Hola my friends! Sorry for the lack of updates lately! I promise I'll work a little faster – that probably sounds like a hollow promise since that's what I say all the time, but THIS TIME I will make a real effort. Gracias!

The smell of burning sugar filled Sophie's nose again, and she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Where was her father going?

After Tam left the sleepover that Fitz and Biana were hosting, Linh left too, and then Wylie and Marella. Sophie guessed they were all trying to catch up to each other, so she made an excuse to follow them, but then they leaped away and she didn't have a crystal to Solreef so she took her chance to go home. Her parents mustn't have thought she'd come home half a day early, so they were caught off guard when she found them in the kitchen talking in low whispers.

It must have been serious, because they stopped right as soon as she stepped through the door.

"Dad...you smell like Everblaze," she told him. "Like, real Everblaze...where have you been going when you've come back home covered in ash?"

Edaline's calmness was replaced by fear, and it was almost as if her eyes were saying to her husband, Don't tell her!

Grady turned his gaze to the floor and sighed half-heartedly. "I'm really sorry, honey, but I can't tell you. The information is classified. Between me and Forkle."

"You can tell me!" Sophie argued. "I'm your daughter!"

Her father dragged a hand down his face. "Maybe another time...but not now."

A swirl of rage in the put of her stomach erupted. She'd been concealing it for far too long...she needed to let it out...

A strangled sob left her mouth and Sophie stumbled, somewhat disoriented as her eyes were blurred with tears...she felt herself falling into someone's arms...someone she loved...and she let the tears fall...she let the ugly sounds escape her lips as she cried harder than she had in years...

"Sophie," Edaline's voice whispered in her ear. "Sophie, just let it all out, come on..."

And Sophie obeyed her. She felt limp in her mother's arms, she just wanted to crawl into a deep hole in the ground and die...all that pent-up emotion she'd buried inside her heart was slowly disappearing with every tear...this was worse than when Keefe had gone, because this outburst was mixed with every emotion she'd ever felt.

Every good one, every bad one, every one in the middle.

As she commanded herself to stop, crying out with pain, her body slowly obeyed, at a sluggish pace nonetheless...but she was freeing herself...she was falling...free...

When her eyes opened, she was staring into her mother's eyes. They were like the ocean, lulling her in...

She collapsed onto the floor...she wasn't finished yet...this was worse than everything she'd ever experienced.

More painful than when Keefe had left her.

"Sophie!" Grady said. "I'm sorry, okay? If this is my fault..."

"It's not!" Sophie sobbed, her hair soaked with sweat, tears, and snot. "It's just...everything!"

"This isn't going to sound like much," Grady said softy, "but I understand."

"Me too."

The airy voice came from Flori, who was standing by Sandor and looked like she'd been meditating for hours. Just looking at her made Sophie feel calmer.

Her tears melted into the floor, like it was a symbol of her sadness being absorbed into life.

"Sophie?" Edaline asked her, "Do you still want to go to the Vackers' party?"

She took a second to lift her head up, and jut her chin down again to nod.

"Do you need to talk to us about anything?" Grady asked, brow furrowing in concern as he reached for Sophie's hand.

Sandor and Flori stood nearby, the unfortunate bystanders.

"No," Sophie croaked. "No, I'll be okay."

And she would.

Because all her tears were gone.

And all her emotion had left her heart hollow after she poured it all out.

"Are you sure?" Edaline whispered gently, tucking a lock of Sophie's hair behind her ear. "If you don't want to go back, you don't have to."

"I'm going," Sophie said firmly. "I need to support my friends for once. I've been so wrapped up in my own life that I've hardly ever had time for anyone else."

The room fell into an uneasy silence.

"Okay," Edaline said finally. "You can go, but only if you think you should."

Sophie nodded and stood up, wiping the last of her tears away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She dashed up the stairs, filled a bag with some of her belongings and leaped to Everglen.

***

How Sophie woke up with an anxious-looking Biana hovering over her was now one of life's greatest mysteries.

"How did I – what – I thought I was..."

"Um, Sophie..." Biana said, leaning back after Sophie's eyes snapped open, "I think you must be having a bad reaction to your new combined ability."

"Ugh..." Sophie groaned. "I thought I was awake...this ability is making me act like I'm a human teenager!"

She sat up in her sleeping bag and yawned heavily. Last night, she wasn't sure how she'd fallen asleep, because the group was discussing something...but she just, very suddenly felt the need to let her eyelids flicker shut.

But maybe that was normal?

Nope.

Biana helped her up, taking a quick glance backwards before they left the room together.

When Sophie turned to spot what she'd looked at, her cheeks went warm. Everyone else seemed to have left the room hours before, but the only ones left were Dex and Jensi – holding hands while fast asleep.

"There're so cute!" Biana squealed as they hurried downstairs. "Hey, Sophie, do you know if they're dating or not?"

