“Nope.” He smirked. “But admit it. You’re worrying about Fitzy now, huh?”

She hadn’t been.

But now that he mentioned it…

Keefe cracked up. “I’m kidding! Alden wouldn’t have been involved with Prentice’s memory break if he was your dad—and Della would’ve stopped him from searching for you if she was your mom.”

“I guess,” Sophie mumbled, leaning against the nearest wall, her brain spinning spinning spinning.

What if a different Vacker was her biological parent?

She could be Fitz’s cousin.

Or his aunt, thanks to the weirdness of the elvin life span.

In fact, for all she knew, her biological father could be Fallon Vacker and she’d be Fitz’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Sort of, at least.

“Whoa, deep breaths!” Keefe said, rushing over to her side. “It was just a joke.”

“Not your smoothest moment,” Ro told him. “Come on, Hunkyhair, don’t blow this!”

Keefe ignored her, squatting a little to meet Sophie’s eyes. “You’re not a Vacker, Foster.”

“You don’t know that,” she argued. “It could be the reason Forkle won’t tell me, because it’d bring too much scandal to the family. Or because Fallon used to be with the Council or—”

“Fallon?” Keefe interrupted. “Wow, you’ve gone deep, deep conspiracy on me.”

“You have to admit it’s possible, right?”

She held her breath as Keefe considered, her mouth turning sourer and sourer with each passing second.

Eventually Keefe shook his head. “Nah, I don’t buy it. Forkle would’ve snuffed out your Fitz feelings a loooooooooong time ago if you had any Vacker-family connection—and yes, I’m sure he knew about your crush. You really weren’t that great at hiding it.”

Sophie tried to glare, but she was pretty sure it mostly looked sulky.

“Seriously,” he told her. “I’m one-hundred-percent positive about this. See? No Vackers on the list.”

He held up the blue notebook, showing her the still mostly blank pages.

There were no names on the list at all—but Keefe had put “Foster Mommy” on one side and “Foster Daddy” on the other.

“Gah, what’s wrong now?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to steady her as her knees wobbled.

“She needs to rest!” Sandor snapped. “I told her she wasn’t up for this. Her conversation with Tam nearly brought back her echoes.”

“It did?” Keefe asked.

“I’m fine,” Sophie insisted, but the words were too breathless to be convincing, and she didn’t have the energy to fight Keefe as he guided her over to the bed. She even bent at the waist once she was sitting, trying to keep blood flowing to her darkening brain.

“You need water,” Keefe told her, grabbing a bottle of Youth off the floor and handing it to her. “I’ve had a few sips from this, but if I head to the kitchen for a fresh one, Lord Annoyingpants will be waiting there with questions.”

Sophie nodded, taking the bottle with shaky hands and downing the whole thing in one long swig. And the cool sweetness did clear most of the fog from her head. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Preeeeeeeetty sure it’s called freaking out,” Keefe said, sinking onto the bed beside her. “The question is, why?”

Sophie sighed, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. She hadn’t noticed the skylights scattered around the room, or how their thick blue glass made it feel like she was peering up at the sky from somewhere deep underwater—which wasn’t a helpful observation. It made the tightness in her chest feel even more like she was drowning. “I guess… it’s just hitting me that we’re really doing this. We’re really trying to find my biological parents.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Keefe asked.

She nodded.

Then shook her head.

“No. I need to know who they are. But… if I didn’t… I’d be good with just pretending they don’t exist. And the thought of maybe having to face them someday makes me sick.”

“Yeah, I got that when you almost blacked out on me. And I think my stomach’s going to need a week to recover from all of this. But don’t apologize,” he added when she was about to do just that. “You’re allowed to freak out—this is a huge thing.”

“It is,” Sophie mumbled, relieved he understood. “We’re trying to find the people who volunteered to give up their DNA so their child could be turned into some freak—”

“You’re not a freak,” Keefe interrupted. “You’re special. There’s a huge difference.”

She shrugged, not sure if she should agree to that.

But she really wished she could.

“Either way, they didn’t know how I’d turn out when they signed me up for this,” she argued. “For all they knew, I could’ve ended up with two heads or three arms or something.”

“Ohhhhhh, that would’ve been amazing!” Ro jumped in. “The Black Swan should totally make that happen someday!”

“I’m pretty sure everyone involved with Project Moonlark trusted that Forkle knew what he was doing,” Keefe said, ignoring his bodyguard. “He’s supersmart when he’s not being all curmudgeon-y.”

“Maybe. But it still seems like my parents can’t be very awesome people if they were willing to gamble like that with their kid. Especially since they also knew how dangerous this would be.”

Keefe hesitated a second before he reached for her gloved hand. “I definitely know how it feels to have a not-so-awesome family. But like you’re always telling me, that doesn’t change anything about you. And… I have a feeling your biological parents signed up for this because they knew Project Moonlark was going to create something amazing, and they wanted to be a part of it, even if they had to do it secretly and trust the Black Swan to keep their daughter safe.”

“I hope you’re right,” she whispered, and silence settled between them—until Keefe started to pull his hand away. She tightened her hold, needing that extra bit of support to ask, “Do you think I already know them?”

Keefe chewed his lip. “I kinda feel like Forkle might’ve tried to avoid that. Most people can’t pull off hiding something so huge.”

“I guess that’s true.” She sucked in a steadying breath before she could admit, “I think… I’m going to hate them. Especially if I have met them and they’ve pretended like I’m nobody. That’s the part I’m dreading. If it’s someone I thought I liked…”

“I get that,” Keefe told her. “But… you found a way to make it work with Forkle, right? After you found out he wasn’t just the nosy old human guy who lived next door like you thought, you figured out how to deal with him as your ‘creator.’ And Calla was part of Project Moonlark, and you two were super close. So… I’m not saying it won’t be weird at first, but with a little time it might get easier.”