Taken

Chapter 14 (Part 1)

I made my way into the kitchen which had mouthwatering scents wafting from it just as Silas finished eating breakfast, rising to place his plate in the sink. Hilda sat across from the seat scorched by flames that he had emptied with a feast spread on the table before her.

"I'll prepare Garvin," Silas said, referring to the dark horse with a horn whose favor I had slowly been attempting to win through fruit. It wasn't very effective. He still took every chance to intimidate me that he saw. "We leave at dawn. Any later and we'll arrive in Lissicus well into the night. I would like to get more than a few hours of sleep before we meet Nolik. I want to be well rested in case it goes south."

"It won't. Esta would have warned me if the possibility existed," Hilda remarked before taking another bite of her meal.

"Better to be safe."

I made my way towards the cupboard with the plates and grabbed one before making my way to the table where the tantalizing scents of the dishes beckoned me. The spread was more extravagant than most of the meals she, or Silas when he occasionally took over, had fed me since I got here. A farewell meal. She must have been up most of the night.

"Which is why I splurged for this," Hilda said as she finished chewing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. "Well, the glamour that I had placed on it. It's not traceable." She held out the device that looked identical to the ones they already possessed.

They had considered getting me one but decided against it. They were far more trackable than the ones on earth, their power connecting to nature that let anyone powerful enough trace its every use. All they had to do was venture out here to look at recent connection links that weren't visible to the naked eye to discover an additional one. Cedric's parting remarks to Silas had them both believing they had already been here and may return in the near future. It was best to leave as little of a trace as possible.

"Stop getting yourself mixed with the Hidden. For their sake and ours. Using glamours is as risky as hiding humans." Despite his words of warning, he still stepped forward to grab it from her outstretched hand.

"Only if we're caught," Hilda brushed off his concerns.

I couldn't help but feel my stomach fluttering nervously as I reached for the ring on my finger.  How easy was it to spot one? Not only did it have me seeing pointed ears in the mirror, an illusion that a swipe of my finger over the curved shell shattered, but it also had Penelope forgetting for the most part that she had already met me each time we crossed paths when she stopped. It was a wonder how Hilda thought I could make friends with the glamour constantly making it a struggle to place where someone knew me from. Not that Penelope would be interested with her thinly veiled annoyance at discovering my existence each time.

The action drew Silas's gaze to my hands that rested on the table along with my elbows. His eyes narrowed on the ring I was fiddling with before snapping to my ears.

"Of course," he scoffed, dropping his head as he shook it. Turning, he made his way to the door and grabbed his coat. "At least this one was justified," he commented on his way out.

"He only just noticed?" I asked Hilda with a raised brow.

"He saw your ears before you put on the ring. It's easier for him to see through the glamour than it is to see it.

Just like it was easy for them to remember me because they had already met me prior to it. And were high fae. Otherwise, Penelope already meeting me before it would have put us in a precarious position. Now that I wore the ring, I was safe as long as I avoided High Fae with royal bloodlines that were found in the heart of the court's main cities.