Page 73 of Silent Secrets

The hope drains from Hunter’s eyes as his head falls forward. “Thanks for the thought. I wish we could, but if we take them and then he finds them? It’ll be worse for them and then he’ll figure out a way to hurt us. It’s not worth it.”

“I have an idea… but you’re not going to like it.”

Our eyes fall on Caiden, who is staring out the window with pain written all over his face. “I have an aunt who is planning to leave Sorlphi. She’s planning on taking my cousins and heading to another realm.”

“What aunt?” Hunter frowns.

“My mom’s sister. The one whose husband died a few months ago?”

I snap my fingers. “I remember that. Didn’t you say she and the kids were having a hard time?”

He nods. “She says that she sees him everywhere in Haust. She tried moving to Natsu to get away from the memories, but it hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, she seems worse. She’s been trying to get approval to travel to another realm, but with the entire royal family being murdered, it’s been hard.”

“And what makes you think it’ll be easier now?”

Hunter shakes his head and I can see him trying to think of all the reasons that this won’t work. I can already tell that he thinks it’s going to fail and how it could go wrong.

“Hunter,” I say quietly, waiting until he turns to look at me before continuing, “If we ask Grace, she’ll approve the realm travel. She has the authority. We can do this. We can save them.”

I see the tears in Hunter’s eyes before he squeezes them shut.

“I can’t know where they’re going. Until I’m sure they’ll be safe from him, none of us can.”

Caiden runs a hand down his face. “Are you sure? If we don’t know which realm they’re heading to, we won’t be able to find them until they come back—if they can come back. You know, traveling from the other realms isn’t always as easy as it is from Sorlphi. And even if we were to travel to each and every realm, we might never be able to find them.”

“I know. I understand that there’s a chance that I’ll never see either of them again if we do this. But then my father wouldn’t have anything to hold over me and they’d be safe. We have to do this and we have to do this now.”

“We’ll save them, Hunter,” Kai’s voice is still quiet and I can see the same ghosts in his eyes that are in Hunter’s right now. I wish I could wipe away their pain, but while there isn’t anything I can do to fix them—we can save Caleb and Haven.

“Let’s do this.”

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