Harry Potter and the Lost Cities

CHAPTER ONE

"This is pointless!" Sophie exclaimed, placing her head in her hands in frustration.

She knew she should probably exercise a little more restraint. After all, she was in front of a Councillor. And it was that Councillor's idea that she had just called pointless.

But in fairness, Councillor Oralie hardly deserved her respect. She had lied to her for the last two years and lied to the rest of the elvin world a lot longer than that. Still, the blonde Councillor― who just so happened to be her genetic mother― was trying to be helpful. Thus why they had spent the past three days going through Oralie's memories searching for anything that could be her cache's password.

It was tedious work, especially since half of Oralie's memories Sophie had to avoid since they involved confidential items that the Council worked on.

"The word must have something to do with the Council, which means that unless you let me look at that stuff, we're not gonna find it!" Sophie exclaimed for the millionth time.

But Oralie gave the same reply she always had. "I can't show you that stuff. Believe me, I want to, but the consequences would be catastrophic."

Just like the consequences for you being my genetic mother, Sophie thought. But she decided not to say that.

"Besides," Oralie said. "I don't think it would have anything to do with the Council. Most of that stuff isn't personal, and the password the cache generated will be."

Sophie shook her head, leaning back on the pink chair she sat on in Oralie's office. "Well, we've been at this forever, and haven't come up with anything. And at this rate, Keefe..."

She couldn't bring herself to finish this sentence.

Keefe still hadn't woken up, and it had been almost a week now. Elwin had assured her that Keefe was fine physically. His vitals were strong and all of the cuts and bruises he'd sustained from Loamnore were healed. But he still wouldn't wake up, and no one knew why. They could tell his consciousness wasn't lost; Sophie checked at least three times every time she visited the Healing Center― which was a lot― and every time, found Keefe dreaming peacefully of alicorns and cookies and other random things. Which should have been a comfort. But Sophie would have almost preferred to find Keefe's mind blank. They at least had experience with that and would figure out a way to get him back. But this? They had no clue what to do.

"Sophie, I know you're worried about Keefe," Oralie said, reaching a hand for her shoulder. She seemed to change her mind, though, and dropped her arm to her side. "But he's going to be fine. And this is the best way you can help."

"That's exactly why I'm worried!" Sophie countered. "Because this is accomplishing nothing!"

And they were back to the beginning.

Oralie sighed. Which just made Sophie even angrier. She rubbed the knotted emotions beneath her ribs. Biological mother or not, it wouldn't do any good to lose control in front of a Councillor.

"Maybe you should go home and rest," Oralie suggested. "I'm sure all of this has worn you out."

She was about to retort, but Oralie was right. Not about the resting part. But she did have some other stuff she should work on.

"Yeah, okay," Sophie agreed. She hopped up and out the door without further goodbye.

Sandor, Bo, and Flori seemed surprised to see her so soon but didn't say anything as Sophie held her home crystal up to the light and the four of them lept away.

A few moments later Havenfield glittered into view. Sophie didn't waste any time as she ran to the house and threw open the door, then came to an abrupt stop.

Grady and Mr. Forkle were standing in the living room, and they turned as she stood in the doorway, the guilt on their faces making it all too clear that they had not wanted to be found.

"What's going on?" She asked as her bodyguards swept into the room, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

The two men shared a glance before Mr. Forkle said, "I just had a matter that I needed to discuss with your father."

Sophie's eyebrows shot up. "You're really gonna try and pretend you weren't talking about something important that you clearly don't want me to hear?"

Mr. Forkle sighed. "I suppose not."

Grady jumped in quickly before Mr. Forkle could say anything else. "Why aren't you with Oralie? I thought you guys were working on the cache together?"

Sophie, deciding the questions weren't worth answering, spared her dad the same raised-eyebrow look she had given Mr. Forkle a moment ago before saying, "So what aren't you telling me?"

"It's not something we were trying to hide from you, Miss Foster," Mr. Forkle explained. "We were just... waiting for the right time to tell you."

"Sounds like hiding to me," Sophie murmured under her breath.

"We really were going to tell you," Grady added, approaching Sophie and wrapping an arm gently around her shoulders.

"So why don't you tell me now?"

Mr. Forkle glanced at Grady before sighing again. "I suppose now is as good a time as any. But I'd prefer to tell you alongside the rest of your friends, so perhaps we should wait until morning."

"Or I could hail all my friends and ask them to come now," Sophie countered. "I'm sure they'll come right away when they hear you've been hiding stuff from us."

Grady tipped his head back in frustration. "We weren't hid― you know what? It doesn't matter." He squeezed Sophie's shoulders. "Go hail your friends, and we'll contact the Black Swan. I guess we can tell you all now."

A half hour later, Sophie sat in the living room with Dex, Biana, Fitz, Linh, Tam, Wylie, Marella, Maruca, Grady, Edaline, and the rest of the Collective. It felt way too strange not having Keefe there with them.

"Thank you to everyone for coming on such short notice―" Mr. Forkle began.

Dex interrupted. "Yeah, well, it's not like we've had a lot going on since someone has been hiding stuff from us." Sophie noticed he glanced at his mom as he said it. Dex still hadn't completely gotten over the fact that his mom had hidden from him for so long that she was Squall, one of the five members of the Black Swan's Collective. It made him extra upset whenever he found out about another secret the Black Swan had kept from them. Sophie didn't blame him.

Mr. Forkle was about to respond, but Granite jumped in first. "We admit that we didn't tell you this information right away. But we won't apologize. You have all proven yourself time and time again to be extremely talented, hard-working, and devoted to our cause, and for that we thank you. However, you need to learn to accept that we aren't obligated to always tell you everything. Especially in cases like this, where we needed to get more information before we told you this. And we needed to make sure none of you did anything rash or reckless when you learned this. That part still stands. You all must promise not to act on this information without informing the Black Swan first."

None of what he had just said did anything to make Sophie feel better. What information could they give that would make them reckless? Sophie's heart lurched. Could it have anything to do with Keefe? Or someone else she cared about? Maybe they had figured out one of the Neverseen's identities?

But no part of her expected what was coming.

"We have reason to believe the Neverseen are targeting humans."