Sophie nodded, telling herself to feel relieved as he pounded his fist against the table, making the metal flatten back into a smooth, empty surface. This was the earliest they’d ever had a concrete strategy for stopping the Neverseen—and she hadn’t even had to pry it out of him, or follow a bunch of mysterious clues and notes before he trusted her.

This was progress!

But… was it enough?

And how would her friends feel about focusing on Tam?

She suspected that would not go over well, but… at least it would give her a perfect excuse not to talk about—

“Wait,” she said as the door slid open and Mr. Forkle pulled his pathfinder from his cape pocket. She’d gotten so distracted by the map and his theories about the dwarves and Tam that she’d forgotten the reason she’d asked for the meeting in the first place. “None of this is why I said we needed to talk.”

He spun the crystal at the end of the silver wand. “Well, surely you can agree that this is far more important.”

It was and it wasn’t.

Compared to everything going on, her personal life did rank pretty low.

But… she’d waited nine days for this opportunity. She wasn’t about to waste it.

“This will only take a minute,” she promised, squaring her shoulders and trying to project confidence as she switched to the speech she’d prepared. “I know you haven’t wanted to tell me certain things about who I am, and what your plans for me are, and where I come from, and what’s happened in my past. And I know you think you’re protecting me—but I can handle that stuff now. And I’m worried that the reason we keep failing is because of all of the secrets between us. It makes trusting you really hard sometimes—and it leaves me without some pretty important information. So I think it’s time for us to agree that we need to solve all of those mysteries.”

She let out a breath.

There.

She’d said it.

Now she needed him to argue that he couldn’t possibly tell her everything—because this was Mr. Forkle, after all—and then she’d offer a compromise and make him agree to answer at least one question.

They’d made a similar deal before—and she knew exactly what question she’d ask.

But Mr. Forkle didn’t follow the script.

“I’m sorry, Miss Foster.” His eyes stayed focused on his pathfinder as he locked the crystal into place. “I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“You don’t even know what I want to know,” she pointed out.

“Actually, I do. You… want to know who your biological parents are.”

Sophie blinked. “How did you—”

“I know you far better than you realize. Which is why I also know that you won’t be happy with me when I tell you that, unfortunately, the answer to your question is ‘no.’ ”

“Why?”

He sighed. “I can’t tell you that, either.”

She gritted her teeth. “I deserve to know.”

“You do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t tell you—because it doesn’t only affect you. The ramifications are too huge. I’m sorry, I realize that’s not what you want to hear. But it’s the best I can do.”

His tone made it clear that they’d reached the end of the conversation.

But Sophie couldn’t let it go. She had to make him understand that there were huge ramifications for her, too—even if it meant saying the words she’d been bottling up since that horrible day in Atlantis, when she’d stumbled out of the matchmakers’ office with a fake smile plastered across her face, pretending everything was okay.

“I’m unmatchable.”

It came out as a whisper, but she knew everyone heard her. They all sucked in breaths. Even Bo, who probably didn’t understand the full enormity of that statement.

The elves didn’t discriminate because of skin color or money, like so many humans did. But anyone who was part of a bad match faced scorn for the rest of their lives—and so would their kids. It mostly happened to the Talentless, since the matchmakers focused on pairing up those with the strongest abilities in the hope that their children would be equally powerful. But the foundation of the matchmaking system was genetics, to ensure that no distant relatives were intermarrying, which could happen all too easily in a world where everyone stayed beautiful and healthy for thousands of years.

So if Sophie couldn’t provide the names of the male and female whose DNA she carried, the matchmakers could do nothing except give her a sympathetic pat on the head and send her away in shame.

She honestly wasn’t sure how she’d made it out of that room without bursting into tears—and couldn’t remember what she’d told her parents to explain why she wasn’t carrying a match packet as she rejoined them in the main lobby and headed home.

It was all a horrible, sickening blur—and the nine days that followed had been even more unbearable. She’d had to avoid her friends, afraid they might be able to tell that something had happened, all while her brain kept imagining the many ways her life was about to implode. The only thing that had gotten her through was waiting for this moment—this chance to avert the disaster.

“Please,” she said, ready to drop to her knees and beg. “I won’t tell anyone and—”

“You’d have to,” Mr. Forkle interrupted. “The information would only be useful if it were part of your official records. And that cannot happen.”

“But I’m unmatchable!” she repeated, much louder this time. And she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t flinch.

That’s when she realized…

“You knew.”

She should’ve figured that out before.

He was the one who filled out her Inception Certificate and left off that crucial information.

Of course he knew what that would mean for her someday.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Another way that Project Moonlark is manipulating my perspective so I’ll see the follies of our world? Am I supposed to be the poster girl for the dark side of matchmaking?”

“Of course not! Though, as I recall, you have had quite a few issues with the system. You even considered not participating.”

She had.

Matchmaking was disappointingly unromantic, and inherently problematic—but that was before…

She couldn’t think about it without wanting to throw up. And yet her mind still flashed to a pair of beautiful teal eyes.

Fitz had looked so adorably earnest—so honest—when he’d said the six words that changed everything.

I want it to be you.

The boy she’d liked from the moment he’d found her on her class field trip and showed her where she truly belonged—the boy who was so impossibly out of her league that it was almost laughable—told her he wanted to see her name on his match lists. And whether she agreed with matchmaking or not, she needed her name to be there so they could be together.

But she was unmatchable.

“Please,” she said again. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

“I wish there were.”

The sorrow in his voice sounded genuine.

But that didn’t help.