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Keefe knows, that as far as Sophie is concerned, things are—and will pretty much always be—complicated. It’s not just the whole thing with Fitz, who happens to be his best friend, no matter what they’ve been through or how Fitz may feel about him at the moment. It’s not really about the fact that he’s an Empath, he doesn’t really talk about that part of his abilities, why would he? It’s painful, to relive their experiences through their emotions only.
He might have a photographic memory, but that doesn’t mean he needs it all the time.
He starts to spend a little less time around his friends, friends—can he even call them that? He’s sure he’s screwed things up so far that they’re past the point of no return, but then again, Sophie’s always found a way to keep surprising him and forgiving him.
If things weren’t the way they were now, he’d think that there was a little more to her feelings than she let on.
Then again, he knew that was being naive, he’s an Empath, for mallowmelt’s sake. He knows what her feelings are, never mind that he can’t decipher them all the time.
“Keefe?” He sits up, letting the bead slip from his fingers and watches the blue and gold swirl as it spins into his lap.
He hums in response. “Yeah?”
“Do you ever wonder how different things would be if Fitz hadn’t found me?”
Keefe doesn't look up, despite how he frowns as he ponders the question. “When?”
He can feel her frown. “At all.”
He risks a glance over his shoulder. “Then Alvar would have.”
Sophie scoffs, but it sounds a little more lighthearted. “Be positive.”
He shrugs, looking back down at the bead in his lap. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be asking your boyfriend?”
Sophie sits up, indignant. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Keefe shrugs again. “I don’t know what happened the day that he found you. It would make more sense to ask him.”
Sophie shakes her head, blonde waves tumbling down her shoulders. “That’s not what I meant. I was thinking about how all of these terrible things happened, and it’s supposed to be perfect here, and I mean, all of these terrible things happened to people I care about, and a lot of them only happened after Fitz brought me here and—”
“Breathe, Foster,” Keefe cuts her off. “This place is far from perfect. The discrimination and prejudice against multiple births and bad matches? That was here before you. Fintan and the issues with the bias against pyrokinetics? Again, before you. Not to mention Vespera was definitely way before your time, Foster.” If it’s my parents you’re worried about, they’ve always been like that. My dad demands perfection, and my mom has always been the queen of ice.
She looks away. “Yeah, but what about the Songs?”
“Couldn’t have done anything to help them, trust me on that.” I would know.
She turns back to him. “What about you?”
He rolls onto his stomach, ice meeting gold. “What about me?”
“Your mom. . . ,” she trails off. “That was something I could’ve done something about.”
He shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. He doesn’t bother pushing it away. “I had to see if I could get anything from them, you know that.”
“And with Dimitar?” He flinches, thinking of the scar that runs along his abs. She stares him down, unflinching beneath the tidal wave of emotions washing over him. It’s there again, that feeling that makes him question everything he’s ever known, but he ends up releasing his hold on that feeling out of respect for Fitz.
He drops his gaze to the floor. “My mom arranged everything. I didn’t have a choice. I just wish there was more I could’ve done. I mean, all I did was rip off his earring. Plus a chunk of his ear.”
“You did more than enough,” Sophie says, her voice almost trembling with a quiet fury that he doesn’t quite understand but appreciates nonetheless. “He gutted you.”
“And I lived,” Keefe points out. “I think that really says something about my—”
“Ability to get yourself into situations you shouldn’t be getting yourself into in the first place?” Sophie interrupts. “Stop throwing your life on the line for every little thing.”
“Pot,” Keefe mutters, waving his hand with a flourish, “meet kettle.”
A sharp chime rings out. Sophie breaks from their staring contest, looking apologetic as she looks up from her imparter. “I have to go,” she says.
“It’s Fitz,” Keefe agrees, pausing and waiting for her to deny it even though he knows he’s right. “See you later Foster.”
Sophie frowns, pausing for a moment. “Keefe? Thank you.”
He knows why she’s saying it, but some part of him is still bitter, which is why he says, “Don’t thank me. It’s the truth.” It sounds a little harsher than he’d meant for it to, so he adds, “Luzia Vacker was in love with Vespera before things went downhill.”
Sophie nods slowly, unsure of what to do with the new information, but accepts it anyway. “Okay.”
Fitz is still mad at Dex but his feelings toward Diznee feel different sometimes, is also on the tip of his tongue, but Sophie is happy, and he isn’t about to ruin that for her. There’s something else he wants to say, but he’d promised Alden, and he isn’t sure if he really wants to face Fitz’s wrath anyway.
“Bye, Foster.”
“Bye, Keefe.”
*⚝*✵*
He doesn’t see her for another week, not until he wakes up in a cold sweat, shaking so hard, he’d fallen out of bed with blood on his tongue. He doesn’t mean to go to Havenfield, but then again, he hasn’t been thinking straight.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, as she wraps the bandage tighter around his hand. He’d apparently stabbed it with an old crystal when he’d fallen.
“Don’t apologize, Keefe,” Edaline says, tilting his chin up slightly. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. And truth be told, Sophie needs you right now, so please, just go to her. She’s still awake, but she might be a little disoriented.”
“Moonlight?”
Edaline smiles softly. “Jars and jars of it. You seem familiar with it.”
Keefe nods, fidgeting with the ends of the bandage. “Yeah, I uh, I used to draw at night sometimes, when I knew my dad wouldn’t be up. Guess I should’ve been a little more worried about my mom.”
Something shifts in Edaline’s gaze and Keefe starts. “Well, Sophie needs me, so don’t let me keep you up. Thanks for everything.”
He starts to leave, but she stops him. “I know you might feel like you don’t have anyone to talk to, but I can listen if you need me too, okay, Keefe?”
He nods and leaves before she can say anything else, slipping up the stairs and stopping right in front of her door. It is slightly ajar, with the soft silvery glow of the moonlight trickling out. He pushes the door open slightly, upon seeing Sandor’s nod. “Foster?”
