The sun was setting behind the trees by the time we got to the campsite, casting shadows over all of Bellgrave Village. Lathai's warning had left my thoughts tangled in my mind. There were other creatures out in the forest — in the forest we had lived surrounded by for all of our lives — that were much too dangerous for us to handle. What could be worse than a forest spirit?

The campsite was only small and in the centre of the village, where everyone could keep an eye on us if we tried to do anything. There were straw woven pillows and patchwork blankets set up neatly in a circle to form beds for us to sleep on. Makeshift tents of fabric hung from tree branches to form a canopy above them, giving us a form of shelter.

Kayne left to talk to the Elder, leaving me curious as to what he wanted to say to him alone and letting us settle down for the night.

"Well, now that Kayne has left us," Lorella began, taking a seat on a dug-up tree stump, "I want to know something."

My brows narrowed and a sense of wariness coiled in my chest. Even though there was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind telling me I was overthinking it, I could help but suspect that she was planning something against Kayne.

"What is it?" Auron replied, crossing his legs as he sat on one of the blankets and I laid down on another.

"I want to know," she turned to me, leaning forward in her seat, "what is going on between you and the prince." Despite me imagining a much more heated gruelling for information about him, perhaps something about a weakness of the fae's that she could use to her advantage, that wasn't what we got. Lorella had an expression on her face that was hungry for gossip.

"What do you mean?" I didn't know how to respond to that. Not even I knew what was going on between Kayne and me.

"You know what I mean! It's obvious he's head-over-heels in love with you and I want to know if you feel the same way. I mean, you must feel something for him if you agreed to pretend to become his suitor."

I felt my face heat up. One look at me had Auron spluttering with laughter. "What does it matter now that you're engaged to him?" I turned over, facing away from her. If I could pretend I was tired then, hopefully, I could get out of the conversation.

"Of course it matters." Her voice became softer, sympathetic.

What did I feel for Kayne? I had no clue as to what I felt when I was around him, when I thought of him. We weren't the same as we used to be when we were children, we were definitely more than friends, but nothing had happened between us. The mess we had gotten ourselves in required a conversation to talk it through, a conversation I didn't particularly want to have.

"So you've gone back to not liking me now?" I heard the fabric of Lorella's torn dress rustle as she crossed her arms. "I thought we had moved past the bitterness you'd shown me when we first met."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Auron was trying to find an interest in something else — the blades of grass underneath us, a spider crawling up his arm that he gently put back into the world. Though, I could still tell he was listening. I knew he wanted to know just as badly as Lorella did.

"I'm sorry about that. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time before the ball." Now that I thought back, being unnecessarily mean to Lorella the first time I met her hadn't been a good choice, but I was too wrapped up in finding out Trik's potential motives at the time to think.

If Lorella was to be the future queen of Racaea, I needed to stay on her good side and drop the feelings I had for Kayne. They wouldn't help any upcoming situation that would emerge. Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced the thoughts out of my head. We had more important problems to deal with than romantic feelings.

"I do still like you," I added as I turned back over to face her. "But, we have more dangerous things to be thinking about than my relationship with Kayne."

Auron's eyes met mine — they were the shade of melted chocolate in the light of the fireflies that floated around us. "What's wrong?"

Could I even say it out loud? I eyed a fae woman ushering some children inside to eat. What if someone overheard me? We would be done for.

Lorella sighed. "At this point, what isn't wrong?"

"The enchantment didn't work on me," I murmured into the blanket, hoping it would muffle the sound so fae ears wouldn't pick it up.

The Lady narrowed her brow, not being able to pick up what I said, but panic struck Auron's features. "Seriously?" He ran a hand over his face as he was consumed with worry. "Do you know for sure?"

I shook my head. "No, I haven't dared to test it, but there wasn't any sort of pain." My voice was nothing more than a whisper.

