The Moonlark's Song

Chapter Six

I'm so, so sorry this is late you guys!! Have at it ;)

I can't believe Lady Gisela told you what the Great Gulon incident was!

Keefe is right to be proud; it's pretty impressive. Tam being impressed was hard to imagine, so Sophie would have to take him at his word.

Good to know. I've got to head over to Everglen so we can discuss the note Keefe got at the Shores of Solace a few days ago about 'beginning phase two of the Lodestar Initiative'. You wouldn't know anything about that...would you?

I do, but they'd know I told you. Sophie sighed.

Right. Talk to you soon. She pushed up off her bed and headed out the door. With any luck, she'd be able to talk to Fitz, who'd been studiously avoiding her, before anyone else got there.

When she arrived at the gates, she was surprised to find him waiting for her.

"We need to talk."

"Why do you think I came over early?" Fitz laughed at the rhetorical question, but his teal eyes didn't have their usual sparkle.

"I might've known that you'd have a plan. It's not that I don't like you..."

"I know. But we'd be a bad match."

"Not just because you're unMatchable."

"But we'd be fighting too much, and there are too many power imbalances..."

"And we're better off as friends." Sophie's heart twisted a little at how well they finished each other's sentences, but his smile of relief didn't break her heart quite the way she thought it would.

"Definitely."

"Are you guys okay?" Dex's dimple was nowhere in sight as he arrived to see them both standing at the gate.He was testament that she could stay friends with someone who'd liked her, right? Of course, she hadn't liked him back, but still. "Sophie looks like she's about to cry."

Mallowmelt. Maybe she didn't look as relieved as she felt. Sophie shook her head vehemently. "No tears here. Is anyone else here, Fitz?"

Fitz started to shake his head as Keefe arrived.

"Party's here. Or, should I say, 'focus of a grim meeting about an exasperating parental figure we all wish I wasn't related to' is here? And why are Sophie's emotions wigging out?" Sophie groaned inwardly. Of all the times for her to have a reason to come "early", everyone else had to be on time, too?

"Don't knock yourself, Keefe," Biana said, appearing and causing Sophie to wonder just how long the Vanisher had been standing there. "And when Sophie wants to tell us what's up, she will." Sophie knew the Vanisher would find out eventually, but it was getting frustrating that the Vanisher seemed to know everything that happened practically when it did.

"Let's go inside to wait for everyone else," Fitz said. "We're only waiting for maybe Wylie, since Linh isn't coming...right?"

"I think you forgot about me," Marella said with a toss of her hair, striding through Everglen's gate to join them. "And Linh said she needed to finish packing before she came by."

"In an ideal world, that'd mean we didn't see her, but..." Sophie shook her head. "Let's go inside."

Once they were all gathered in the main room at Everglen, plates of mallowmelt in hand, Keefe called everyone's attention.

"So I'm the one who called the emergency meeting, right? And I know that school starts up again soon so we're losing Fitzy and I and you lot are getting more time with Wylie...but my mom is sending notes again."

"Can the rest of us see it, please?" Biana jumped up and snatched the note from Keefe's outstretched hand and read it aloud. "Thanks to your friend's talents, the Lodestar Initiative is moving into Phase Two. Don't freak out, stay away from Fintan, and remember how much I love you."

"It rhymes," Dex pointed out through a mouthful of mallowmelt.

"A point for her, I guess, but what are we supposed to do with this information?" Keefe grabbed fistfuls of his hair and looked ready to tear it out if someone didn't give him a solution he could implement immediately.

"Well...Sophie hedged as everyone turned to look at her. "We'll think of something. We still don't know what the Lodestar Initiative, or as Lady Gisela usually calls it, 'Keefe's legacy' is, but we'll figure it out."

"Right." Fitz stood up. "If we don't actually know anything, today's already been a pretty long and hard day for me, so I think I'll let you guys figure it out. Especially since we're pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with my brot--with Alvar." He smiled at everyone in the circle, though he didn't meet Sophie's eyes. After he left with his mallowmelt, there was a long moment before anyone tried to break that silence.

"What's up with him?" Marella asked, poking at the delectability on her plate. Sophie'd forgotten that not everyone was privy to her conversation with Fitz, though she couldn't understand how Marella hadn't finished her mallowmelt, since Sophie was already wondering if it would be rude to ask for another piece. She was grateful for the fact that not everyone knew every last detail of her conversation with Fitz until Keefe took it upon himself to spill the beans.

'If I had to guess--which I don't, because Empath--I'd say Fitzphie is a now no-go." Marella frowned. 

"Why?" 

"Because I'm Unmatchable." Marella frowned. The word was feeling more and more familiar in Sophie's mouth, but that didn't mean she liked the taste. So far it only meant letting Fitz go and people needing to know why she hadn't old them sooner.

"And that is completely okay," Biana jumped in, brining her a third slice of mallowmelt. "We still love you."

"Friends forever, yeah?" Sophie smiled at Dex and nodded. No matter what scary initiatives the Neverseen were cooking up, or how disappointing the results of her Match failure had been, she would always have her friends.

"Sorry I'm late, you guys," Linh said with a pink-cheeked smile from the doorway that made Wylie drop the second slice of mallowmelt he'd been passed. "What have I missed?"