“Go to sleep, Sandor,” Sophie calls back. “You can’t beat Fitz up for this, it isn’t even his fault.”
“Eh, with my experience between you two, it usually is,” Keefe teases. “Is everything alright with you two?”
Sophie turns around, the jar slipping from her grip. It would’ve shattered as it hit the floor, but Keefe catches it with his telekinesis first, setting it down gently. “You okay?”
“Keefe,” she states, and he nods, an amused smirk playing at his lips.
“I’ve been told that’s my name,” he agrees. “What’s up with the Fitzster?”
“Oh,” Sophie says. “I broke up with Fitz.”
“Oh,” Keefe echoes. He wants—oh, he wants—so badly to be surprised by this, but there’s a greater part of him that tells him that he knew that this was coming, one way or another. What he didn’t—and still doesn’t—know is what comes next. For all of them.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s kind of awkward having to tell him everything and having to be Cognates and trying to keep up a relationship at the same time.”
Keefe nods, ignoring the guilt behind her statement. “Right, I can’t imagine what it would be like, to have to tell someone everything.” It’s a blatant lie, that’s not why Sophie ended things, and anyway, Keefe tells her basically everything, so he has some idea of what it’s like. Sophie frowns at him.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m lying?”
He shrugs. “You didn’t seem like you needed to hear that right now.”
She scowls. “You don’t get to decide what I need to hear and what I don’t. You’ve always called me out on how I’m feeling and now you won’t tell me the truth?”
Keefe doesn’t say anything, just stood there for a moment. Sophie sighs, looking away and tucking her hair back behind her ear. “Sorry. I guess I’m just a little on edge.”
“Yeah,” Keefe muses, not disagreeing. “Yeah, I think we all are.”
“So. . . Alvar remembers everything,” Sophie sighs. Keefe runs a hand through his hair haphazardly.
He agrees. “Guess he was playing us this whole time.”
Sophie shakes her head. “No, I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that there wasn’t good in him, what about the reading Councillor Terik took? It’s impossible to mess with that.”
“I think we’re all learning a little more about what’s impossible and what’s not, Foster,” Keefe says with a sigh. “You’re the proof of the good that can come from that, and Alvar’s the proof of the bad that can come from it.” He wants to say more, wishes he had more to say, but he doesn’t. He knows that the minute they stop talking about this though, things will go back to being as awkward as they’ve been ever since Sophie and Fitz became Fitz and Sophie .
It doesn’t help that he’s completely aware of the fact that Grady still calls him “that boy” as if he’s something terrible, something to stray away from. Part of him thinks Grady has a point, and if he were in his position, he wouldn’t let himself anywhere near Sophie.
He’s glad Grady doesn’t think like him.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asks suddenly, taking in his disheveled appearance. “I feel like we haven’t seen you in a while.”
Keefe winces mentally. “Yeah, fine. My dad’s just been feeling particularly cuddly lately, I guess.” Lie. His dad’s been hiding in one of his escapes for the past few weeks, and if Keefe hadn’t personally checked them all out, he would’ve been a little more worried about his father being a traitor.
He isn’t that lucky, he thinks, to have an awful father and a traitor of a mother. He’s lucky enough to be remembered, every once in a while, when he’s worth something.
“How’s empath training?” It’s awkward now, he knows it is, but he’s still surprised she hasn’t just asked him what she wants to know. But he’s unsure now, if she even cares about why he’s there.
“It’s going,” he says. “What really happened with Fitz?”
Sophie sighs, walking over and sitting down on the bed. “What didn’t happen?”
“It’s okay to not tell each other everything,” Keefe points out, sitting on the floor next to her feet. He can’t see her raised eyebrows, but he can feel her confusion at his decision.
She ignored his comment. “Sometimes I wish things could go back to the way they were before, like when crushes were this silly thing and at the same time the biggest thing I had to worry about. Instead, I’m worried about what my devastated ex-boyfriend will do because he’s upset.”
“It just means you still care,” Keefe says, running his fingers through the carpet. “That’s not what you’re worried about.”
“No, I’m worried about the fact that I’m actually worried about what I’m worried about. He’s Fitz Vacker , the Golden boy. Why should I be worried about him losing control?”
“Because he’s done it before?”
“Can you stop being annoyingly right for a second?” Sophie snaps. Keefe shrugs, tearing one of the pale carpet petals in half.
“I thought you wanted me to be honest.” He gives it a moment to sink in and when she doesn’t say anything, he thinks he might have gone too far. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s—stop apologizing—fine. Why are you here? And what happened to your hand?” He looks down, remembering the bandage Edaline had wrapped around it.
“I fell out of bed and cut my hand on an old crystal or something,” he mutters. “Edaline helped me fix it up so I wouldn’t be dripping blood everywhere. I’ve been told it’s quite vital.” He’s unsure of what he’s saying at this point, part of him wants to tell her the truth, to tell her how she really feels, but that’s not an option, not when she looks so sad, so miserable.
“Oh,” she says. “Sorry. Are you okay?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve been through way worse, right? And it’s not like I meant to fall out of bed or anything, sometimes it just happens.”
“Yeah, but what happened?” She’s pushing, and he knows she’s closer to the question than she’s ever been before, but she won’t repeat it, not like she wants to hear the answer. “Keefe. Why are you here?”
He’s surprised, but not unpleasantly so. He didn’t genuinely think she would ask again, but then again, she’s always been the one to ask when no one else cared.
“Just trying to remember whatever my wonderful mom erased from my head,” he mumbles. He’s lying again, but he’s a little more curious this time, wondering if she’ll catch on.
She’s looking out the window, over the fields bathed in silver light. “Did you?”
“Did I what?” He asks, following her gaze. He forgets his question soon enough, catching sight of iridescent lavender horns and shimmering pastel colored wings.
The alicorns have arrived.
