I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Okay, we’re going in the wrong direction here,” I told the owl girl, who only blinked at me again. “How about this—do you have any girls around my age? They kinda look like me, except one has dark brown hair and the other is kind of a dirty blond.”
“Oh.” She blinked some more. “Sure, I’ll go look.”
This time, the kid didn’t follow her, slowly taking in the room instead. Definitely high.
She popped back in, waving at him. “You. Come!”
He obeyed, leaving me alone in the strange waiting area once more.
I checked my phone again out of habit, then started to pace.
The chances of finding my family dropped drastically by the second.
When the door clicked open, I spun to look and instantly deflated.
Nope.
Oriel had brought out two girls, but that was where the match ended.
I couldn’t tell if they were teens or college students, but one was Black and the other was Asian, and both were so thin that their bones stuck out. I thought Caius had said they fed them... They looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks and had the same apathetic vibe as the others.What had the prince said about some of them having nowhere else to go? Maybe these two had been recently rescued.
“When did you get here?” I asked them, but they only stared at me. I couldn’t tell if they were reserved, exhausted, indifferent, or if they were ignoring me on purpose, like the kids back home often did.
I raised my eyebrows at Oriel. “Why are they so quiet?”
“These two?” She shrugged, misunderstanding. “They’re new.”
No idea what that meant. Maybe they’d gone through something traumatic?
I studied the girls again and sighed.
What could I do, either way? I was as lost as they were.
Right now, I couldn’t think about anything beyond finding my family.
Pursing my lips, I looked past them to the door and had an idea. “Could you maybe...um... try one more time?”
That earned me about a dozen blinks in rapid succession. “I suppose so.” She herded the girls through the door, and this time, I peeked over my shoulder to make sure Caius was still out in the hall before I tiptoed after her.
Reaching for the handle, I pulled the door open softly, only to run face-first into Oriel, who’d been coming back.
She scowled at me suspiciously. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m—” I remembered the toddy just before I lied. “What’reyoudoing? I thought you were going to check again.”
She blocked my path. “It occurred to me that you didn’t specify what I should do differently.”
I tried to peer around her, but it was just a short gray hall that turned a corner. No sounds came from behind her, which was odd. I would’ve thought there’d be a least a bit of conversation back there. “Maybe I can just take a look.”
“Oh, no. You’re not allowed,” she said, sounding more smug than apologetic. “You heard His Highness. Only members of the court.”
Since the toddy was only a dozen or so feet away on the other side of the wall, I didn’t dare risk lying right now.
“Oh, right, okay.”
I remember how to get here. I’ll come back without the prince—or the toddy—nearby to stop me.
