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Chapter 3 - Sophie

"Are you okay?" Biana asked her softly.

Sophie started to nod but then shook her head instead. She collapsed into Biana's arms, shuddering on her shoulder. Biana stroked her hair softly, trying to calm her down.

A few minutes later she heard Ro shout triumphantly.

"Aha! I fixed it!"

Sophie wiped her eyes, "Fixed what?"

Ro rolled her eyes. "Hunkyhair's letter, what else do you think?"

She sat up a little straighter. "Really?"

"Yep! There's a few small pieces missing here and there, and besides the fact that it's all wet and covered in tape, it's fixed. I wanted to do it by myself but someone insisted on helping."

"Hey!" A deep accented voice said, "you wouldn't have even found all the pieces without me."

Sophie followed the sound and saw the other Vacker sibling sitting on the floor next to Ro and the soggy note.

"Fitz?" she asked. She hadn't seen him in ages. Whenever Sophie had tried to talk to him he had either ignored her or barely acknowledged her, and she was too caught up in her own worries to figure out why.

"Hey, Sophie," Fitz said with a weak smile. "I... uh... fixed Keefe's note."

"More like I did." Ro interrupted. "He just sat by half the time trying to be productive but ended up just staring at the words."

"Did you read it?" Sophie had to ask, silently hoping he didn't.

Fitz glanced around the room nervously, "I might have caught a few sentences, but that's all."

"Can I see my letter?"

Ro handed her a still slightly dripping, ripped but back together piece of paper covered in Keefe's beautiful handwriting.

Sophie hugged it against her chest, not caring who was watching and silently scolded herself for making such a big deal out of something as unimportant as this.

Sophie spread out the paper on her mattress and pressed it down to flatten out the creases, then glanced up at Biana. "When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago. We wanted to check in on you again to see how you were doing, and..."

Biana didn't have to finish for Sophie to know what she was going to say.

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, and everyone seemed unsure of what to do next.

"Well, since everything is fixed now, Blondie needs to start getting ready again so we can go searching," Ro stated.

Biana looked at Sophie. "You're going to go looking for Keefe?"

Sophie shrugged. "Ro wants to. But even if we did I have no idea where we would start."

"Have you reached out to him telepathically yet?"

Sophie straightened. Had she?

Ro glared at her. "You did try that, right?"

Sophie was at a loss for words. "I..."

The ogre princess let out a sigh so loudly it had to have hurt her throat. "And this is why you need me. For someone with lots of elf-y abilities, you think you'd be a little smarter."

Sophie just stared. How had she not done that before? The thought had crossed her mind a few times, but she was always too tired or upset to put it into action.