*⚝*✵*
“Don’t think this conversation is over,” Sophie says, as they’re standing outside in the cool night air. Grady and Edaline are calling the councilors over, and the Hekses, just to check up on Luna and Wynn and make sure they’re doing okay.
Keefe nods, watching the light around the alicorns shimmer. “Of course not,” he mumbles. She doesn’t sound mad when she turns to greet the tired councillors, apologizing for the hour before making it clear that she doesn’t really care that she’s inconveniencing them.
It’s one of the things he loves most about her.
While she’s handling things over there though, Keefe goes over to Greyfall. It’s weird, he’d normally go to Silveny, mess around with the baby alicorns maybe, but some part of him thinks he can understand why Greyfall is the way he is.
“Feelings are hard, aren’t they?” He murmurs, stroking the alicorn’s nose gently. Greyfall doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge that he even heard what Keefe said, but Keefe knows.
He understands him.
Whatever happens next is a blur of sparkly councillors and alicorns sprinkled with neon t-rex feathers in between. The alicorns aren’t in any danger, Silveny’s still happily chanting about her babies in Sophie and Keefe’s heads.
Grady looks oddly smug about whatever he’s saying to the councillors, but Alina hardly looks appeased. There are comments about how the alicorns are free to come and go whenever they please without demanding the attention of the entire council, as well as comments on how the alicorns are the last of their kind and what if the Neverseen, or worse, his mom, get a hold of them?
It’s the second threat on their lives that gets his attention. “My mom wouldn’t dare take on Foster and her bodyguard army. Besides, she has no use for alicorns, just elf blood. Probably just mine.”
He doesn’t mean to interrupt them, not really anyway, it just sort of comes out. It gets Edaline to look at him with this bittersweet smile and Grady to look at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. Sophie looks mad, and he doesn’t blame her, he hates his family as much as she does. The councillors mostly just look confused, though Alina is aloof, as always.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Lack of beauty sleep. Explains why the hair isn’t looking too hot.”
If Sophie felt mad before, she’s furious now. “Silveny and Greyfall can take care of themselves and their babies. Silveny can transmit to me whenever she needs help,” she says, and her voice is firm, unwavering. She’s not arguing this.
“I think we’re done here then,” Grady concludes smoothly, and Keefe has to give him credit for it, he’s never seen anyone dismiss the councillors so thoroughly.
He thinks he might see a flash of irritation flash over Alina’s normally impassive face.
Edaline smiles sweetly and handles the pleasantries as Grady heads back inside. They’re something, he thinks. Absolutely terrifying to be on the wrong side of Grady and Edaline, but he can see just how strong they make each other. It’s a kind of fierce love that’s absolutely foreign to him, and yet vaguely familiar.
Keefe shakes his head to clear his thoughts and turns to follow; his crystal is sitting on the floor by her bed anyway, might as well go get it. Sophie grabs his arm tightly and all but drags him back up to her room before he can do that though.
“What happened?” She asks. He shrugs. He really isn’t sure, but he knows she won’t accept that, so he shrugs again. He’s tired of lying, tired of covering things up, maybe just tired in general.
I wish I had an answer, he thinks. I wish I knew, so I could tell you, so I could understand why I’m this way. I wish I knew what was wrong with me, and if there was a way to fix it.
Sometimes, he doesn’t think he’d want to fix whatever is wrong with him if he knew what it was.
“Keefe.” Her voice is urgent, and he finally looks up, sun setting in the frozen ocean. He falls back onto her bed, the muscles in back instinctively tightening the minute he tries to relax
“What do you want me to say?” He asks. “I’m just tired. I think it’s acceptable, I mean, I know I’m not recovering from any major injuries like Fitz or anything, but I’m just tired. I’m allowed to be tired, right?”
The last question comes out sounding more like a plea than it did in his head, but he’s done putting up walls.
He’s tired of putting up walls, and he’s also starting to grow tired of the word itself.
Sophie mirrors his position, her legs hanging off the other side of the bed, the side his head is pointing towards. It’s balanced, a little like the human concept of yin and yang he caught on to, from his time in the Forbidden Cities, but then again, she is so powerful, and he is just. . . him.
It’s hardly balanced this way.
“Me too,” she eventually says, when he’s forgotten what she’s agreeing with. He hums questioningly.
“I’m tired too,” she clarifies. “I shouldn’t be, I know that logically, but I’m still tired. I just feel like we try so hard, but we’ve barely done anything. We haven’t made a difference.”
Keefe chuckles, but it’s bitter. “Trust me Foster, if there’s anyone who’s made a difference in the past five hundred years or so, it’s probably you. You walked in here and changed everything for everyone.”
You changed everything for me , he wants to say. You made me want things I didn’t even know I could ever want, let alone have.
“Is it? Did I really change anything at all?” She asks, vulnerabilities spilling through the cracks in the castle of glass she’s always been fighting in. “Because I feel like there’s so much I still don’t know.”
“There’s always stuff we don’t know,” he says dismissively. “Especially whenever my family is involved.”
She turns her head slightly, hair fanning out over the pale teal bedspread. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do I—do I want to talk about it?” he echoes, not looking away from the colored fractals that make up the ceiling. “I mean, there really isn’t anything to talk about, is there?”
He can feel the shift in her emotions that says otherwise, but he’s sure she won’t push any further. He’s proven wrong when she sits up, her hair hanging in waves over her shoulders, the ends brushing his elbows.
“You can’t just keep brushing your feelings off like that,” she insists, and he’s suddenly struck by the urge to laugh, but he’s not sure if she would appreciate how harsh it would sound if he did.
He knows that he has no choice but to continue keeping his feelings out of this, whatever the heck this has become, for the sake of Fitz, for Alden, but more importantly, for Sophie. She deserves to choose on her own, without him forcing his way into things.
Besides, he’s an Empath. He’ll know if she ever returns her feelings; honestly, not the way he thinks she does; if she ever does.
“I’m not brushing them off,” he argues. “My dad sucks, my mom sucks. Wow, that sucks. I don’t know what you want me to say—what else am I supposed to say?”
