Keeper Of The Lost Cities Series

YOU ARE READING: Keeper Of The Lost Cities Series – Shannon Messenger AT PhebinhvanhocEN

if you haven’t read nightfall yet, spoiler alert! spoiler alert! even the rest of this paragraph isn’t safe, so if you snuck in here because you’re channeling your inner silver (keefe! keefe! keefe!), you might i want to wait don’t worry the extra keefe hilarity will be here when you’re ready! And now that I’ve warned you enough, *pauses to give you one last chance to run away*, the pages you’re about to read cover what Keefe was up to during his recovery. so imagine these scenes happening at the same time as all the craziness of sophie & the crew is doing during chapters 36-60 of this book. I hope you enjoy it! — messenger shannon

+ day one +

“look! I am much better!” Keefe promised, waving his arms and almost knocking over the ugly lamp on the table next to the bed. not that he cared, he had big plans to destroy all of alvar’s stuff as soon as he was done hiding in there.

You are reading: Keeper of the lost cities books

“I might be willing to believe you,” elwin told him, “if you weren’t grinding your teeth every time you move.”

“what? this is how I smile now!” Keefe clenched her jaw and raised an eyebrow. “See? It’s my haunting and mysterious look.”

“Is that what you call it?” ro she asked, flopping down next to him and bouncing off the mattress so hard Keefe almost let out a scream. “All I get is a bad boy wannabe.”

elwin let out a laugh.

keefe looked between them, wishing she had some of her favorite elixirs handy. he managed to slip some silent slush into ro’s dinner the night before and erased his voice for eight glorious hours. but somehow he managed to find all of his hiding places, even the extra well-hidden ones.

the princess was good.

he was pretty sure she had also put gurgling guts on him at breakfast to get revenge, though if she was right, at least she would suffer as much as he did when the gurgles broke free.

“I’m fine, okay?” she told elwin. “I can live with a little pain.”

“It will be a lifetime of pain if you don’t listen to me,” corrected elwin. He lit a red orb around Keefe’s torso and squinted through his glasses. “Just as he thought. you are worse today.”

keefe pushed back her sheets. “fine. so bed rest isn’t helping, so I don’t need—”

He managed to get one foot off the ground before the body of the ro tossed him back onto the bed, causing a throbbing spasm that felt like a pixie biting at his lungs.

“You two need to take it easy,” Elwin warned, “or I’ll bring Keefe to my house and put a megaphone on duty.”

“um, he’s, like, two pounds of skin,” keefe told him. “I think I can handle it.”

“I’d love for you to try.” Elwin reached into his satchel and pulled out a dark purple elixir. “But I’d rather you take another dose of tissue regenerator and get some rest.”

“I can always open those full lips and pour it down your throat,” Ro added with a smile that showed each of his pointed teeth.

keefe reached for the vial. years of dealing with her father had taught him that it was easier to pretend to cooperate. so she drank the medicine, even though she stunk worse than alvar’s stuffy apartment.

side note on that: I was pretty sure he didn’t want to know why the whole place reeked of rotten toenails. or why alvar had felt the need to cover all surfaces with mirrors.

“Try not to look so miserable,” Elwin said, taking the empty vial. “It’s only for a week.”

“uh, do you realize how many times parenting can almost die in a week? Especially when my mother is the one making the decisions? keefe replied.

elwin sighed. “I know. But you need to get your strength back.”

“Besides, she doesn’t want to see you,” ro reminded him. “She hey, don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true.”

It was true.

and made Keefe more nauseous than gurgling.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the burst of emotion Sophie had hit him with when he left the healing center. there hadn’t just been anger. he had been wounded. and a deep, overwhelming disappointment that had made it hard for her to breathe.

elwin patted him on the shoulder. “give him a chance to cool off—”

“I don’t have time,” Keefe interrupted. “she could be heading for dusk right now.”

“If so, I’m sure you can handle it,” elwin told him. “I know we love to joke with sophie about all her emergencies, but the truth is that she is a survivor. and she has a lot of powerful family and friends behind her.”

“I’m supposed to be one of them,” Keefe argued.

“then take care of yourself. the more you rest, the faster you will recover. And if it makes you feel any better, I’ll watch it every day and give you updates, but only if you promise to stay in bed.”

“Fine,” Keefe muttered, collapsing under the covers.

“so good!” ro said. “We’re going from denial mode to moody kid. this will be fun!”

keefe shot him a look.

He wasn’t in a bad mood.

Okay, okay, maybe it was a little bit, but it was also intriguing.

The first chance she got, she slipped out of Alvar’s apartment and headed straight for Havenfield.

He didn’t care what anyone else said. Sophie needed her help.

+ day two +

“You have ten seconds to float back to bed,” ro warned, not even looking over his shoulder, “or I’ll tie you down and cover you in flesh-eating bacteria.”

keefe ignored the stab of pain in his side as he flailed his arms, swimming through the air. “You expect me to believe you have a fleshy bac-“

ro leaped across the room, blocking the window he had been levitating toward, and pulled a small black bottle from his breastplate. she poured a single drop on her finger and her dark spot immediately dissolved her skin into a bloody hole.

keefe went back to bed.

ro smiled. “good boy”.

+ day three +

“if this is a trick . . . ro said, not bothering to finish the threat. his sword hand said the rest.

