what happened after unlocked

chapter twenty-one ~ where the bodyguards went

None of the ten friends talked to each other during the days before Foxfire came back.

Not even Sophie and Biana. Or Jensi and Dex.

The entire group, not just Team Valiant, had gotten into such a bad mess that it had pretty much ruined any hope of standing together to face the Neverseen.

And currently, Sophie was trying to figure out how she could possibly fix that said mess.

The state of her room made her feel relaxed at calm enough – it had a vast size, cold, wintry afternoon light was streaming through the wall-height windows, gems sparkled, and her bed was warm and layered with soft blankets.

Sophie almost fell asleep at one point, but she fought off the exhaustion and sat back up again, twiddling her thumbs. It was almost as if she couldn't be bothered fixing the mess that she'd started.

The abandoned imp in its cage was growling adorably, so Sophie stood up to retrieve her neglected pet. She admired the mermaid-like colors blotched across Iggy's fur and the black stripes over that. Keefe really had styledher pet to perfection.

Iggy burped in her face.

Yeah...maybe that wasn't perfection.

Still wafting the horrendous smell out of her face, Sophie padded across her flowered carpet to her walk-in-wardrobe and swiftly changed into a warmer tunic. Havenfield wasn't completely in the south part of California, but the winters there were still icy, and despite the warm candles blazing on every spare space in her room, she was still shivering.

"Could you please stop doing that?" Sophie complained to her imp, when she flopped back down under the covers of her bed. Iggy replied with another disgusting burp.

"Look, I'm sorry I haven't really been paying attention to you much lately!" Sophie groaned. "But can you have a little bit of mercy?"

Iggy slowly crawled onto her head. He was heavier than she thought.

Trying to shake him off was impossible – the imp stayed completely grounded and if she tried to pull him off then he'd probably rip out half her hair.

"Ugh." Sophie slumped onto a particularly puffed-up pillow and sighed. What could she possibly do to fix her friendships and everyone else's? How could she convince them that Keefe wasn't dangerous, that it wasn't wrong of her to have spoken to him, and that defeating the Neverseen was more important than a few titles and a few more legal allowances.

How on earth could she salvage what was left of their friendship and tell them that she was sorry without one of them sneering in her face?

Was there anything she could do except wait?

Her bedroom door burst open – and in burst six people Sophie had almost entirely forgotten about.

Sandor, Grizel, Lovise, Ro, Flori and Woltzer.

All panting and puffing like they'd just survived a tsunami.

"What – how – where..." Sophie's voice faded out. She couldn't believe she'd actually forgotten about the bodyguards who had been gone for weeks.

"Remember us?" Ro said sarcastically, taking Flori's arm and leading the gnome to the foot of Sophie's bed.

It was only now that she realized how dirty, terrified, and shaken the gnome appeared.

"What happened? Where did you guys go? Why didn't you contact anyone?" Sophie's questions came out all at once, but she was concerned mostly for the stricken Flori in front of her, who was staring at the floor like a deer in headlights.