She shifts so that she’s sitting on her knees, her legs tucked under her. It puts her closer to him, her hair now tickling his shoulder.
“How do you feel about this whole situation?” She implores, pausing for a moment as she’s struck by inspiration. It’s a good look, the gold in her eyes brightens and sparkles and the moonlight glows behind her.
He’s reminded of this colorful picture he saw once, in a glass window, when Fintan was training him. A girl with wings and glowing hair, a halo of silver crowning her temple as she looked to the skies, body trembling with the strength of her power.
An angel. She looks like an angel.
“Pretend that I’m not Sophie. Pretend that you don’t know me, and tell me whatever your feelings are about everything that’s happened so far. Talk about whatever you want to.”
He wants to laugh again, because how can he pretend that she’s not Sophie? That she’s not the strong, brilliant, fierce girl he made friends with, only to fall head over heels for her? That she’s not sitting there, moonlight illuminating creating a halo around pale gold, giving her the illusion of the angel she probably is?
Instead he drapes an arm over his face says: “What if I don’t want to talk?”
She sighs, reaching out and pulling his hand away from his eyes and intertwines their fingers, squeezing slightly. “You’re telling me that after everything we’ve been through, there isn’t anything you want to talk about? Heck, I still have questions for you, for all of you, but it’s time for you to get the answers you deserve, and if I can’t give them to you, I will find someone who can.”
He isn’t sure why his voice feels so unsteady when he asks, “Promise?” It reminds him of when he was younger and used to think his mom was the lesser evil.
Oh, but he couldn’t have possibly been farther from the truth.
His answer is a soft smile that make his stomach feel like it turned to mush. “Promise,” she agrees. “Now, what do you want to know?”
There’s a million things he’d like to know, he thinks he might be ready to admit that he’s been kept in the dark for too long, but he also knows that she doesn’t have the answer to any of those questions.
There’s the one thing he wants to know that he absolutely can’t ask her, under no circumstances will he ever ask her that.
HIs options are limited, and his questions seem to have shifted to orbit her instead of the hundreds of other things he’d wanted to know.
In the end he says: “Tell me about the Forbidden Cities.”
He’s been there before, but he went there as an elf trying to stay alive and gather information during an experiment, so he doubts his view of his time there will be anything great. His only memories of the place are of the kids and the smiles and Sophie
Sophie, on the other hand, lights up. “Well, there’s this. . .”
*⚝*✵*
Keefe blinks, lifting his arm to stretch, only to find that he can’t quite move it the way he’d like too. Sophie’s curled up on it, her hands tucked under her head, her hair fanning out in all directions. It shouldn’t be attractive, it should be messy and hilarious, but Keefe can’t quite look away.
Still, he knows Sandor will throw a fit if he knows that Keefe so much as stepped in here while he was sleeping, so he carefully pulls his arm out from under her, crawling backwards until he’s at the end of the bed. He miscalculates a little, and ends up toppling backwards. He freezes as she stirs, but she settles back down, so he breathes a sigh of relief, leaning back on his hands.
“Mr. Sencen.” Keefe jumps to his feet, spinning around to face Sandor.
He winces a little, put doesn’t look away. “Gigantor.”
“Are we going to have to worry about this becoming a regular thing?” He squeaks, and Keefe bites his lip, realizing what Sandor’s worried about.
He shakes his head. “Nothing to worry about here, Gigantor. I was just leaving.”
“Sandor?” Sophie’s sleepy voice stops both of them. “What’re you doing here?”
“I was just making sure Mr. Sencen would be getting home safe, Ms. Foster.” Sophie frowns, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“What?”
Keefe steps in, probably to Sandor’s horror, but let it be known he’s not selfish. Not by a longshot. “Yeah, I think I dropped my leaping crystal somewhere. Gigantor here, was helping me relocate it.” He even forces a smirk of sorts, but it’s watery, and he’s pretty sure even Sandor can see right through it.
Still, she’s probably too tired to object, because she simply nods and accepts it. Keefe smiles at her softly, bidding Sandor goodbye with a small salute. He slips out of the room, making his way over to the Leapmaster, where he runs into Edaline.
“Grady would never say it, but we’re both eternally grateful for you, Keefe,” she says. Keefe almost drops the crystal he’s fiddling with.
“What?”
Edaline shakes her head. “She hasn’t slept well since the whole thing with Fitz. To be honest, I think whatever happened at the matchmaker’s office might’ve shaken her up a bit too, not that she’ll tell me what happened. Do you know?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t know she was registering for a match.” The way he says it is cautious, only because he isn’t sure what to think.
“I would’ve thought—” She cuts herself off before continuing with a different trail of thought. “Didn’t you and Fitz already register for your matches?”
He nods. “Fitz did.”
“You didn’t?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know if I ever will. I’m glad Foster’s sleeping again though. She looked tired.”
Edalines smiles a little, and Keefe doesn’t need his abilities as an Empath to tell that she looks a little sad. “Thank you, Keefe.”
He mirrors her smile. “Anytime, Mrs. Ruewen.”
And with that, he lets the light pull him away.
*⚝*✵*
And he knows, that even after all this, it isn’t fair for him to want so badly. It isn’t as if anything is going to come of it, no matter what his ability tries to convince him of. Things are too strained, too messed up, too fragile to deal with.
He calls Linh.
“Keefe?” She sounds surprised to hear from him, not that he blames her. They’ve never really talked much before, the whole saving Atlantis thing notwithstanding. Also, Tam hates his guts.
He bites his lip. “Linh. Hi.”
“Hi?” She says, still confused. “Is everything okay? Did something happ—”
He shakes his head. “Uh, no. No, there’s nothing wrong. I just—I’m sorry about Tam,” he finally manages to say.
She shrugs. “He thinks he’s made the right decision. I’ll be sure to drown him when he comes crying back.”
