Mirrored Conflicts (a Sokeefe story)

Chapter 5: The Symbol

"The Council is scrambling," Lady Gisela said approvingly. "The nobility are angry that their children weren't safe inside their own school. Thousands of elves are keeping their children home. And everyone sees their leaders' weakness."

Change. It was the goal of the Neverseen, and Keefe had introduced a healthy amount of it with his explosion. For some reason, Keefe really needed to hear that. Perhaps he was letting the Moonlark get into his head too easily.

"However, I am very interested to hear how you managed to lose your cloak if you were in and out so quickly."

Lady Gisela's stare was harsh—perhaps overly harsh given that the topic was a piece of ominous looking clothing—but Keefe rushed to give a viable explanation anyway. "There were mirrors all over that office. Glass rained. Some of the debris caught in my cloak while I was about to leap away, and I figured getting out of there was important, so... I just ditched the thing."

He hoped his tone of voice wasn't screaming I used my cloak to protect the Moonlark from the attack while she was right in front of me!

The disappointment radiating off of his mother was always difficult for Keefe to feel, so he focused on the undercurrent of satisfaction and pride that she was still feeling. The attack had been successful. Elves in the Lost Cities were questioning the leadership of the Council.

"Let's hope the Black Swan doesn't recover it, though I'm sure they somehow will." Oh, definitely. He'd basically handed it to them. "They can't get anything from the tracking device inside, of course, and I'm sure they'll remove that portion immediately. But the Lodestar symbol is important, and if they manage to figure that out..."

"I'm sure they won't." Keefe rolled his eyes. "It's the Black Swan. They look at things, then look at them again, and then scratch their heads and add it to the pile of Things They'll Figure Out Later. There's a reason they've never beat us."

Lady Gisela didn't let herself smile, but she was at least somewhat amused by his words—he could feel it. "Make sure you don't let anything of the sort happen again. If they were to learn the location of our hideouts—"

"Which they will not," Keefe reminded her.

"Maybe, but it would be a disaster, and I would hate for it to be because you couldn't hold onto a cloak with a little bit of glass lodged in it."

Keefe swallowed. "I'll be more careful."

"I'm sure you will be." She checked the time, and she immediately stalked off, supposedly to take care of something more important than him. Important enough that she didn't need to say "goodbye" or "take care" or anything to her son.

Keefe sighed and redirected his thoughts to his most recent scheme to turn Alvar's hair orange. He didn't think about his mother's distance and disappointment, and he definitely didn't think about the betrayal that emanated off of the Moonlark when he set off the explosive and leapt away.

—

Sophie took a deep breath and tried to not explode.

"When you say you've seen this symbol in Prentice's mind," she said slowly, "you mean the same Prentice you've been telling me... isn't stable enough to have his mind searched."

Magnate Leto showed no visible reaction to the implications of her tone. "Yes, that Prentice."

"Why would you lie to me?" Sophie snapped. Grady put a hand on her shoulder, but she ignored him.

"I didn't lie. I told you his mind wasn't ready to be healed. That is a very different thing."

"And I thought my enhanced abilities made me the only telepath capable of searching a broken mind," Sophie countered.