Her Imperfections

Chapter Sixteen

Contrary to Sophie's belief, reserving mental energy was extremely straining. It felt like you had a meal in front of you, but you were only allowed one bite. Still she persevered.
The Neverseen used a tactic on her similar to the one the Council had used when they kept Fintan hostage. The burning lights of her walls were dimmed to signal it was time for her to sleep. Unfortunately, sometimes it was only minutes and other times it felt like a day. They wanted to mess with her, making it unable for her to tell how long she had been there.
Little did they know Sophie was still counting. It was her fifth day, eleventh hour, twenty-first minute, and thirty-third second.
Thirty-four.
Not once had Fintan come to visit her and Sophie was fine with that. She had plenty to think about. Her mind was currently drawing a blank when it came to the reason he was keeping her there, but it was the only thing she could think about. If her mind strayed to her friends, Grady, Edaline, the repeating words of Fintan saying "One year."
No.
Sophie drew her thoughts back to the reason, the Neverseen, their plans. Before she was kidnapped, her friends had made no progress on the magsidian or what it had to do with Keefe. And she doubted they had figured out much since then.
Sophei cursed under her breath with realization, they were probably spending all their time looking for her. A near silent whoosh let her know lunch was ready. Whoever the Conjurer was, they were good. The plate was on the floor without so much as a clatter, everything perfectly in place and unspilled.
She grabbed it from the floor and tried to fill the empty feeling in her energy reserves with a cold, crispy cylindrical root that tasted more bitter than than it looked with its dark rings. Sophie glanced around as if someone could be watching her, but the walls seemed too thick to hide anything. Sighing carefully, Sophie removed the last few items of her lunch's and focused on the tray. She had to make sure her stored energy was working.
The tray rattled against the ground, stopped, then started shaking again. Finally it slammed into the wall with a loud rattle and Sophie jumped back. If Fintan had heard, well, she didn't want to imagine what he would do to her. After a couple minutes of barely breathing, Sophie knew she was safe.
Sighing, she tucked her knees to her chest and focused back on the main question. Why she was there. Fintan had said one year. What significance did that even have? Her mind tugged for an answer, pulling into her photographic memeory. Only when Sophie reached back into her first days of coming to the lost cities that she felt her breath catch. A sourness started to spread down her throat and bile teased at her tongue.
In one year she would be fifteen.....
The end of manifesting age. Which meant she had another ability.
And Fintna knew.