One student, Dex, resents the elvin noble class for its snobbery, and he despises Alden’s family, but he likes Sophie, and they become friends. She’s good at classes requiring memorization, but she’s terrible at moving objects with her thoughts. Her telepathy Mentor, Tiergan, can’t penetrate her mind block.

Sophie begins at Foxfire, where she must learn to control wind and lightning, memorize thousands of astronomical objects, and channel her telepathic abilities. They’re kind to Sophie and provide her with a wonderful home. They run a nature preserve that includes mammoths and dinosaurs. She meets her new elf family, Grady and Edaline, who lost a daughter tragically and still grieve. Sophie’s no longer safe on the human world, so she goes home to say a tearful goodbye to her family, whose minds are then cleansed of all memory of her. They also confirm that her DNA matches the elves’ records. There, telepathy expert Quinlin Sonden declares that Sophie’s mind block is impenetrable. To settle the issue, Sophie travels with Fitz and Alden to Atlantis, one of the cities humans believe is lost. He doesn’t trust her for her impenetrable mind and her unusual upbringing among humans, but the other two Councillors favor her. Though still new at using her abilities, she reads the mind of skeptical Councillor Bronte, makes glasses rise from a table, lifts Bronte into the air, and foils his attempt to read her thoughts. His father, Alden, presents her to three members of the elf Council, who consider Sophie for admission to their elite academy, Foxfire. The next day, Fitz takes her to Everglen, his family estate. Humans once belonged to their federation, but they tried to conquer all of it and were banned.īack home, Sophie realizes that her family isn’t related to her. Fitz then takes her to Lumenaria, another lost city that’s the meeting place for goblins, gnomes, dwarves, and other intelligent beings.

To prove it, he takes Sophie’s hand, aims a crystal-tipped wand at a beam of sunlight, and travels with her on the light beam across the world to a hidden city, Eternalia, lush and beautiful with jewel-like buildings, one of the lost cities of human myth. He and other elves have been searching for her for years. Overwhelmed to meet someone like her, Sophie runs, but he follows and tells her she’s not a human but an elf, a much superior being. On a trip with her class to a natural history museum in San Diego, she meets Fitz, a tall, handsome 15-year-old boy with glittery-blue eyes who also has telepathic powers. Sophie Foster is a brilliant 12-year-old high-school senior who can hear other people’s thoughts. The ebook version of the 2012 edition forms the basis for this study guide. Messenger also writes the young-adult series Sky Fall.

Since the book’s publication, Messenger has released several sequels, and the series reached the New York Times bestseller list.

Keeper of the lost cities