Elara suddenly looked very sheepish as she cleared her throat.
"Well... um... about that..."
She scratched at the wound on her cheek and it subtly healed under an influx of Runes. Then she looked out into the distance.
"Nice weather we're having. No?"
On the inside of the house, Cassarae suddenly came barrelling down the stairs, huffing for breath as though her stats weren't off the charts. She hopped to get a shoe on, gave up, and then tossed it to the side.
Instead, she slammed her foot into a nearby flip flop as she buckled up her pants and slid around a corner and into the kitchen.
Isolde blinked. "Rae, dear? Why are you in such a hurry?"
Cassarae brought a fist to her mouth and coughed.
"Hello, hello. I overslept."
She ran to the kitchen and nearly bumped Isolde out of the way. The latter could only blink in confusion and then smile in amusement.
"What is it, Rae? Do you need something?"
"Uh... um..." Cassarae cleared her throat again. "Right, food, cooking, thing."
"Use your big girl words." Paul called out from the dining room.
"FUCK YOU, DAD!" Cassarae slammed a palm over her lips. "Pretend I didn't say that," she said, smiling a bit sheepishly at Isolde. "Cooking, how do you do that?"
Isolde blinked again and then burst into laughter.
"Geraldene will get a kick out of this."
Cassarae hurried to cover Isolde's mouth. "She can NEVER know about this. I'll never hear the end of it."
Unfortunately, Cassarae's hand didn't do much to stop Isolde's laughter.
"Okay, okay. But Sylas has already eaten today."
Cassarae's shoulders sank and all of a sudden she observed like she was on the verge of tears.
Isolde was speechless. The Cassarae she knew wasn't even remotely this sensitive.
"Okay, okay, okay, no need to cry. He eats more than once in a day, it's okay."
As though she had forgotten this fact, Cassarae lit up.
"You don't need to worry. Cooking for him isn't extremely complicated anyway. His idea of food is quite bland." Isolde laughed. "Don't tell him I said that."
Cassarae beamed. "Yes, right. What do I make?"
"What do you know how to make?"
"Does clicking buttons for a food order count?"
Isolde burst into yet another round of laughter. "Alright, then we'll start with something simple."
"Where are you?" Sylas asked.
Elara looked into the distance again. "Isn't that a nice cloud?"
"Where are you." Sylas asked again.
If she was on Earth, he would have already sensed it. But she wasn't. That meant she had left.
"Details... details..." Elara said with a cough.
She had known that the likelihood was that her brother would figure out what was going on. But the problem was that if she avoided him, he would have figured it out even faster.
It was easier to hide from her parents not because they were stupid, but because she could just straight up play the role of angsty teen and ignore them.
But in the case of her brother, he rarely came home and they had always been close. If she avoided him, then it would be like a red flag to everyone that something was wrong.
What she hadn't expected was for Sylas to come back home so quickly after the first time. Usually, he would be away for much longer, and that would have given her more than enough time to have her fun and then return.
But now...
"Where are you?" Sylas asked again, his voice growing colder.
Elara shrunk.
"I... may or may not be on the Demi-God Plane..."

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