Lodestar (keeper of the Lost Cities, #5)

The fifth installment in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series opens with Sophie Foster racing through a collapsing structure, sensing tremors no one else can feel. The scene jumps back to explain how she arrived at this moment.

Sophie, a genetically enhanced elf raised among humans before being brought to the elvin Lost Cities, attends the Midterms Celebration at Foxfire Academy under heavy security. Goblin patrols guard the campus after ogre war threats and attacks by the Neverseen, a secret elvin rebel organization. Sophie's friend Fitz Vacker, a fellow Telepath, greets her, and their friend group gathers, though empty chairs mark the absence of Keefe Sencen, who has secretly joined the Neverseen. Sophie finds a note directing her to the principal's office, where she discovers Keefe wearing a Neverseen cloak. He insists he infiltrated the organization to destroy it from within and warns that the Neverseen are planning something involving Sophie's adoptive parents, Grady and Edaline. He wraps his cloak around Sophie for protection, attaches a gadget to the ceiling, and leaps away. The device shatters all the glass in the building.

Mr. Forkle, leader of the rebel group the Black Swan who poses as Foxfire's principal, examines Keefe's abandoned cloak. He finds a black disk made of duskitine, a stone that reacts to starlight, etched with an unfamiliar symbol. Mr. Forkle reveals he recovered a similar fragment from the broken mind of Prentice, a former Black Swan operative whose sanity was shattered to protect Sophie's existence. At the Stone House, Tam Song, a Shade who manipulates shadows, lifts a veil of darkness in Prentice's mind so Sophie can enter his consciousness. She extracts hidden memory fragments that form a complete symbol: sixteen rays radiating from a central point. Sophie identifies it as a Lodestar, a guiding star, and suspects it connects to the Lodestar Initiative, the Neverseen's grand plan created by Keefe's mother, Lady Gisela.

At Candleshade, Keefe's family estate, the group finds a sealed note from Lady Gisela calling Keefe's involvement his "legacy" and providing coordinates for a leaping crystal, a device that creates a light-based travel path. The destination is the abandoned Neverseen hideout in Paris where Sophie and her friend Dex Dizznee were once held captive. Inside, Tam reveals the Lodestar symbol projected on the floor. Sophie and Keefe establish nightly telepathic check-ins, during which Keefe reveals that Fintan, a senior Neverseen member, possesses a personal cache, a device for storing memories too dangerous to keep.

The Council announces mandatory skill training at Foxfire. When Keefe warns the Neverseen plan to snatch Grady and Edaline, Sophie and her friends stay at the Dizznee home. There, they discover Dex's mother Juline is secretly Squall, a member of the Black Swan's ruling Collective and a Froster, an elf who controls ice. Dex also finds a listening device in Sophie's Imparter, the elves' videophone, planted by Lady Gisela through an accidental device swap, explaining how the Neverseen have anticipated their plans.

The Neverseen's actual target is Wylie Endal, Prentice's son, who is kidnapped from Foxfire and tortured for information about his mother Cyrah's final leap, from which she never recovered and died. Wylie escapes and begs Sophie to investigate. Sophie convinces Councillor Oralie, a powerful Empath, to arrange a meeting with Gethen, a Neverseen Telepath imprisoned at the fortress of Lumenaria. Gethen offers one clue about Cyrah: "Starstones." After this visit, Oralie reveals Sophie has been invited to the upcoming Peace Summit.

While Sophie is at Lumenaria, ogres attack Havenfield, killing Grady's bodyguard Brielle. Sophie later meets Keefe on a remote island, where he shows her the memory driving his actions: as a child, his mother used a rare starstone, a gem enabling precise leaps, to bring him to a silver door in a snowy mountain and cut his thumb to seal the door with his blood. She then had a Washer, someone who erases memories, remove the experience. The door bears runes reading, "The star only rises at Nightfall."

Dex cracks coded sequences in the registry records of Alvar Vacker, Fitz's older brother who joined the Neverseen: each code matches a ray of the Lodestar symbol and represents a different hideout. A classmate named Marella provides a starstone linked to Cyrah that leads directly to Candleshade, implying Lady Gisela killed Cyrah to cover her tracks. Mr. Forkle then reveals Sophie's newest ability: Enhancer, a power that stores energy in her fingertips and boosts the abilities of anyone she touches, requiring her to wear gloves.

Sophie enhances Tam's shadow abilities, and the group uses the Lodestar network to reach a Neverseen hideout. Neverseen operatives Ruy and Brant, along with Alvar and Keefe, confront them. Brant brands Keefe's palm and orders him to burn Sophie. Tam breaks free and Sophie unleashes her inflicting, a pain-inducing mental attack, dropping everyone. They capture Brant and Ruy, but Keefe flees with Alvar to maintain his cover. Sophie telepathically calls Silveny, a rare winged creature called an alicorn with whom she shares a special bond, and Silveny teleports them home. The Council imprisons Brant and Ruy at Lumenaria. Dex uses Lady Gisela's rigged Imparter to contact her; she has escaped her ogre prison and warns that Fintan's plans are collapsing. Keefe tells Sophie he has already decided to leave the Neverseen.

Sophie and Edaline attend the Peace Summit at Lumenaria, where leaders including King Dimitar of the ogres and Queen Hylda of the goblins gather. Fintan arrives uninvited and is allowed to participate under guard. King Dimitar, disillusioned with the Neverseen, agrees to simple treaty terms. When the Council arrests Fintan and sends him to the dungeon, he looks relieved.

Sophie connects the warnings: Gethen spent months in solitary confinement building mental reserves for outward channeling, the skill of shattering objects with concentrated mental energy. Brant and Ruy allowed themselves to be captured. Fintan needed everyone inside the castle. The plan is to destroy Lumenaria. Gethen cracks the foundations. Sophie removes her gloves and enhances Edaline's Conjuring, allowing her to teleport falling stone. They escape to the beach.

Most leaders survive, but Mr. Forkle is found dying, stabbed by Gethen with a sword freed from his cell. Mr. Forkle blocked an attack on Oralie and killed Brant with falling debris. He asks Sophie to give his memory-storage gadget to Granite, a fellow Collective member, and not to plant a public Wanderling, the memorial tree grown for the dead. His final words urge Sophie forward: "Dream. Fight. Love. Take risks. Allow yourself to be happy." Sophie glimpses four cloaked figures escaping: Fintan, Ruy, Gethen, and an unknown fourth.

Keefe reveals he stole two caches during his escape—Fintan's personal cache and one he had originally taken from Sophie to gain the Neverseen's trust—both containing Forgotten Secrets, dangerous memories stored by former Councillors. He realizes the Neverseen never said "Grady and Edaline" but always "family," meaning their target may have been Sophie's human family. At the family's house, the group finds week-old chaos and the scent of ash. Sophie's younger sister Amy emerges from a closet, her previously erased memories triggered by seeing Sophie. Amy reveals the cloaked figures said, "Take them to Nightfall," the same word inscribed on the door sealed with Keefe's blood. The story continues in Nightfall.