Three weeks passed faster than Sophie would have liked, and by the last day of the third week, Sophie, Wylie, Keefe, Fitz, Linh, Marella, Maruca, Tam, Biana and Rayni were standing on the hill where Lady Gisela had asked them to meet.

Just when they were getting impatient and Tam was playing with shadows, a shadowy figure, shrouded by darkness landed in the center of the hill, startling Linh and Wylie who were having a moment. She spun around, her long quarterstaff pointing at Sophie's chest and at each of her friends' in turn. But the cloaked woman did not attack, and she lowered the quarterstaff after a few moments.

She flashed her cloak at them and they all saw the single eye embedded into it, woven with fabric, and Sophie had no doubt this woman was sent by the Neverseen. Did that mean they had found a replacement Shade already? 

"My name is Fox," the woman said, "my companion is Chameleon."

Companion? Sophie wondered, but she got her answer soon enough. Chameleon, who was probably a Vanisher, appeared at Fox's right, his arms folded above his chest, peering at them with cold eyes.

"You will not be staying on this hill much longer. We will bring you to one of our previously exposed hideouts that the Council remains woefully ignorant of," Fox said coldly, her eyes sweeping over Sophie's group. "We will be going there by a light leap." She raised a blue crystal dangling from her neck.

"Doesn't that leap to the Forbidden Cities?" Wylie blurted.

Fox's eyes were emotionless as she replied, "Of course it does. It's blue." She and everyone clasped hands and let the light whisk them away.

Sophie didn't recognize the abandoned building they stood in, and decided the Black Swan had probably discovered it a long time ago. Books cluttered dusty bookshelves, chairs lay overturned and tables on their sides, and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in decades. It hardly seemed to affect Fox and Chameleon while the rest of them were coughing and sneezing. But Fox didn't seem to care about the noise or the dust her cloak swept over, and Sophie couldn't even see Chameleon most of the time. She knew Flori could, though, and that was a relief.

Fox kicked a table back onto its legs and straightened a few chairs before motioning for them to sit down. 

Sophie did not, and her friends followed her lead, merely staring at Fox.

Fox laughed slightly, but it wasn't a friendly laugh. "You do realize that you have to sit down before I explain your purpose."

"Who are you?" Rayni blurted. "I don't recall there being another Shade other than Umber and Tam, and your name isn't familiar."

Fox's lip curled. "How little Lady Gisela tells her pet. I wouldn't expect you to know of me because Gisela didn't either. In case you don't know, I'm a friend of Vespera. She's my endless greats-grandmother. No? Vespera never told you she had children whose futures were ruined by Luzia Vacker? No, of course not, no one would ever expose Luzia and her golden child, Orem. They are too precious to society. Everyone values Flashers, but not many Shades." Her eyes drifted to Tam as she spoke, and Sophie knew Tam was experiencing some sort of inner turmoil as he remembered the prejudice Shades were put through, all because elves preferred light to darkness. The power of Shades was looked down upon even though Shades could accomplish far greater feats than Flashers.

"Sit down," Fox commanded.

This time, they all obliged. Sophie sat at Fox's immediate left, and Fitz took her left. She looked at him and her uncertainty was met by his own. She just didn't know what to say to him anymore. Their argument had driven a wedge between them at just the wrong time.

"Lady Gisela wanted to discuss giving Keefe the full scope of his abilities," Fox said pleasantly. "And don't say you don't want them; if you won't take them willingly, Gisela will find a way to force them into you. Don't forget she has a Shade at her disposal." She motioned to her own body, "and Flashers are relatively easy to come by."

"Why mention Shades and Flashers?" Sophie wondered out loud.

"Because that's how Keefe will trigger his abilities," Fox replied, sounding mildly surprised that none of them had grasped the concept. "Darkness and light merged together to create powerful abilities that only someone as cunning as Lady Gisela could dare to create."

"And you're fine being used like that?" Maruca asked.

Maruca wasn't part of Sophie's core group, even further out that Marella, but she had proved invaluable as a Psionipath and Sophie decided she could tolerate the interjection. Usually she tried to keep the speaking to herself and other more experienced, older people like Wylie, as well as her close friends, people like Keefe and Fitz and Rayni, but she supposed she couldn't exclude Maruca from everything for much longer.

"I exist to serve Vespera," Fox whispered.

"Precisely," Rayni cut in. "You serve Vespera, weird enough in itself that you're serving that numb Empath, but if you're serving her, why serve Lady Gisela?"

The smile Fox flashed her was calculative and ice cold. "Because Lady Gisela is the ticket to Vespera's freedom."

"And you care about Vespera's freedom?" Sophie demanded.

Fox fixed her with a hard stare. "I just told you: I exist to serve Vespera. And this is beside the point. We are talking about Keefe's abilities. Will you accept the change?"

"What happens if I don't?" Keefe asked defiantly. "Going to chop my head off? Feed me to the gorgodon?"

"Nothing of the sort, seeing as we don't even have the gorgodon," Fox said breezily. "And personally, I'd prefer something much more brutal than that. No, feeding you to a brute will not do. We will track you down and force you to accept those powers, and should you not, we can always torture your friends." Fox's smile was wide and cruel, not a trace of pity or empathy in those cold blue depths.

"You think it's right for Lady Gisela to do that?" Fitz demanded angrily.

Fox stared at him evenly. "I believe in a situation like this, there is no right or wrong, and you cannot always control the variables. If you can't be right, you're wrong, but is that really true? You can choose something in between. You can be partially right and partially wrong. That is the case here. Lady Gisela did something wrong when she implanted those powers in her son in the first place. But now that they're there, they have to be triggered."

"Or what?" Keefe said loudly.

"Shut up, Hunkyhair, can't you see they're doing something?" Ro hissed and smacked him.

Chameleon let out a soft wheeze. "Interesting bodyguard you have."

"Beside the point," Fox said, fixing Chameleon with her icy stare for a few moments before turning back to Keefe and then Sophie. "Well, Sophie?"

"It is not my choice to make," Sophie said firmly.

"Yet it is." Fox's smile only widened.

"Keefe," Sophie tried.

"Make the choice, Foster. I believe in you."

And what if I don't believe in myself? Sophie wondered quietly.

"He'll take the powers," Sophie said. Keefe let out a breath he'd been holding.

Fox's smile became a little more real. "Good choice. Chameleon, contact Gisela for me. She'll set a date."

"Not today?" Sophie asked.

"Our Flasher is away on a mission," Fox explained.

"We have Flashers." Sophie gestured to Wylie and Rayni.

"It is dangerous, Sophie Foster. You want only the experienced to be involved in this. This partner I am waiting for has been training his Flasher ability with me for the past two decades. We work smoothly together. We are perfectly in sync. And no damage will be done to Keefe. It won't work as well if I'm working with one of them." Fox spoke without disdain, but with a slight tinge of worry. Perhaps she worried for Keefe's well-being, and she really wanted to make sure he made it out alive. Sophie had to credit her for that.

"Then how about Tam and Rayni do it?" Sophie asked.

Fox sighed impatiently. "They do not understand the process. It will not work. Sophie Foster, my partner and I trained for this. It will work if it is us. We just need you to wait for a few weeks."

Sophie looked at Keefe, who shrugged. "I'm fine with it," the blonde boy responded.

"Course you are, Hunkyhair. Blondie suggested it." Ro sniggered behind Keefe's back which earned her an elbow to the gut. 

"Very well," Fox said. She swathed them all in shadows and light leapt them back to the hill. Then she disappeared into shadow along with Chameleon and they were both gone.