And that’s when it hits him—he’s been there before. He knows what Tam’s thinking, and he knows it won’t work. He also knows that no matter how much he might make fun of him or call him Bangs Boy or whatever, the Shade cares for his sister. He would never let anything happen to her.
It’s for a different person, a different kind of relationship, but the reason they both did what they did was for love.
“Right. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
She smiles a little. “Aw. That’s sweet. Thank you, Keefe, but I think it just hasn’t hit me yet. I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.”
He shakes his head again. “You don’t have to tell me anything, I just—I’ve been there too. I made the same choice for similar reasons, and I can tell you it hasn’t hit him yet either. But when it does, I’m here if you ever need to talk, I guess.”
There’s a twinkle in her eyes, almost as if she’s laughing at him as she says, “Wow, Sophie has no idea what she’s missing out on. Is she doing alright? I know she really took what they said at the Matchmaker’s office, and personally, I’m not the best person to talk to her about that, considering I have no plans of ever registering for a match, but I know it meant a lot to her.”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t even know she’d been to see the Matchmakers,” he laughed a little. “Makes sense though, she’s a romantic like that.”
Linh raised an eyebrow. “Being given a list of potential partners is romantic?”
“Wha—Not to us, obviously, but look at it from her perspective. She’s literally the newest elf and the most powerful elf to have ever elfed. She’s new to this world, the customs and traditions and everything, but all she’s ever wanted is somewhere where she fits in and is accepted. Of course she’s going to want to go see the Matchmakers.”
There’s something knowing in Linh’s smile. “You’ve really thought about this.”
“Don’t think I don’t know about you with Biana,” he retorts.
She smiles sadly. “I would never do that to my brother.”
Keefe smiles mirthlessly. “He’s not here,” he points out. She laughs and he joins in, not sure why they’re laughing in the first place.
When they finally sober up, Linh smiles and thanks him for calling. “I know you and my brother hardly get along—”
“Bangs Boy and me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“— but thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
She shakes her head. “Yeah, you did.”
“Call whenever for the Keefe treatment then,” he jokes and she smiles.
“Oh, I will. I will call you at midnight, when you’re busy cuddling with Sophie, and I will ask you about the mysterious Great Gulon Incident and any other incidents you’ve been involved in.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Okay, first of all, I don’t cuddle with Sophie—
“Yeah, you do,” Ro interjects.
“—I don’t. Second, that would be many and if I was, hypothetically, cuddling with Sophie, I wouldn’t bother detailing them all to you because then I would never get any sleep.”
“On that note, good night,” Linh sings. “Sweet dreams of Sophie.”
“Good night, sweet dreams of Biana,” he retorts.
“Because that’s all they’ll ever be unless you do something about it,” Ro says. Linh and Keefe both roll their eyes at her.
He tosses his imparter onto his desk and goes to bed feeling lighter than he has in days.
*⚝*✵*
After that, it’s two weeks before he sees Sophie again.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” She asks, almost as if she’s latched her tunnel vision onto it. He’s understandably confused, there’s a lot he hasn’t told her; he has no idea what she’s found out this time.
He shrugs. “What would it have done?” He asks, hoping it’s general enough to encompass whatever else he’s kept from her; he knows if it was the other thing she wouldn’t be this calm at all.
“Linh told me you’ve been talking to her. I can’t believe none of us thought of it—”
And ouch, if that doesn’t hurt. None of us —is he not one of them?
“Keefe?”
He blinks. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for making sure Linh’s doing okay. I know you and Tam don’t always get along, but I’m glad you were able to think of this. I think she’s doing better,” Sophie admits.
He doesn’t say anything: he knows. She’s had no problem berating her brother for being an idiot and not thinking things through. He can relate, though to be fair, he had thought he’d thought of everything when he’d run off to join the Neverseen.
“So. . .,” she says, dragging it out. “How’ve you been?”
“Fine, my dad’s been super uptight about Empath training. I doubt I’ve actually learned anything, but hey, he’s not worrying about me ruining his legacy or whatever.”
She presses her lips together. “That’s not what I meant. She told me that she loved your conversations but that you haven’t been sleeping well. Are you sure everything is okay?”
And he knows, he knows he said he would wait (until she was ready for more) but he can’t help but find it cruel, to have her worry about him and care about him like this.
“There’s a lot to think about, you know how it is.”
She raises her eyebrows. “It’s not the same, Keefe.”
He shrugs. “Empath training is different from Telepath training. There are these exercises my dad thinks of, and it leaves behind this kind of residual emotion. So yeah, there is plenty to think about.”
She opens her mouth to say something, lips shifting into a different shape as her imparter rings from her desk. “Oh, it’s Dex.” She looks back hesitantly at Keefe.
“Talk to him,” He says. “He’s your best friend, spend some time talking to him too. My dad needs me back soon anyway.”
She nods, and answers the imparter, waving back at him.
*⚝*✵*
He doesn’t see Sophie for a while after that, not for another week or two, but he does stop by Everglen. Grady always finds ways to put him to work with the animals, and while they don’t really talk much, the animals speak for themselves.
“And I can be sure that none of these will be resulting in another Great Gulon Incident?” Grady had asked when he’d first showed up, offering to help out.
Ro had answered for him. “If I’m not allowed to cause an interspecies incident, neither is he.”
It hadn’t exactly comforted Grady, but he had let Keefe stay.
“Is there any reason,” Grady pauses, catching his breath, “that you haven’t stopped by to spend your time with Sophie?”
“She’s busy,” he answers, gulping from the bottle of youth. “And I’d rather not do any more of my dad’s specialized Empath training.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would,” he agrees, and it’s the end of that conversation.
Other times, he just sits by Calla, sometimes taking the starkflower stew that Edaline makes for the gnome-turned-hero. He thinks he would like to talk to her, to tell her something, maybe everything, but he usually suppresses the urge to do so. It’s not like he doesn’t want to say anything, it’s more that he doesn’t know where he should start.
