Keeper of the Lost Cities

“‘It’s not safe to stand out in this world—you never know what some weirdo is going to try to do once they know where they can find you.’ No one understood the dangers of standing out better than Sophie. She’d been teased and tormented and bullied her whole life.”

Sophie’s excursion to the elf realm with Fitz gets her into trouble with her mother because she disappears from school to do so. Only Fitz knows that she’s been haunted by other people’s thoughts for most of her life, and, adding in the ill treatment she receives from older kids who resent her extreme intelligence, she knows perfectly well that it’s wise for her to remain anonymous. Still, her mom’s advice is words to the wise for anyone: Fame of any sort can attract bad people to one’s doorstep.

“That night Sophie dreamed the Keebler elves were holding her hostage until she perfected all their cookie recipes. Then she told them she liked Oreos better, and they tried to drown her in a giant vat of fudge. She woke in a cold sweat and decided sleep was overrated.”

Confused by her sudden doubts about her lineage, Sophie dreams a mix of several symbols from her life that arrange themselves to torment her. She loves E.L. Fudge cookies, symbols of her true heritage, yet she strains at the thought that elves might take her from her loving family. If, instead, she prefers another type of cookie—meaning she’d rather stay with the humans—the elves might take it poorly and try to “drown” her in their culture.

“She thought she was done hiding her abilities. ‘You won’t have to hide it forever,’ Alden said gently. ‘Just for a little while, to give everyone time to adjust to you. In the meantime, the session will be listed as remedial studies on your schedule.’ Adjust. Like she was a problem they’d have to get used to. And why didn’t they call it Elf Lessons for Dummies, while they were at it?”

Sophie feels like a pawn in someone else’s game. The elves who have found her are so engrossed in using her telepathic abilities that they overlook her wants and needs. For now, she’ll continue her lifelong pretense that she can’t hear other people’s thoughts, especially if that will enable her to receive lessons in controlling her often-painful power. Looming, though, is the same problem she’s had in human society, the glares and contempt from her fellow students. There, it’s because she’s too smart; at Foxfire, it’ll be because she’s an outsider.

“I just wanted to tell you I love you. I love all of you. […] I couldn’t have asked for a better family.”

Sophie says a last goodbye to her human family. That she’s about to lose them forever brings home forcefully how important they’ve been in her life. She knows she can’t stay with them any longer and can’t explain why. Instead, they’ll shortly have their minds erased of all memory of her. It will save her parents the agony of thinking she has disappeared or died. Only she must live with the sadness of being parted.

“‘I’m ready to go,’ she said with sudden determination. Fitz helped her to her feet and led her to the door. A big part of her wanted to look back one last time, but she kept her eyes forward. Then, clutching Ella with one arm and Fitz with the other, she took the two hardest steps she’d ever taken—out of the past, and into the future.”

Sophie must leave forever the family she loves. She’s not human but an elf, and it’s time for her to accept her destiny in another world. Her journey will take her from the innocence of childhood to the responsibilities, dangers, and opportunities of adulthood. That’s a lot to ask; it’s no wonder she must brace herself for the trip.

“‘Sometimes you have to be brave.’ ‘True,’ he agreed, laughing. ‘What?’ ‘That just sounds funny coming from someone hugging a stuffed elephant.’”

The elephant toy helps Sophie withstand her fear of doctors—who, until now, always stabbed her with terrifying needles. Elwin understands that Sophie is using all her courage to adjust to life among the elves. If she must bolster her bravery with a plush toy, so be it. 

“She lived here now, in this strange, slightly too perfect world where everything she knew was wrong and all she had to show for the past twelve years of her life was a backpack stuffed with wrinkled clothes she’d never wear, an iPod she couldn’t charge, and a scrapbook full of memories that had been erased from everyone except her.”

Emotionally, Sophie moves step-by-step into her new life. The pain of losing her old, human world slowly begins to fade as her strange new surroundings become more familiar. It’s not a perfect process, and the elvin world has its problems, but she’s learning to make it her own. Sophie understands that, though her losses may never fully fade, her new life will begin to fill the holes in her heart.

“Impossible pictures flashed across the walls during the entire lecture: elves using telekinesis to help the humans build the pyramids, a tidal wave swallowing Atlantis, an army of hairy, brown dwarves hollowing out the Himalayas to build the Sanctuary.”

Sophie learns that the elves have, for thousands of years, tried to help humanity. They do so in secret, as they don’t trust humankind not to take advantage of their generosity, but they still do what they can to help another intelligent species. Somehow, Sophie is involved in that work but doesn’t yet understand her role.