“no tricks,” Keefe promised. “I really need your help. you found my joke stashes so easily that i hope you can do the same with whatever my mom hid in candleshade.”

“but why such a sudden rush?” ro asked she.

“because elwin is here now, and you’ll need him to jump you over there, since I still can’t get out of this stupid bed.”

“You’re not,” agreed elwin. “And by the way, neither of us are leaving until you take a sedative, and I want you to take the full dose.”

keefe clutched her heart. “elwin, elwin, elwin. After everything we’ve been through, do you really not trust me?”

elwin handed him a round, clear vial. “no”.

ro laughed.

“good”. Keefe reached for the elixir. if that’s what it took to get to the candle display, he’d take care of that.

“Do you really think your mother hid something important in there?” elwin asked as keefe swallowed the sweet sticky sedative.

“I hope so.”

Along with the lovely news that her recovery would be a while yet, elwin had also let keefe know that sophie had apparently already left by sundown and her family hadn’t been there.

elwin had no further details except that everyone was safe. but keefe knew sophie must be panicking.

I needed to get her another clue to help her locate the unseen.

“I’d have a much better chance of finding what you’re looking for,” said ro, “if you let me trash the place.”

“good for me. make as big a mess as you want. and bonus points if you destroy my dad’s statue.”

“wow! things just got interesting in the land of the elves!”

ro said something else, but Keefe didn’t understand. His ears had started to ring and his head had gotten too prickly.

She sank back into her pillow, feeling a hand gently squeeze her shoulder.

then she was lost in her floating dreams, most of which centered around brown eyes flecked with gold that she could never get out of her head.

+ day four +

plink! plink! plink!

ro stomped into his room. “If you make that noise one more time, I’m going to stick those pieces somewhere you’re really not going to like it.”

“what, this noise?” Keefe asked, tinkling the four strange twisted pieces of silver and gold that she had brought him from the candle shade.

I had been trying to fit them in for hours.

in fact, he had been ready to throw them across the room. but now that he knew the annoying noise ro. . .

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I need to figure out what they are, and since someone won’t let me get out of bed, it’s not like I have anything else to do.”

plink! plink! plink! plink! plink!

ro’s moan shook the walls.

+ day five +

“you will never realize that!” Ro yelled as Keefe continued plink-plink-plink.

“You’re mad because you couldn’t figure it out either,” Keefe yelled at him.

She had been so smug when she ripped the pieces out of his hands to try that Keefe had laughed himself hoarse when she had failed. and since then, she had managed to fit three of the four pieces together. but the last piece was ridiculously opinionated.

ro walked into her door with a bottle of blue nail polish in one hand and half-painted claws in the other. “No, I’m mad because you’re only doing this to try to patch things up with your little girlfriend and it’s not going to work.”

keefe clinked the pieces real loud.

but after several seconds he had to ask, “why won’t it work?”

ro snorted. “Wow, you really have it bad, don’t you? No, there is no need to deny it. it’s so obvious that it’s actually adorable. especially since she has no idea about it. you know that, right?”

keefe rolled her eyes.

and he was ready to argue, but for some reason “yes, I’m an empath” slipped out.

“ohhhhh, that’s true. wow, I didn’t even think about that.” Ro laughed as he crossed the room and sat down next to her on the bed. “That must drive you crazy.”

“Sort of,” Keefe muttered.

It wasn’t even the worst part, but he managed to avoid mentioning that.

“However, you understand why, don’t you?” ro she asked, swiping blue paint across another claw. “Why doesn’t your girl understand how much you love her?”

sighed. “Because she grew up hearing every less than wonderful thought that anyone ever had about her, even from her parents and her sister and stuff. so now a part of her always assumes that everyone has those kinds of thoughts about her, even though she can’t hear them anymore.”

ro blinked. “Okay, I didn’t expect you to get this deep with me.”

+ day six +

“Got it!” Keefe yelled, raising his arm and raising his fist, which no longer hurt him. even when she waved both arms around her.

“did you find out what to buy your girlfriend?” ro she asked, poking her head into her room.

“No. right . . . kinda. but I was talking about this!” she held up a small square of gold and silver. “I have the last piece to fit! I can even take it apart and put it back together. now I know the trick.”

“okay, but . . . what is it?”

“I have no idea,” Keefe admitted.

ro smiled. “it’s a good thing you’re not trying to jump in and save the day anymore, because that’s definitely not going to work.”

“Hey, this is still important,” argued Keefe. “My mom hid it for a reason.”

“I’m sure he did,” agreed ro, twisting his nose ring. “But let’s hope his gift idea is more exciting.”

“it is. It will take me a bit of time to do it, but it will really surpass all the gifts that have been given to you before.”

her fingers were already itching to get started.

but first he needed to get out of that bed, so he was more than a little relieved when elwin finally gave him the go ahead during his evening checkup.

“However, I still want you to take tonight to rest,” elwin warned. “You can’t rest in bed until morning.”

“cheer up,” ro told him after elwin left. “Now you have some time to figure out how to make your girl forgive you.”

keefe shrugged. “I know.”

“crawling?” she guessed it.

“oh, I’m sure there will be plenty of that.”

But then, I had a plan.

From that moment on, I had only one goal: to be whatever Sophie needed.

not the hero.

not the one who takes care of everything.

just a guy willing to listen, help and be there for her.

a friend.

until she was ready for more

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Keeper Of The Lost Cities Series – Shannon Messenger