"He just... ran away?"
I nodded.
"Why would he do that?" Circe asked.
Noa shook their head, "I don't know but that's fishy. He wouldn't ignore you unless something was up."
"Yeah."
"Well... well we need to go there right away! We need to come up with a plan and figure out who's going."
We were all silent.
"You might not like this idea, Eira, but I think it would be best if you didn't go to Arion's house."
"What? Why?" I asked, looking at Noa.
"That kid may have been an asshole but he's right," they were referring to the stuck-up human who told me Arion's address in New York, "if they see someone light like you near their house they won't be too happy."
"How are you going to get there, then?"
"You'll take one of us and wait somewhere while the one person goes to talk to and hopefully get Arion. Then they'll find you and come back here."
"That's too risky..."
"I agree with Finn. None of us is going to go there alone."
"Then you can take two of us. Arion can travel through the darkness and meet us back here if you can't take three people through the light with you."
I sighed, "I don't like that plan. How will I be able to sit nearby and wait and worry?"
**
Eventually, we made an agreement.
I looked at myself in the mirror, "It looks better on you, Noa."
They laughed, "Yeah cause you look better in light stuff. But the point of this is to make you look the opposite of light, or at least not 'light energy manipulator' light."
I rolled my eyes but smiled and fixed the beanie on my head, "What if the hat falls off?"
"It won't, it's pretty good at staying in place. Even so, Circe put bobby pins connecting your hair and the hat so there's a backup plan."
I nodded, "Ok. Where did Circe go?"
Noa smiled, "She, being the girly girl she is, went back to her room to fix her makeup."
We laughed a little.
So the plan was: I was taking Circe to New York and we were both going to find Arion and talk to him and hopefully bring him back with us. Noa was letting me borrow some of their clothes so I didn't look as light. We stuffed my hair into a black beanie, I was wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, and grey sneakers. Very different from how I normally dressed but that was the point. We were going to walk around first, maybe we'd be able to find him walking around again and catch him by surprise before he could run away. If we couldn't find him then we'd go to his house. We were going to be confident and tell whoever answered the door that we were there to work on a project with Arion. Unless Arion opened the door then we needed to somehow convince him to talk to us somewhere else.
There was a lot of room for something to happen and for us to mess up. But we were hoping we could do it as smoothly as possible.
"Okay, I'm ready!" Circe said brightly as she walked back into Noa's room.
"Ok. It's time to go then."
We walked outside.
"Remember, if anything happens one of you try to send us a message. We'll tell Cassiopea or Cassia and someone will go help you."
We nodded, "We know. It'll be okay. We'll find him and bring him back safe and sound."
Noa nodded and then gave both of us a hug, "Good luck. Bring the dork back fast."
Circe giggled.
I grabbed Circe's hand, "Okay, this is gonna feel weird. Kinda like your mind isn't in your body, but it'll only last a few seconds. Ready?"
She nodded, "Yup!"
We both took a step forward and then traveled through the light and we landed near the bench I was at the other day in New York.
"Woah," she said, trying to regain her balance.
I laughed, steadying her, "Yeah it's weird the first few times. I'm gonna put his address in my phone then we'll look around for him."
She nodded, leaning against the bench, still a little dizzy.
**
"It's been an hour and we haven't seen even a flash of him. I think we should go to his house now."
I nodded, "Yeah, we should. So you remember the plan?"
"Yup. We're his classmates and we need to work on a project for school. We act as polite as humanly possible, even if we're scared we need to seem calm, and no mentioning that we're magical creatures and especially that we're from Cassiopea's."
"Perfect. Although I think I may have a bit of trouble not seeming nervous."
Circe smiled at me, "Don't worry! Nothing bad is gonna happen."
I nodded, "Okay, well GPS is telling me we gotta go this way..."
After a few minutes of walking, we easily found where the Griffin house was.
It was strange. It looked like an apartment building but it was a really fancy house. It kind of had the feel of Gru's house in Despicable Me. It was darker than the rest of the buildings and unlike the rest of New York, no one was stopped near that house to talk or look something up. There were barely even any people walking over here. How did I not notice that place before?
"Well... are you ready?"
I took a deep breath, "Yeah. If we manage to be able to go inside, we can't get split up. I'll have a panic attack."
She giggled, "You're overthinking. Come on, we're just visiting our friend at his house. Let's go."
I nodded and then we walked up to the front door. I rang the doorbell.
As we were waiting for someone to answer, I was looking around and I saw that the few people that were walking near here looked at us like we were crazy. That didn't really help my nerves but it did make me realize that I was being too paranoid. They may have done some bad things but they were just a family behind those doors. We were just visiting our friend because we were concerned about him.
A very beautiful woman opened the door. She had the same pitch-black hair and bright blue eyes as Arion, and she reminded me of Morticia Addams.
She looked at us for a moment, "Yes?"
I put a polite smile on my face, "Hello, we're classmates of Arion. Um, we're here to work on a project for school."
"Project? Arion hasn't mentioned a project. Nor has he mentioned two teenage girls coming to our home."
Circe smiled, "We just got the project assigned today, we wanted to get a head start on it."
She looked at us for a little bit again, "One moment."
She closed the door and both of us let out a breath.
"She was so beautiful. She must be Arion's mother."
I nodded in agreement, "They have the same hair and eyes."
My eyes widened, "Wait. What if she asks Arion if he was expecting people over?"
Circe bit her lip nervously, "Um... maybe he'll play along just to see who it is?"
The door opened before I could respond, "Come in."
We walked inside and immediately were in awe of the house. It was dark, yes, but very fancy and beautiful. The fact that there was virtually no light in the house made me slightly nervous. I won't be able to get us out if something happened. I supposed I could get a window open maybe.
"The second floor, second room on the left. That is Arion's room."
I smiled, "Thank you, ma'am."
She nodded and then I felt her eyes on our backs as we walked to the stairs. It wasn't until we turned the corner that I finally felt less anxious.
We got to the room and saw the light on from under the door.
We knocked. After a seconds hesitation we heard him walk over to the door and the light turned off. Then he opened the door.
His eyes widened as he saw us, "W-what-"
I put my finger to my lips as Circe said, "We're here to work on the project."