||𝒯𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝒜𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃|| (𝒹𝒾𝓈𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓊𝑒𝒹)

Chapter One

     "HE LEFT?" Sophie screamed at the letter he had written as she ran down the stairs of the 3rd floor, paper in hand. "THIS STUPID PAPER IS LYING!!! He wouldn't leave here, he has a home, a family, friends-"

     "Sophie, he left for a reason." Grady said calmly, looking at her with a sad expression. "I know you care for him very much, believe me, he does too. He told me before he left that he was going to miss you so much, and-"

     "I miss him alrea-wait, did you just say 'before he left'?" Sophie froze in realization.

     "Did I? I don't remember that..." Grady's face seemed to pale.

     "You knew?" She whispered, "you knew and you didn't try to stop him?"

     "Look-"

     Sophie's eyes blurred from tears and her ears tuned out the rest of what he was saying. She was ready to run away, to see Keefe and bring him back from wherever he was. The only problem was, she didn't know where he was. But as she looked over at Grady, a lightbulb turned on.

     Sophie rubbed her tears away, moving to sit where Grady was on a gray couch. She put her head on his shoulder, already knowing her plan would work as he started to stroke her hair softly, "I realize that the letter said not to go see him, and I won't, but I need to know if-if he'll be alright where he's staying. I mean, what if people bother him-"

     "Sophie, I'm sure the humans will see no point in bothering Keefe, I'm sure he'll be alright. He can hide himself in an Obscurer if he'd like, then no one will even know he's there. Besides, he doesn't understand French, and the humans don't understand the Enlightened Language, I doubt there will be much communication. Besides, I've been to Paris, people there generally aren't very talkative anyway." (A/N Obviously Keefe wouldn't have told Grady all of this, and Grady would have been smart enough to hide it, but we're rolling with it because I don't know what elsewhere to write)

     Sophie smiled to herself. "It's nice knowing he'll have that to stay hidden if he needs to. I feel better about it now, but I think I'm just going to go up to my room for a while and rest."

     "Okay, I'll have dinner up in a few hours if you don't feel like coming down."

     Sophie hugged him gratefully, glad he didn't realize his slip up this time. She knew it would only be a matter of time though, so she rushed up to her room to pack. Sophie was going to Paris.

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Sophie rushed to her closet, grabbed her human clothes, and put them on as quickly as possible. But she had to be quiet, she did tell Grady she would be resting, and he would think suspiciously of her if he heard loud noises coming from a girl who's supposed to be in her room resting.

Sophie was all packed, closing the zipper to her small purple backpack as she put Ella in. Sophie didn't know what would happen when she set foot in The Forbidden Cities, but she felt that it would be helpful to have a little stuffed animal by her side, as helpful as a plush, blue elephant in a Hawaiian shirt could be.

Sophie was about to leave, reaching for her pocket, but then realized: how am I going to get to the Forbidden Cities?

Sophie froze. She checked the pockets of her jeans; not there. She checked her bag; not there. She dug all around her room; not. there. So Sophie crept down the stairs as quickly as possible, seeing Grady's pathfinder lying on the kitchen counter. She made a plan in her head while she crouched behind a chair:

Step One: Retrieve item from enemy base.
Step Two: Stealthily sneak back up to your base.
Step Three: Do a victory dance.
•••Warning: avoid enemy fire. If get caught, remember the procedure: Say sorry, cry, and if all else fails: BEG.•••

Sophie laughed at herself. She sounded like a military leader telling her squadron the steps of their mission. She did follow her little plan though, and she managed to get the pathfinder away. Sophie, knowing herself well, ended up doing Step Three. Then, she took the pathfinder out of her pocket, and, raising it up to the light as she turned the facet to the cobalt blue color she knew so well, took one last look at her room before whisking herself away.

     Sophie looked around at where she landed, surprised to see she was looking at one of France's proudest monuments: the Eiffel Tower. Sophie gasped. It was even more beautiful in real life than in her old human textbooks! It was stunning, but Sophie had to get back on track. Find Keefe, then sightsee, she thought to herself.

     Sophie's stomach growled in protest. "Well, I guess I'll head over to the donut shop, and then find Keefe."

     She walked a block to the donut shop, entering the doors with a sigh of satisfaction. It smelled so good! She took it all in, and walked up to one of the workers, asking in French for a chocolate donut with an ice coffee.

     Soon her order came, and she sat down on a smooth, plush chair drawn in to a wooden circular table. Sophie was minding her own business, drinking her coffee, when the bell rang, signaling that someone had walked in. She continued drinking her coffee, but stopped abruptly when she heard the person that just walked in speak their order. She knew that voice.

The voice was Keefe Sencens'.

Hope you guys liked this! Sorry for the (mildly) short chapter, my first chapters are somehow never the long ones, though they seem to be the most interesting. Thank you for reading!

Word count: 953

~*~MissGlitterbutt~*~