Tears started to flow from her eyes as these thoughts swam in her mind.
Aria closed her eyes and let the image of her family fill her mind. An image she had lost some time before when she had forgotten her family's faces, but which suddenly came back to her when she saw herself dressed like a noble lady in the mirror a few nights before.
Aria relaxed her body and stopped using wind bending. Her mind was filled with memories of her family in the fire kingdom as she fell freely through the air, hair and dress flapping and tears flowing in the wind.
Aria gradually slowed down and finally stopped in mid-air. She opened her eyes and was very surprised to find herself floating just above a huge castle. Aria's mind froze as she was struck by the uncanny resemblance.
The next second Aria let out a sigh as she gradually began to notice the differences.
The castle looked exactly like her home back in the fire kingdom, but the gardens and the woods around it were different.
It suddenly struck her. Of course!! This was the castle of the queen of the water kingdom! Aria wasn't very surprised with the resemblance. She had seen it in the academy of the two kingdoms.
"But why do the main buildings of both the kingdoms look so similar? Were they made by the same person?" Aria wondered as she flew in the direction of the Scott mansion.
Having no desire to return to the birthday party, and being in no state to do so, with all her hair and the dried tears on her face, Aria decided to directly head towards her room.
She climbed in through the window and took off her heels.
Aria really wanted to go back to the academy, she had realised she didn't belong with these nobility, but she couldn't just disappear like that.
She had to at least apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Scott for all the commotion she had caused before she left. Thinking this Aria tied her tangled up hair in a messy bun and went to have a bath.
Unknown to Aria, she had caused more commotion than she thought.
Hayden had lashed out crying, screaming and kicking as soon as Aria disappeared from view.
His mother had thought Aria had fed him something and took him to a room to rest, where he had blamed Mrs. Carl and told her the whole story after calming down.
Mrs. Carl had instantly realised her mistake and wanted to find Aria as soon as possible. Partly to apologise and partly because Hayden wouldn't stop crying and saying his fairy had disappeared.
So everyone in the castle tried to find Aria, but none of them could, because of course, Aria was so high up in the air by now that she would only be visible with a telescope.
So everyone was beginning to get worried when Aria couldn't be found. Even Mrs. Carl realised her mistake and set out to find Aria herself, taking little Hayden in her arms.
While all this was happening, Helen quietly walked into the library and closed the door.
She turned around when she heard some movement and said, "Jacob? Is that you?"
Jacob appeared from behind a huge shelf and replied, "Yeah."