"What? What's happening?" Lorella flicked her gaze between Auron and I, hoping someone would explain to her the predicament that had plagued us now. When the weaponsmith motioned his hand for her to lean close to him and he whispered into her head what had happened, her face fell. "Oh."

Before we could come up with an idea of what to do, Kayne returned with Lathai in tow. "Are your accommodations alright?" He asked, a warm smile turning up the corners of his mouth. "I'm sorry that we can't provide much more, but if there's anything you need we can attempt to get it for you."

"Your hospitality is more than enough, thank you," Lorella spoke up for us. Kayne was too busy assessing the blanket of distress that had settled over us, Auron had turned pale at the notion of what might happen if we were caught, and I was confused as to how this had even occurred.

"We'd like to get some rest if that's okay." Kayne prompted the Elder to leave, eager to find out what we had talked about while he was away.

"Of course," Lathai chuckled. "I can imagine you've had a stressful day." After bidding us farewell, he made his way back to the hut where we had met him and his husband earlier that day.

"How is that even possible?" Lorella asked, a little too loudly for my liking.

Kayne sat beside me, his emerald eyes clouded with puzzlement. "How is what possible?" As I sat up properly and whispered into his ear what I had murmured before, his fingers clenched into fists. "We need to get out of here."

"We can't leave now or we'll seem even more suspicious than we already are," Auron pointed out. "All we need to do is wait until morning and until we have our horses back, then we can leave this village behind us."

I nodded in agreement. "Do you think the horses will be okay?"

"They'll be fine," Lorella assured. "I left them tied to a tree, so hopefully they'll only be hungry or thirsty at most." I didn't dare mention that some creature living on the outskirts of the forest might have gotten to them, we didn't need any more bad luck brought to fruition.

"Could you have been protected by your parents?" Kayne questioned, unable to wrap his mind around it. None of us could.

"I had to have been. There's not really anything else that could have stopped it from going through." My words were spoken slowly to make sure I didn't say something that could expose me.

"You can ask them in the next few days when we get to the Sephirans' home." Auron laid back on the blankets. "For now we should try and get some rest so we can be alert when we leave."

I joined him, my limbs and muscles aching more than they ever had before. It had been a long day, but I knew I wouldn't be able to catch a lint of sleep tonight.

Lorella tucked her torn skirts underneath her and rested beside the weaponsmith. "Why couldn't Mace get the Idaphite himself?" she whined. "It would have saved a lot of stress."

My mind cast back to the meeting I'd had with the miscreant at The Lost and Found. "He mentioned something about them being difficult to track down and that I might have a better chance at finding them."

Kayne took the only blanket left next to me. "There's no point dwelling on it now." I watched as he turned to look at the stars appearing in the darkening sky above us. "We're here and that's what we need to focus on."

He had a good point. Nothing could change the fact that we were in Bellgrave Village — a hidden sanctuary for fae that we had previously thought only two were left in existence — and on the way to meet my parents. It was a little late to question Mace's reasoning now.

"What did Lathai want to talk to you about?" I asked. There wasn't anything that came to mind that the Elder needed to talk to Kayne about alone.

"Nothing much." The prince shook his head as he spoke. "He just wanted to know information about what's currently happening outside of the forest. Things like who the current monarch is and what's happening with this potential war we're on the brink of."

We nodded in response. It wasn't anything too out of the blue. If I had been trapped in Bellgrave Village for all of my life, I too would be curious as to what was happening outside of it.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm absolutely exhausted." Lorella stretched her arms up into the air before tucking one underneath her head. "Good night, everyone."

"Night," the three of us echoed back. A tension hung over us built by the suspense of what we imagined could happen tomorrow. There was only one way to set our churning dread at ease.

Hey guys! I'm sorry this part took so long to get out. If you haven't been following the updates on my profile, I lost inspiration for this part of the story and decided to jump ahead to future chapters instead. Though, now I'm back and I'll be continuing with weekly Saturday updates! Thank you all for your patience <3