Everblaze

Everblaze, the third installment in Shannon Messenger's middle-grade fantasy series Keeper of the Lost Cities, follows Sophie Foster, a young elf living in the hidden Lost Cities with her adoptive parents, Grady and Edaline. Sophie possesses several rare abilities, including telepathy, teleportation (activated through free fall), and inflicting (the power to project emotions onto others). A secret organization called the Black Swan arranged Sophie's upbringing among humans before she was brought to the Lost Cities, but they have since gone silent. A group of rebels remains at large, and the elvin Council faces growing instability.

The story opens as Sophie and her friend Keefe Sencen, an Empath who can sense others' emotions, attempt to teleport to the Sanctuary, the elves' animal preserve inside the Himalayas, to check on Silveny, a rare female alicorn (a winged unicorn). When an invisible barrier blocks them, Sophie's mind redirects to her old house in San Diego, where she unearths a hidden message from the Black Swan instructing her to wait for their plan to heal Prentice, a Black Swan operative whose mind was broken thirteen years ago to protect Sophie's existence. Sophie and Keefe eventually reach the Sanctuary through light leaping, the elves' standard crystal-based travel method.

Inside the Sanctuary, Sophie reads the memories of Greyfell, the male alicorn, and discovers that a black-cloaked figure tampered with Silveny while she slept. Sophie finds a silver tracker hidden in Silveny's tail and brings it to Alden Vacker, a prominent elvin leader, at his estate, Everglen. Alden reveals the Council has ordered Sophie to heal the broken mind of Fintan, a rogue Pyrokinetic (a wielder of fire manipulation, the elves' only forbidden ability) imprisoned for his crimes. The Council hopes to extract information about the rebels from Fintan's restored memories, and Sophie reluctantly agrees. Her goblin bodyguard, Sandor, identifies the tracker as made from stalkenteene, a metal mined exclusively by ogres, raising fears of ogre involvement.

Sophie's linguistics Mentor, Lady Cadence, tests Sophie with reveldust, a powder that reacts to ogre enzymes, and discovers Sophie's hands are coated in aromark, a homing enzyme that ogre weapons use for targeting. Everyone who handled the tracker must undergo painful treatment to remove the substance. After treatment, Keefe's hands glow red again, suggesting a separate source of contamination.

Alongside these threats, Sophie investigates Jolie, the deceased daughter of Grady and Edaline, who died in a fire sixteen years earlier. A vision in Prentice's broken mind suggested Jolie was connected to the Black Swan. Sophie and Biana Vacker, Alden's daughter, search Jolie's belongings and find a mirrored compact marked with the Cygnus constellation, a Black Swan symbol. Sophie also learns that Jolie and her fiancé Brant were classified as a "bad match" because Brant was Talentless, meaning he never manifested a special ability. When Sophie visits Brant to assess whether his broken mind can be healed, he grabs her wrist and burns her, refusing any treatment.

The healing of Fintan takes place at Oblivimyre, an ancient amethyst tower in the elvin capital of Eternalia. Sophie enters Fintan's shattered mind and navigates a maze of fragmented memories, using inflicting to guide her way. She nearly glimpses the face of an unregistered Pyrokinetic whom Fintan secretly trained, but Fintan blocks her. Fintan then triggers Everblaze, a devastating magical fire, inside the tower. Fitz Vacker, Alden's son and Sophie's telepathic guide, screams their emergency code word, pulling Sophie back to reality. Sophie teleports herself, Fitz, and Councillor Oralie to safety, but Councillor Kenric, who had shoved them clear, is trapped with Fintan as the tower melts. Both Kenric and Fintan die in the blaze.

Sophie and Fitz race to collect quintessence, a rare star-derived substance, to brew frissyn, the only compound that can extinguish Everblaze. During this process, Sophie accidentally implants memories into Fitz's mind, including an image of a round window in Florence, Italy, bearing the sign of the swan. The frissyn stops the fire, but much of Eternalia is destroyed. Reviewing her memory log afterward, Sophie finds a word from Fintan's memories written in runes: "Neverseen," the rebels' name.

At Kenric's funeral in the Wanderling Woods, the elves' living cemetery, King Dimitar of the ogres arrives uninvited. Sophie impulsively reads his mind, violating the elvin-ogre treaty. The king detects her instantly and demands punishment. Grady, a Mesmer who can control others' actions, forces the king to punch himself, nearly sparking a war. Lady Cadence and Councillor Oralie negotiate in the ogre language to prevent immediate conflict, but King Dimitar gives the Council two weeks to punish Sophie.

Dame Alina, Sophie's former principal, is elected as Kenric's replacement on the Council. The Black Swan makes contact, arranging a meeting through sealed scrolls sent to Sophie and Keefe. Mr. Forkle, the Black Swan's leader, reveals that the aromark on Keefe comes from his Sencen family crest pin, a gift from Lord Cassius, Keefe's father. The Neverseen have been tracking Keefe through it. Mr. Forkle devises a plan: Keefe will tell his father a cover story about moving Silveny, luring the Neverseen into a trap on Mount Everest. Mr. Forkle also confirms Jolie infiltrated the Neverseen as a double agent and was likely killed for what she discovered.

As punishment for probing King Dimitar's mind, the Council clamps an ability-restricting circlet onto Sophie's head. Her best friend, Dex, a Technopath who can manipulate technology, originally invented the device to enhance telepathy, but the Council ordered him to repurpose it as a restrictor. The circlet causes severe pain and scrambles Sophie's concentration, though Dex adjusts it to prevent permanent damage. Sophie discovers her abilities are not fully suppressed but hides this from the Council.

Sophie sinks into depression before recovering with her family's support, finally calling Grady and Edaline "Mom" and "Dad." She deciphers Jolie's encoded journal by using the human mirror in the compact to reverse its runes. The journal reveals Jolie met the Neverseen's leader, a Pyrokinetic whose voice Jolie recognized, but the pages identifying him are scratched out. Sophie realizes the leader is Brant: The burn he left on her wrist during her visit matches her kidnapper's methods, and his memory of Jolie's death showed flames erupting around her while he was conveniently thrown clear.

Grady confronts Brant, and a violent battle erupts. Brant calls down Everblaze, and Grady uses his mesmer ability to force Brant to shove his own hand into the flames. Sophie stops Grady from killing Brant by inflicting love and positive emotion, proving that inflicting comes from the heart, not the head, and can bypass the restrictor. Dex arrives via a panic switch, and Brant reveals the Neverseen know about the Mount Everest ambush. Sophie lets Brant escape in exchange for this warning, and Dex removes and destroys her circlet.

Sophie teleports to Mount Everest to warn her friends. During the battle, the Neverseen ambush the Black Swan's trap with superior numbers. The true traitor is revealed: not Lord Cassius but Lady Gisela, Keefe's mother, who has been using her Polyglot mimicking ability to impersonate her husband. Lady Gisela flees by jumping off a cliff, presumably using ogre technology to survive. The group captures Gethen, the blond elf who first attempted to kidnap Sophie.

In the aftermath, Sophie realizes she must join the Black Swan and go into hiding. The Council has vowed to hunt the organization, and her missing circlet will bring further punishment. Keefe, Fitz, Biana, and Dex each insist on accompanying her. Alden agrees it is safest, and Grady and Edaline consent. The book ends with the five friends leaving Everglen in the middle of the night, setting out to join the Black Swan.