He figures he should start at the beginning, that’s the only way any story makes sense. Something along the lines of his level nine tragic backstory, but the thing is, he wants to get away from all that. To be someone who doesn’t have to carry the burden of all that abuse (because that’s what it was, emotional and psychological abuse). He thinks it’s progress, to understand that what he went through wasn’t necessarily normal, and that he’s in a better place to be able to call it abuse, but still, his life doesn’t feel complete.
Not that it’s ever been that way before.
“Grady told me you’d been helping him out, but I have to say, I’m still a little surprised.” He flinches, looking to see Edaline standing next to him.
“Because I’d be more likely to borrow verminion fur to help Dex make a balding serum for Dame Alina?”
She winces. “Because I’d think you’d be a little busier helping my daughter understand what she’s feeling.”
“I can’t help with the whole Fitz thing,” he points out, the unsaid and I wouldn’t want to understood in the silence that falls after.
Edaline sits down next to him. “I think you’d be surprised with just how much you’ve helped Sophie, Keefe. I also don’t think I’d be surprised to find out that you might not be taking as good care of yourself as your friends seem to think you are.”
He shrugs, looking at the icy sea stretching in front of him. It’s always seemed too light of a blue to be an ocean, but only now does he realize it’s because the sea mirrors the color of his eyes—his mom’s eyes. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe that for one second, but I’m not here to push. I’m hiding from Grady, who I think might be hiding from Verdi too.”
“Anything I can help with?” He asks, and it’s an instinct now.
Edaline’s smile is a little sad, a little wistful, but she looks unsurprised, as if she’d expected him to say something similar. “Take care of yourself, Keefe. I know you want to help Sophie, and I know she might be a little preoccupied right now—not that that’s an excuse, it’s not—but you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
He sighs, turning back to meet her eyes. “You’re not really hiding, are you?”
She laughs a little. “No, I absolutely am. Grady has gotten this idea in his head that I’ll be playing ranger with Verdi today, but I can’t just let the ripplepuffs melt, now can I?”
He just looks at her, watching as the smile fades into something pondering.
“No,” she says, finally. “No, I’m not. I just wanted to make sure you were taking care of yourself.”
“I’m fine,” he repeats, instinct kicking in, standing up.
She shakes her head, standing up slowly. “You’re not, Keefe. But you will be. Someday—and I know it’s not a comfort to not know when or how long from now—but someday, you will be okay. You’ll get through this and you won’t let your past define you.”
He’s struck by how similar these words are to those he remembers saying to Sophie, when she’d been worried about who her biological parents could have been. It’s an unexpected kind of familiarity, but he can’t complain.
He’s always liked Edaline, really, he has. Even when he was younger and his parents would force him to attend the Ruewen’s infamous parties, Edaline would always sneak him extra mallowmelt when his parents weren’t looking. Jolie did too, sometimes, although he doesn’t remember her as much.
It makes him wonder, if she knew, or at least suspected. It took him long enough to figure out his own situation with his parents, but Edaline had seemed to catch on in the beginning, and he’s done kidding himself into thinking it’s because he’s Sophie’s friend.
It’s weird, he has to admit, having someone care for him like that. It’s something warm, like a candle, but something melancholic and fleeting, he thinks. It can never last, no matter how much he wishes it would.
There’s this pressure behind his eyes, a kind he’s been growing all too familiar with for his own liking, but he can’t bring himself to say more than just: “Thanks, Edaline.”
*⚝*✵*
Ro informs him that someone’s been calling him when he returns to the Shores of Solace that night. His father is noticeably absent, but it’s better this way. He doesn’t have to worry about being a disappointment or living up to his potential or whatever other nonse his father has crafted in that time.
“She insisted on speaking with you,” the princess of the ogres says. “Don’t know why, I am an absolute delight to converse with.”
He frowns. “How did you answer my imparter? It’s only supposed to unlock for me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Puh-lease, pretty boy, I’ve been granted access to your imp-doohickey, and by extension, any technology you have access to. In order to protect you, not mess around, so if that one shop in Atlantis calls you regarding their stock of lushberry juice, it was definitely you.”
“It sounds like something I would do.”
“See, that’s what I thought.” Ro’s insanely proud of this, as if it’s some sort of accomplishment to be pranking the lushberry juice stores in Atlantis, but then again, he doesn’t have room to judge.
“What did Linh want?” He asks, flopping onto the hammock on the back porch. Ro hands him the imparter, plopping down on the porch to sharpen her throwing knives.
He’s struck by a moment where he wonders how his life got to this point.
“She wouldn’t tell me, it’s not my fault all the women in your life are so secretive.”
He dials the last called number on the imparter. “Sophie?” He turns to Ro. “I thought Linh called.”
“Is it a bad time to be calling?” Sophie asked tentatively. “Because I can always call back another time, if this isn’t really a—a good time.”
He shrugs. “No time like the present. What’s up?”
“Well, Dex, Biana, and I were thinking—”
It isn’t ironic, he tells himself, that she’s been in contact with her other friends, he doesn’t even blame her, but it’s—well, it hurts.
Not that it makes a difference now.
“Enhancing my Empath ability doesn’t mean it’ll work through an imparter,” he says, when she’s finished explaining her plan. “There’s also the fact that my mother might not even be guilty, meaning I won’t be able to tell if she’s lying. She’s always been really good at that.”
“You forgot the part where it could make you feel numb,” She points out. This gets Ro’s attention in the form of a raised pink eyebrow that he diligently ignores.
I’m already numb, he thinks. What difference would it make?
“Keefe?”
“That won’t be a problem,” he says, studiously avoiding both her eyes and Ro’s inquisitive glare. “We’d probably have to practice though.”
Sophie looks surprised, amber eyes widening at his answer. “Oh. . . Okay.” It’s almost as if she’s disappointed, but he can’t understand what difference that would make, or why she would be disappointed by him agreeing to do something with his generally useless ability to make a difference in this stupid war.
