by making her legs asleep, and Dex and Biana were able to bound the psionipath with a strange silky rope Sophie had never seen before.

She turned back towards Brant-face who threw his hands up in surrender, his face clearly stating he did not want to fight. Sophie was tempted to go ahead and knock him out with her inflicting, but Keefe's voice whispered into her ear, "Don't." And she backed down, pushing her conflicted and raging emotions aside.

After a moment, they were able to drag the other members together into a small group near the Panakes. Sophie led Brant-face person over to the group, to which he earned a lot of shock and questioning looks, the same reaction Sophie had as well. Especially Fitz, who narrowed his eyes, clearly ready to go full on Cognate-mode on him to see if it was truly Brant. But Sophie shook her head at him, signaling this was not the time and place for it. Much to his dislike and impatience, he reluctantly backed down and turned to face the more pressing matter at hand.

They waited a second for the shock to wear off their leader to whom Mr. Forkle stunned before they could start with the questions. The glazed over look in off-brand Fintan wore off as he shook his head, glancing at his defeated teammates before looking up at Sophie and the rest.