“‘You must be lost.’ The boy’s deep voice brought her out of her trance. He wore a green Level Four uniform, and was sprawled across a bench, watching her with curious, ice blue eyes. […] ‘How did you know?’ He smirked. ‘It’s the middle of session. Either you’re lost, or you’re ditching—and clearly you’re not ditching.’”

Keefe—an Empath who’s smart, witty, and roguish—manages, in his first words to her, to sum up Sophie as lost. He’s someone who understands her and immediately cares about her. It’s the beginning of a supportive friendship with someone whose humorously reassuring perspective she needs.

“[Edaline] placed a hand on Sophie’s shoulder, and Sophie straightened. ‘Sorry, do you mind?’ ‘No…it’s nice,’ Sophie whispered. It was the first time Edaline had touched her. Edaline held her breath as she used her other hand to brush a strand of hair off Sophie’s cheek. Sophie closed her eyes and leaned into Edaline’s hand. Her heart seemed to swell inside her chest, filling an empty space she’d almost forgotten was there. Her human parents had been generous with hugs and touches, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed those gestures.”

Edaline has grieved for a long time over the death of her daughter, and it takes all her courage to reach out to Sophie, who yearns just as much for the warmth of a family. It’s a breakthrough moment for both of them: They begin to bond as adoptive mother and daughter. Both have lost family members, and each is just what the other needs as they recover from aching loneliness.

“‘No reason to worry’ seemed to be Alden’s favorite words.”

Alden utters it every time Sophie frets about evidence that something bad is going on. Mysterious fires, cryptic runes, and other signs tell Sophie that there’s trouble, but Alden keeps denying that anything’s wrong. The elves aren’t used to disruption; their millennia-old culture suddenly is roiled by disturbance, and they respond by denying there’s a problem. Even Alden, a high-ranking member of elvin government, prefers to smooth over any concerns. He’s also trying to protect a child from problems she’s not ready for. Sophie is too smart to be dissuaded. She won’t stop until she learns the truth.

“It wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least she’d be able to sleep at night again. Well…once she stopped worrying about her midterms. And Bronte. One problem at a time. It was becoming a theme in her life.”

Sophie’s transition to elf life stresses her to the limit. Each situation she resolves creates a new problem. Her fear of flunking Alchemy inspires her to cheat, which floods her with guilt; her confession and punishment clears her conscience, but now she’s further behind than ever with her studies. Overwhelmed by the tasks and responsibilities that confront her, Sophie discovers a rule of thumb, to take things one at a time. It’s the first of many such rules to come.

“‘Look, I’m not good at the serious, supportive thing—but trust me, you’re going to be fine.’ ‘How do you know?’ He grinned. ‘I have a feeling you can do pretty much anything you put your mind to. So stop doubting yourself and go prove me right. You know, so I can brag about it.’ She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Thanks.’”

Keefe goads Sophie. He does so in his humorous, mischievous way. Sophie has trouble letting go of her doubts: Potential disasters hover continuously, haunting her. She’s right to be concerned during her first year in a challenging school, but she tends to go overboard with worry, and it helps to have a friend who reminds her that she has untapped resources that can help her out of a jam.

“All she wanted was to curl into a ball and never get up again, but she didn’t have time. Someone stuck stuff in her brain and she needed to find those memories—before they got her in trouble again.”

The sand castle Sophie built during her human years is identical in shape to the castles in which the Councillors live. Knowing that her mind has been manipulated terrifies Sophie, and she fears that telling anyone will overturn her new life. It’s the biggest challenge she faces, and it appears that she must face it alone.

“[Sophie was] clinging to the hope that Tiergan was right—that she was good. As long as that was true, she could survive pretty much anything else.”

Sophie understands that her mind holds secrets of vast importance for elvin society, and that this isn’t her fault. Tiergan says that, under difficult conditions, she has behaved as a good and honorable person. To know she’s good means she can trust her motives, and that’s tremendously reassuring.

“‘Sophie, you have the greatest telepathic abilities I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I’m qualified to test you. Even if you can’t do this, I’ll find some other excuse to pass you. It’d be wrong not to.’ Her heart lightened at his words. One exam down. Seven more to go.”

Tiergan has never seen anything like Sophie before in his Telepathy class. She’s a girl who can completely block other mind readers, send thoughts to someone from faraway, and read the minds of animals. Despite her troubles with other classwork, Sophie’s telepathic abilities make her as much the teacher as the learner. It’s one subject she needn’t worry about during finals, but it remains the most important subject she takes.