“Do you want me to come over tomorrow?” He asks, making a face as Ro thumbs through his sketchbook. He’s never really talked about his art with anyone, even Sophie only knows parts of the story, but he doesn’t think Ro would understand it.
There’s a look on the ogre princess’ face that’s far too sympathetic for his liking and he thinks he may have underestimated how perceptive she is.
“Huh?” He says, realizing he’s tuned Sophie out.
“Oh, I thought you could’ve stopped by after you finished helping Edaline with the butterblast,” she said. “You were here earlier, right?”
He wonders if it’s the accusation he’s been expecting. “Sorry, I guess I should’ve said something. I can stop by tomorrow morning though. It’ll have to be early, my dad has me training fairly early.”
“It’s not. . . It’s not too much, right? You’re doing okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and even Ro doesn’t have anything snarky to say to feel the silence. “Okay, see you tomorrow.”
*⚝*✵*
“I can’t believe you still haven’t told her,” Linh greets him.
He scowls. “Well, hello to you too. I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”
She rolls her eyes. “ No, you’re not. But we can talk about that later. I had an idea about our abilities I wanted to try out, could you help me with it?”
“You had an idea about Empathy and Hydrokinesis?” He deadpans, genuinely confused. “Linh, I’m really not sure how I can help you there.”
She rolls her eyes again. “Just get over here. Edaline promised the caves would be safe for us to practice.”
“That doesn’t sound suspicious or dangerous at all,” he intones. “Fine. See you there.”
*⚝*✵*
It’s Ro’s amused look that does it. He stops walking and turns to the ogre princess. “Any particular reason why you look like Alvar did everytime Fintan smiled at him?”
“That doesn’t sound too pleasant,” Ro muses. “I think I’m a little happy right now.”
“Why, is Bo-and-Ro finally a thing? Or is it team Cad-and-Ro now?”
“I didn’t get rid of all my flesh eating bacteria,” she threatens. “Get down to your cave, loverboy.”
So he goes to the cave, expecting to see Linh there, long black hair, silver dipped ends, and the boots that make her exactly an inch shorter than him.
Things he doesn’t expect: Sophie Foster.
*⚝*✵*
“We need to talk,” are the first words out of her mouth. Keefe raises his eyebrow.
“Oh?”
She’s scowling fiercely. “‘Oh?’ he says. Yes, oh. We need to talk and you’re not going to get away with giving me some vague answer and then disappearing for a month, Keefe.”
He frowns. It’s been a month? Huh, he could’ve sworn he’d been over to Havenfield sooner than that, but then again, he’s been swamped with work from Foxfire, daddy dearest’s Empath training sessions, and his own nightmares, but he doesn’t think it’s been that long, has it?
“I’ve been busy,” he manages to say, but he feels like he’s speaking through cotton wrapped around his tongue. “You know how Foxfire is.”
She’s not impressed. “You have a photographic memory.”
“Which only works if I’m actually paying attention to things,” he points out. “A little hard to do that when you’re busy thinking up ways to take down the Neverseen, don’t you think?”
She looks about three seconds away from slapping the sense back into him, but he’s on a roll now and he doesn’t think he’s quite ready to stop.
“Besides, you’ve been busy too, haven’t you? Linh mentioned something about meeting her here to train, but I guess that was just a ruse so. . . What’s up?”
“Stop doing that,” she snaps heatedly. “You don’t have to act like everything is a joke, okay? I get that you’re having a hard time—”
“Oh, do you?” He asks innocently.
“That was a low blow. Even for you.”
He snorts. “Even for me—what’s that supposed to mean?”
She ignores him. “So was I supposed to find out from Dex that you made some deal with Alden about Fitz and me or did you plan on telling me at some point?”
He shrugs. “See, first of all, when would that have ever come up in our wonderful conversations?—”
“Well, I wouldn’t know, given that you never talk to anyone anymore.”
“—and second of all, I didn’t make any deal with anyone about you and Fitz. Your relationship has nothing to do with me, why would I make a deal with Alden about it?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking you.”
“Alden asked me to do him a favor that was completely unrelated to the Fitzphie relationship,” he mumbles. “The day of the Alvar’s tribunal—he made sure that I would be there to keep Fitz in line and keep him from doing or saying something he’d regret.”
“That sounds a lot like a deal,” Sophie points out, unsatisfied with his answer. He’s not lying though, omission of what they both knew was said between the lines didn’t technically count as lying.
And he’d already kept so much to himself, what was one more secret?
“I would’ve done it anyway,” Keefe pouts. “Fitz and I are—are friends, you know.” He almost hesitates on the word friends because he doesn’t think it’s accurate enough anymore, but he’s not sure if that would help his case.
“Right,” she trails off, looking back at Sandor, who’s sharpening one of his goblin throwing stars in the corner. If he didn’t know better, Keefe would say that he looks chastised, almost petulant, rather than menacing as he normally would.
“What’s your dad been having you do?” She finally asks when the silence turns suffocating. He bites his lip, mulling it over before looking up again. Sophie looks away, blushing slightly as if she’s been caught.
“Mood swings,” he sings under his breath. “Anything you’d like to share with us, Foster?”
She rolls her eyes, but the faint pink lingers. It’s his turn to cough and look away. “Lots of reading, lots of tests about the reading—I think my dad plans on having me write a book on Empathy the way he did.”
“Is any of it helping?” He rolls his eyes.
“Come on, Foster, this can’t seriously be what you wanted to ask me, is it?”
She deflates, and he almost regrets asking. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. You’re my friend, Keefe, and I care about you. And I don’t think you’re doing okay right now, so I want to help.”
“I’m fine.” It’s instinctual now. “Just a little tired, but I mean, you know how that is.”
She rolls her eyes, stepping forward. “God, you’re so infuriating.”