"Well...Jensi only said Dex was a friend..."

That was all they were, right? Friends held hands, made each other blush, and made affectionate gestures with each other too, right?

"Good morning," Alden said pleasantly from the massive kitchen downstairs. "How was your sleepover?"

"Well, we were planning on staying up all night," Biana said, "But...some of us sorta, um, didn't?"

"What does that mean?" Della asked her daughter. "And why do you care so much about the fact that some of you fell asleep?"

"Um..." Biana was obviously at loss for words; she looked to Sophie for help.

"I'm having a bad reaction to the stellarlune thing," Sophie blurted, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

At the exact same moment that she admitted her problem, Tam, Fitz, Linh, Marella, Maruca and Stina walked through the door.

"What did we miss?" Stina said, holding a bag full of what looked suspiciously like fancy clothing items.

"You went to Atlantis without us?" Biana said, outraged. She rushed forward and sifted through the bag, glaring at her former friend.

For a second Sophie felt her heart twinge with something that felt like jealously, but that was before Linh ran forward and wrapped her in a hug. "Sophie...I'm so sorry that we didn't realize something was wrong...we barely paid any attention to your troubles...we should have cared more."

When Sophie recognized the miserable sobbing sounds coming from Linh, she pulled back and looked straight into her friend's eyes. "It's okay, Linh. Seriously," she added, when it didn't make a difference. "I don't blame you, and I don't blame anyone else. We need to put all this pain aside and celebrate that for once we did something right."

"Did what right?" Linh sniffed. "Because I haven't been a good person lately."

"Yes, you have!" Sophie assured her with a smile. "Now let's make pancakes."

"What are pancakes?" Dex asked from the doorway leading to the staircase, bleary-eyed and looking a little confused. "And did we miss something important?"

"Well, I don't think an Atlantis spree was important," Linh said, shooting a glance at Stina and Maruca, who were grinning at the contents of the bag as if their friend hadn't just burst into tears seconds before, "But Sophie's been having some...um...issues with her new ability."

"Oh." Dex looked a little shifty as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his hair sticking up so he resembled Keefe more than himself.

Keefe...

"So, what are pancakes?" he asked Sophie. "Is that a human food?"

"Yeah," she said. "Does anyone know what flour, sugar, eggs, milk, banana and blueberries are?"

"Hmmm..." Della mused. "I might have heard of it, but elves are vegan too, so I probably only have flour...perhaps sugar...maybe those fruits? I can't be too sure; I'll check. If I don't have them, you can always go back to Atlantis – but not the Forbidden Cities."

And with that, she left the room, vanishing as she swished her skirt dramatically.

"Soooo..." Sophie said awkwardly. "Are we still going to have that party later?"

"There's nothing like a day of fun to cheer everyone up," Alden agreed. "Is everyone here?"

Linh raised a skeptical brow. "Well, Wylie's studying –"

"And I don't think we should interrupt him," Marella said with a meaningful look at her.

"What's Wylie studying for?" Sophie asked. "He graduated from Foxfire, like, a year ago."

"It's complicated," was all Linh replied with.

The group began to discuss what they would do today, and Alden went around congratulating everyone on their incredibly high scores. At one point, Della appeared out of nowhere and brandished a pan, a bag of flour and sugar, what looked suspiciously like blood, a few gnomish fruits, and other indescribable food items.

"Oh, this?" Della said when she saw Sophie's face, and gestured to the blood, "that actually tastes a lot like human strawberry milk. And the rest of this stuff...well, I'll explain it to you. Let's cook."

The others stayed and laughed at each other with Alden, Sandor, Grizel, Lovise and Woltzer. Ro and Flori had stayed at Havenfield; they were pretty sure that Sandor could take enough care of Sophie until she came back.

Sophie entered the Vackers' kitchen. She'd had a lot of cooking practice with her mom, but this was going to be slightly different...and she wasn't sure what to expect.

What she didn't expect was the glorious aroma of freshly baked mallowmelt, and three other elves preparing ingredients for the pancakes. They made it look very professional.

"Sophie, good! You're here!" Della said, wiping some flour off her dress. "Now, none of us know how to make pancakes or even know what they look like so I'll let you take charge."

Sophie glanced at Della's children.

Biana smiled at her from her position at the countertop, where she was pouring the blood-milk into a mixing bowl, but Fitz didn't look up from where he was emptying the gnomish fruits of the stuff inside them, cutting them into pieces the size of peas.

"Do you guys cook often?" she asked them, making sure to keep a small distance between her and Fitz, who looked like he was trying to hide his face.

"A moderate amount," Biana smiled, "But I mostly focus on fashion."

Sophie didn't doubt that. She fought desperately for a new question as she poured the blood-milk into the bowl containing the flour.

"Fitz finds cooking therapeutic," Della said, winking at her son, who sent her a glare that could have burned down a forest.