“Dirty, panting, and in more than a little pain, she collapsed to the ground, feeling the tears she’d been holding back bubble over. She buried her face in her hands and gave into them, letting the violent sobs shake her body. She felt Iggy trembling next to her, frightened by her irrational behavior, but she didn’t care. Her life had officially fallen apart. She had no friends. No family. Facing exile and expulsion. She was totally and completely alone.”

Not only have Grady and Edaline canceled their effort to adopt Sophie, but it seems that Biana befriended her and Fitz flirted with her simply so their father could spy on her. It appears that nobody really wants her. She sees herself as a strange freak, a special power prize that political interest groups fight over but that no one loves. Elf plots and schemes have damaged her, to say nothing of her human parents, and her efforts to do good have merely gotten her into trouble. Something’s terribly wrong in the elvin paradise, and Sophie’s at the center of it, trying to grow up while defending herself from deadly forces among people who apparently want her near, not because they love her, but for cold purposes. It’s hard to be more lonely than that.

“‘It’s okay. You won’t have to hide it anymore. In fact, everyone seems to know every detail that’s happened these past few months.’ [Alden] shot a meaningful glance at Keefe. Great. Everyone knew what a freak she was. Though it was kind of a relief. No more hiding. No more lying. Her friends would stand by her—and the others? She wasn’t sure she cared.”

Her brush with death shows Sophie that the people she loves really do care about her. They saved her life, and none abandoned her. Grady and Edaline aside, she knows she has a family of true friends. That alone validates her life among the elves.

“‘We never wanted to love anyone again after we lost Jolie,’ Edaline whispered. ‘But we love you, Sophie. You’re just as much our daughter as she was. We need you to know that—not because we want you to forgive us, but because you deserve to know.’”

It’s clear that Grady and Edaline canceled the adoption, not because they didn’t love Sophie, but because the thought of losing another beloved daughter was too much for them. Sophie finally understands that they really do care for her and would do anything for her, as she would for them. The wound in her heart begins to close.

“‘But I’m not a normal thirteen-year-old girl. I have abilities no one understands—and secrets stored in my brain that people are willing to kill me for.’ ‘That may be true, but being special doesn’t mean you can’t have a normal life. You only get seven years to be a teenager. Enjoy them. Promise me you’ll try.’ A normal life. It sounded too good to be true. It was too good to be true.”

Sophie knows now that those she cares about love her back, but the elvin world as a whole seems to want either to use her or kill her. Sophie has one chance to be an adolescent, but the odds that this will be a happy time seem small, given all the forces vying for her. She fears she will never feel at home with her native people.

“Sophie wasn’t afraid. She’d been drugged and interrogated, watched her best friend tortured for trying to escape, and had to fight her way back from fading away. No matter what the Council decided, it could never be worse than what she’d already survived.”

She’s suffered too many torments, simply because of her unique powers, ever to fear the wrath of the Council. They can torture, exile, or execute her: She has already been through such agonies. Her fear that she doesn’t belong to elvin society has been replaced by the certainty that she never will. She has nothing to lose but her integrity. It’s absurd to be judged by people who have never experienced what she has. She’ll simply tell them what happened and what she chose to do about it. If the Council, in its august opinion, decides to punish her, so be it.

“Sophie cleared her throat and addressed the entire Council—even Bronte. ‘I never wanted to break the law, and I don’t plan on doing it again. But people were losing their houses. People were dying. I know they were humans, but I couldn’t sit back and let it happen. I’m sorry if that’s a crime. I won’t argue if you punish me for my choice, but I firmly believe it was the right decision. I’d rather be punished for making the right decision than live with the guilt of making the wrong one for the rest of my life.’”

Her purpose, all along, has been to help prevent suffering. Sophie isn’t a rebel, nor does she desire the destruction of elvin society. The laws are meant to punish those who deliberately flout the rules. Sophie felt she had no choice; she’s not trying to foment a revolution or encourage general disobedience. If the laws are the one thing standing in the way of solving the problem, then she breaks the laws and leaves the rest to the Council.

“Living with Alden and Della would’ve been awesome, but Grady and Edaline needed her. And she needed them too. She could never be Jolie, and they could never be the mom and dad she’d lost. But they could still be there for each other.”

In court, Sophie chooses Grady and Edaline for her foster parents. Alden and Della offered to parent her when the Ruewens backed away out of fear of losing yet another daughter—Sophie’s life is dangerous—but it’s clear who needs each other the most. This is fine with Alden and a joy to the Ruewens. In fact, her choice effectively gives Sophie two families where she’ll feel forever at home.