“I think everyone’s said that about me at some point in their lives,” he admits, smirking. “Although I think you mean something el—”
He’s cut off by Sophie kissing him, standing on her tiptoes and tugging him closer with arms around his neck, leaning in close and pressing their lips together. When it hits him that she’s kissing him, he lets his arms curl around her waist.
She pulls away. “Hi,” he offers, somewhat shyly.
She laughs a little, embarrassed as she swats at his arm. “Does everybody do that too?”
“What, kiss me?” He almost giggles; he doesn’t think he’s been this happy for a long time. “Well, a gentleman never kisses and tells.”
“You told me about that time you kissed Biana,” she points out, but she doesn’t sound mad, just curious.
“That doesn’t count,” he pouts. “One, she kissed me. Two, she cheated—she turned her head at the last minute. And three, a gentleman never kisses and tells unless it doesn’t matter.”
“Wha—so this didn’t matter?”
His eyes widen. “No! That’s not what I meant. I meant that the kiss with Biana didn’t matter, so it doesn’t matter who I tell, but that wonderful smooch we just shared. . . Mn, Foster, anything you’d like to share with us?”
She blushing furiously right now, red tinged cheeks and maybe even the tips of her ears, but Keefe doesn’t think he’s seen anything more adorable before.
And he’s seen baby Alicorns.
“Shut up,” she hisses without much heat. His smirk widens roguishly.
“Well, why don’t you make me?”
*⚝*✵*
Later, when Keefe sneaks back into the Shores of Solace, long after he’s sure his father isn’t home, he realizes that he hasn’t stopped replaying that moment with Sophie in his head. It’s nowhere close to the real thing, of course, but it’s still nice that he can do that, he thinks.
He’s rudely interrupted by Linh calling.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were smiling,” she says by way of greeting.
“You knew, didn’t you?” He guesses. “I’ve rubbed off on you; now you’re all scheming and brilliant. . . ugh.”
“What, so you didn’t want to make out with the love of your life?”
“Sassy too,” he retorts. “Isn’t this called biting the hand that feeds you?”
She laughs a little, but it’s more half hearted than usual. “Seriously though. It’s nice to see you smile. Suits you a whole lot better than the angsty-boy routine you had down. I thought I was seeing my brother every time I saw you.”
“Maybe that was my plan all along,” he suggests. “Impersonate Bangs Boy so you don’t miss him as much.”
“I’ve already said you’re sweet for checking into see how I’m doing, but I have no doubt that impersonating my brother was not the idea.”
He shrugs. “I’m still sorry I couldn’t do more.”
“You think Tam would have listened to you? If anything, he’ll better understand where you’re coming from after pulling this stunt.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t work, does it? That’s how we got where we are today. That’s what I figured out. My major contribution, unless you count how useful my blood is.”
“Don’t say that,” she admonishes. “You help Sophie more than the rest of us do. More than Fitz did. She needs you.”
“I can calm her down, but that only works if she leaves her Enhancing vulnerable to be abused,” he says. “Not sure how that’s a strength.”
“That’s not even what I was thinking of, but that’s there too. No, I meant that you’re the only one who can understand what she’s feeling. You’ve both been lied to by a lot of people and have major trust issues. But she never gave up on you, not even when you were with the Neversee. You guys actually understand each other, and that isn’t just a minor contribution, Keefe.”
“Thank you,” he says. “If Tam wasn’t already your brother, I would offer to adopt you as my sister. Although I guess it would kinda suck, having to deal with my dad.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” she agrees. “Thanks Keefe.”
*⚝*✵*
He ends up going to see Edaline again, on a day that Sophie's busy with Linh and Biana, plotting whatever it is that girls like Sophie, Biana, and Linh plot. They haven't really talked about what the kiss meant or what changes in their relationship or anything, but they have been talking more. Besides, Keefe already knows something's changed; there's a shift in Sophie's emotions that he can't force himself to ignore anymore.
Still, he's at Havenfield today because he wants to see Edaline, not Sophie.
"Keefe? Oh, Sophie's gone out. I thought you'd be with them," Edaline says, surprised. "Come inside, I was just making some starkflower stew."
"Can I help?" He offers, shifting a little under her scrutinizing gaze.
"If you really want to. It gets a bit messy, I must warn you."
He shakes his head, washing his hands and reaching for a starkflower. "That's fine."
"You really didn't come by to see Sophie?"
"Nah, she's out with Linh and Biana. I saw her yesterday anyway. I actually came by to uh, to thank you."
If Edaline's surprised, she doesn't say anything about it. "There's no need to thank me, Keefe. Grady and I were just talking about how we wished we'd noticed what was going on with you sooner. Cassius and Gisela frequented our parties, you know. And Jolie had always had a sweet spot for little baby Keefe."
It's his turn to be surprised. "Jolie. . .?"
"You wouldn't remember, you were far too young, but even then, you were always such a silent child. Jolie was the only one who could get you to laugh at those parties, I remember. I think we knew, that something was wrong; no baby should ever be so quiet. But your parents claimed you were well behaved, so we left it at that. That, I think, other than what happened with Brant, might be our biggest regret."
His head spins and his eyes blur. "What. . . What do you mean?"
"Keefe, emotional and psychological abuse is still abuse. On top of everything that happened with your parents, I know Alden asked you for a favor. Don't be too mad at Sophie for telling me, but while she may believe whatever it is you told her, I know what he wanted you to do, and let me tell you. Ignoring your feelings doesn't help anyone. And I had to say it to you, you've always seemed to cheerful, but you're not okay. You need help, but that—that is okay. We can help you, Keefe. We're all here to help."
He tries to choke back a sob, but it's a little too late. Still, Edaline simply picks up the flower that falls from his hands and washes it before setting it back on the counted and hugging him instead. She lets him cry into her shoulder, and holds him long after the sobs stop wracking his body.
"You here that, Keefe? You're going to be okay."
When it's four in the morning
When it comes without warning
The silence drags you down under the tide
When your whole world is jaded
When your colors are faded
And nothing but your shadow's on your side
I believe in you
Believe | The Score