Sophie raised a curious eyebrow, but didn't question it.

Fitz's cheeks burned and set his gaze firmly on the kitchen stove, which was so large that they could have lined up twenty pans in a row if they wanted.

"So, um..." Sophie said, scooping the pile of chopped fruits Fitz had cut into the bowl with the milk, flour and sugar. "I'll just mix this, and then we just pour the batter onto a pan and cook the pancakes one at a time."

"Did someone say...pancakes?"

Edaline grinned at the foursome from the doorway with her arms spread dramatically.

Biana erupted into a fit of giggles.

Della cracked a smile at Sophie's mom.

"Hey, Mom," Sophie said, internally groaning a little. "Have you made these before?" She flicked on the switch to the stove and placed the pan on to heat it up a bit. Fitz took over mixing the large amount of batter.

"Oh, yes!" Edaline said, joining them in the kitchen. "I'm quite fond of them, actually."

Sophie raised her eyebrows. It was interesting that Edaline had heard of pancakes, because they were a human food, not an elvin one.

"Sooo..." Biana said, eyeing the mixture that was now free of lumps, "Should we start cooking now?"

Fitz stood poured some of the batter into a separate bowl, which he shared with his mother, and the other three worked on the rest.

The Vackers' stove was much stronger than the human ones Sophie had used before, so the entire batch was finished in a matter of minutes. Edaline placed four pancakes on each person's plate with tongs so she didn't squish the pancakes.

Sophie and Biana drizzled a few jars of elvin syrups onto every stack of pancakes, finally topping them with elvin ice cream, and soon enough, they were completely finished.

The group stood back to admire their work. Fifteen plates of pancakes stared back at them.

***

After their minor celebration ended, Sophie, Edaline and Grady left to go to Havenfield. The sky was darkening, turning a vibrant shade of pink, and the sun stained the clouds with gold.

Edaline and Sophie both trudged upstairs together. When Sophie made it to her room, she stood under the shower for no less than half an hour, letting the heat and soap wash her worries away.

She didn't change into a pair of pajamas because she wanted to speak to one of her friends before the next day started. She was planning on searching for leads, more importantly Keefe, and knew she shouldn't get sidetracked by anything else, as much as it pained her.

Dusk had disappeared by now, and because it was winter the staircase of Solreef was covered in frost and the air had an icy chill to it. Sophie shivered under all her layers of clothing.

The wind whistled like a choir of ghosts in her ear as she ascended the steps leading up to the house.

The song that Tiergan had used for the chimes alerting him of visitors seemed to block out that sound, though. It took a while for Linh to answer the door, but when she did, Sophie stepped into her hug.

"Sorry I didn't open the door sooner," Linh said, her voice muffled by Sophie's hair. "I've been a little...preoccupied."

"With what?" Sophie asked her curiously.

"Oh, a lot of things," Linh sighed, leaning back. "Namely Tam, Wylie and Marella."

"About that...is Tam okay? He left the party even before the sleepover started."

"He's sorta...miserable," Linh said shiftily.

Sophie looked at her friend with concerned eyes. "I'll come back tomorrow, then. I don't want to make him feel worse."

"You don't have to," Linh smiled, but Sophie was already halfway out the door.

"Just...tell him that I know Keefe doesn't really hate him."

As she leaped back to her own home, she thought over what she'd just said. Was that why Tam was upset? Because of Keefe? Or was that just a hunch, something that she knew was right even if there was no proof for it.

Sophie was about to enter her house again, right at the door, but before she could move she realized that something wasn't right.

Someone was nearby.

Not Flori. Or Ro. Or Sandor, who'd let her be alone for an hour or so.

It was...Grady.

He was holding a small bag in one hand, and a black ball in the other. An Obscurer.

"Dad?" Sophie asked him tentatively, moving out of the shadows.

Her father's head whipped around. He suddenly looked terrified. "Sophie..."

"Where have you been going?"

She knew, just knew, that her dad was going out again, and would come back covered in ash just as he had the previous few times. And now she needed to know why.

"Honey, that's not..." Grady fumbled for words. "I can't tell you."

"Well, that's unfortunate, because I'm not leaving until you do." Sophie folded her arms across her chest defiantly.

Grady rubbed his temples. "It's very, very disconcerting. You probably don't want to know."

"Oh, but I do."

Her father took a few deep breaths. "If I tell you, you can't be mad."

"Wait, is this to do with Keefe?" Sophie's heart froze and her stomach dropped. "If it is, then..."

"No, it's not," Grady sighed. "I need to go."

"Dad –"

But Grady had already moved forward, holding up a blue leaping crystal to the scarce light coming from the upper level of Havenfield. "Sophie, I'm sorry. But I can't tell you."

Justas he began to disappear, Sophie grabbed his hand leaped away with him, landing in a smoke-filled town that was unmistakably in the Forbidden Cities.

WC: 2717 words