Fire Scarred *Un-Edited Version*

Chapter Twenty-Five

 "Don't you care about him at all?" she asked. Her voice was shrill and she'd begun crying.

"Yeah, I do. That's exactly why I can't go after him." So maybe now Sorrel may not want him.

"I-i don't understand."

"I'm sorry," I said while climbing out of the bed. I stepped into a small walk in closest and changed out of my pajamas. When my feet were covered in Converse and my hair'd been successfully thrown into a mess of a bun, I stormed out of the room.

"Wait! Where are you going?" she called after me.

"I don't have much time," I hollered back over my shoulder.

"To do what? We need to find Leo!"

"I need to find Ciris!"

"Cora!"

By now we had reached the foyer, and I was rapidly approaching the door. My heart was pounding, and it was now or never. While the anger over my fight with Leo was still fresh in me, and with the advantage of our distance, I couldn't stop. It had to be now. I had to find Ciris now before Leo came back, if he would, and while I still had the gumption.

The door flung open before me, and we heard the skidding of feet down the hall behind us. My friends appeared and stalked towards me, but I let their questions go. I ran down the street and felt the herd of people pounding along behind me. It's like one of those moments when suddenly a group of people start laughing and everyone just has to join in. They didn't know why they were following me, but it must've felt like the right thing to do. Obviously, or else they wouldn't've been doing it.

My feet didn't stop moving until I slid in front of the Zephri tapestry. The heart pounding in my chest made the sound of a world war in my skull. It was deafening and great. It drowned out the questions and words. I let myself fall into the fabric transportation way, the air gliding me away. At once the noises disappeared and my mind began to clear.

The wind whipped me into its embrace and in only a matter of seconds I appeared next to Leo's house. Remy could be heard whistling away inside, and Martin was beating a mat with a broom. I walked up their front path and nodded to Martin a hello.

"Hi… Can I talk to you and Remy?"

He nodded, abandoned the rug and broom on the porch, and spread his arms to gesture inside. "Sure thing. What's up?"

I followed the man into his home and took the seat he offered me at his table. He and his son took his seat across from me, and looked expectantly at me.

"We have some news," Remy mentioned, "about Ciris."

"That's actually what I wanted to talk about. What did you find out?"

"We think we've located Ciris. Or we know his general location."

"Where's that?"

"Copeland Pass. There's supposedly this cave hidden somewhere in there, and that's where he is."

I thought back to the forest me and my traveling companions had to pass through to get to Granny's Inn. "But… it's massive!"

"Yeah, we know," Remy said with a slight exhaustion to his voice. He shook his head with defeat.

We sat in thoughtful silence for a long moment. Finally, Martin said, "Maybe you could get the other creatures in the forest to help you?"

"Dad, do you really think they'd help her? They usually tend to keep to themselves. They don't like us outsiders."

"It's worth a try."

"This is gonna take forever."

"If it takes forever, it takes forever. This might just speed up the process a little."