RETURN TO 'GO'

In the end, they had to come clean about their sorcery. There was no other way to explain Selene's return otherwise.

Sophia decided it would be the best to pretend she knew almost nothing about it. She didn't lie about the fact that she felt a strange pull from the fog, and that she entered trying to find what it was, but she did lie when she said that she found Selene unconscious in the heart of the woods.

Selene said that she had no idea what happened. One minute she was asleep and the next she woke up in the woods, Sophia hovering over her.

Henry and Lillian wanted to be sceptical, it was too fanciful an idea to believe, but it was very obviously Selene standing in front of them. Those red eyes could never be faked. They decided it didn't matter much how it happened, or how unbelievable the tale was, they were just glad she was back.

The rest of Astrum, however, was rightly a lot more suspicious of how this came to be. Before long, the entire Ellsworth family were called in for a meeting with the king.

Henry and the king seemed to have some sort of personal relationship, and talked as if they'd been life long friends, but then the king requested for a private audience with just Selene and Sophia, and Henry glared openly. At the king.

Sophia was shocked, but the king didn't seem to pay it any mind, let alone be offended by it. He simply waved Henry and Lillian away, not reacting even as Henry grumbled insults about him under his breath.

The king observed Selene and Sophia carefully for a moment. Sophia was a little nervous, and Selene was very obviously struggling to contain a yawn. Sophia fought the urge to nudge her and remind her that this was the king, and despite the fact that they could easily kill him, he still wasn't someone to underestimate.

"What do you girls know about magic?"

Sophia blinked. "Magic? I... well, I didn't think it was real... until..."

The king hummed. "I see."

He then proceeded to tell them what they already knew, that Astrum was once a land filled with magic, and that there used to be sorcerers everywhere. The king didn't seem to know the story behind how the magic disappeared, but he implied that it had something to do with a very powerful sorcerer. He then revealed that one of the families that produced sorcerers was the Boyd family, their mother's family, and that it must be how Sophia was able to awaken the sorcery in her, as it was part of her blood.

He described it as a miracle, that her grief for her dead sister was so strong it was able to bring out the sorcery in her blood somehow, and manifested it in such a way that it was able to bring her sister back to life.

He spoke as if he was in awe of her, but there was a look in his eyes that Sophia knew meant he would be keeping a close eye on her from now on. He likely thought it would be better to have her on his side, so that he might be able to utilise her sorcery one day.

Sophia pretended that she had no idea how she even performed the sorcery to bring Selene back, let alone being able to perform regular sorcery.

If the king was disappointed, he didn't show it.

The official statement he ended up releasing to the public was that Selene was pronounced technically dead as she had fallen into a coma, and no matter what any of the doctors tried they could not wake her up. However, she woke up miraculously one morning and now she was back with her family.

It was strange, but as it was an official statement that came from the palace, nobody thought to question it. The fact that the fog that covered the woods had left seeming at the same time was not noticed by many people. And the people who did notice didn't have an answer as to how those two things could be linked, so they just shrugged it off and went about their day.

As Selene and Sophia left the throne room to rejoin their parents, Selene stretched her arms over her head and let out a big yawn. Sophia scoffed at the sight, only to stop in her tracks suddenly.

Selene stopped too, wondering why Sophia paused all of a sudden, when she noticed Cassius and Anastasia standing at the end of the hallway.

Cassius was out of breath, as if he'd ran all the way here. Anastasia looked pale, as if she'd just seen a ghost. Selene supposed that was accurate, the last thing she knew was that Selene was dead after all.

"You're alive." Cassius said.

Selene shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint, but yes, I am."

Anastasia looked at Sophia, and smiled at her. Sophia was taken by surprise for a moment, before she remembered that she had technically made up with Anastasia that time she almost died. She sighed in her head as she returned Anastasia's smile.

Anastasia's expression faltered suddenly though, when she seemed to take in Sophia's residual limb. Truthfully, Sophia had been wondering for a while if Anastasia's healing abilities might have given her her right hand back, but the way Anastasia was looking at her with pity and sympathy, it seemed that was impossible even for the Saintess.

"I wasn't- I'm not-" Cassius stuttered, blushing oddly.

"I thought you would've been glad to finally be rid of me, no?"

Selene was winding him up as usual, but this time Cassius looked as if he didn't hate it. In fact, he seemed a bit relieved, like things were finally back to normal.

Sophia resisted the urge to violently roll her eyes. If Cassius started to chase after Selene now that she was back from the dead, Sophia was going to think there was something seriously wrong with his head.

"... I never wanted you dead." Cassius admitted.

Selene grinned. "Is that your way of saying you missed me?"

Cassius began sputtering, speechless in a way only Selene was able to achieve.

At this point Anastasia seemed to remember Selene's presence, and turned her sad eyes in her direction instead. Sophia regarded Anastasia's expression carefully. Looked like there was trouble in paradise. Cassius was likely a nightmare to be around, feeling conflicted about his feelings for Selene, while Anastasia simply had to sit there and deal with it.

These main leads were really similarly pathetic. They were made for each other.