A week had passed since my meeting with the faction leaders, and I still hadn't managed to speak with Miarielle alone.
That alone irritated me more than I liked to admit.
Not because I enjoyed speaking with her, she had the unsettling habit of answering questions with half-truths and dry looks, but because I knew she had told the others something important.
Something important enough that they had agreed to help me return to human territory before I ever revealed the two greatest bargaining pieces I possessed.
My identity.
My SSS potential.
And yet every time I tried to find her, she was elsewhere, meeting scouts, checking supplies, speaking with the other leaders, or simply vanishing into the hidden base as if the forest itself had decided to keep her from me.
Lyssairia had been no help.
When I asked her where Miarielle was, she only replied, "Busy."
When I asked what exactly her mother had said in that meeting, she replied, "None of your business."
