I pedaled hard. I was running way early, but it didn’t matter. All the better to keep an eye on Cray, make sure he didn’t chicken out. Starren had quite a hold over him. The portal let me through on my own again.

This morning I had left the house before Dan or Nina had noticed I was awake, slipping out the door, invisible to human eyes. We hadn’t fought the night before. They were past being mad. Now all Nina showed me was the pain that I wouldn’t trust her with where I was sneaking off to. But I couldn’t. The tiny part of me that kept whispering I should tell them what was going on was easily squashed. What if they didn’t believe me? Or worse, what if they did, and thought I was a freak? Better to keep things the way they were.

Cumat looked up from where he stood part way down the hall, mop in hand. “Miss Trisha. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I said, even though it wasn’t. I started down the hall toward Starren’s door.

“No use,” Cumat said, stopping me in my tracks. “They left over an hour ago. Miss Starren gets impatient and they had no way of contacting you.”

My vision rolled, making me dizzy. They’d left without me? No! What about Jaden’s family? What about our deal? This was not good. So not good. I took a deep breath. Cumat didn’t need to see how upset this was getting me. “Can I follow them through the portal? I’ll just find them when I get there.”

Cumat dipped his mop into a gold bucket, pulled it out infuriatingly slow and went back at the floor. “I’m afraid not. Miss Starren sets those portals, without her here, who knows where you might end up. Somewhere horrible no doubt.”

I bumped my forehead with the knuckles of my closed fist. Think. Think. Come on, I had to get there somehow. “What are the chances the portal will take me to Chicago?”

Cumat looked up, irritation plain on his face. “Weren’t you listening? Zero. The portal must be set.”

“And you don’t know how to do that?”

He went back to his work. “No.”

Great. Now what? A plane would be the quickest way, but that would take at least six hours, if I could even figure out how to get on one. But they were behind here in time. I glanced at my watch. Five a.m. there. And Jaime had dialysis. This could work. I just had to convince Dan and Nina to get me on a plane. They’d probably be glad to get rid of me by now, after everything I’d put them through recently. Yeah, keep telling myself that. I tore out of the hallway, barely feeling the portal on my way back outside. I grabbed my bike and started running, jumping on at full speed.

I thought I’d been moving fast on the way to the Hall, but that was nothing compared to the speed I was flying along at now. Dodging through early morning traffic, I made it home a good ten minutes faster than it had taken me to get to the Hall. I tore up the drive and dropped my bike, then crashed through the front door and headed for the kitchen.

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“Trisha, is that you?” Dan’s voice, from the kitchen. “Is everything okay? I didn’t hear her leave, did you?” The last part was meant just for Nina, but I overheard.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen. They were both there, doing dishes together. Dan finished rinsing a plate from breakfast and sat it on the rack. I took a breath, then took the plunge. “Dan, this is going to sound crazy, but I need a ride to Chicago. Right now.”

Dan raised an eyebrow and grabbed a dish towel. “Chicago? What’s in Chicago?”

“Family,” I said, not really lying. They were the only other fae I knew, so other than Dan and Nina, they were the closest thing to family I had.

Dan paused and looked at Nina. “We thought you didn’t have any family. That you were left at the children’s home without any information as to who you belonged to.”

“I was. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember anything. I just got in contact with some of them and I need to go.”

“What family do you have there? Does this have something to do with why you keep disappearing?” Dan went back to drying dishes. He was so calm. Infuriatingly calm.

“Ummm,” too specific, how did I get around this one? “A little distant, but still family. They’re expecting me.”

“You didn’t answer my other question,” Dan said, reaching for another dish. “Is this why you’ve been disappearing?”

Well that was an easy answer. “Yes. They want me to come visit.”

“Then why didn’t they send you a ticket?” Nina asked.

“I didn’t know if you’d let me go.” And planes weren’t their normal mode of travel, but I didn’t need to mention that. “And, honestly, they don’t have a lot of cash to spare.” I could probably slip onto a plane invisible, but I didn’t have the time to spare getting to the airport and trying to figure out flights and stuff. And also, this way Dan and Nina knew where I was for the day, and maybe they wouldn’t kick me out. Hopefully.

“I’m not sure I’m going to like this family of yours, if they are getting you to do stupid things like skip school,” Dan said.

“But at least now we know why she was gone,” Nina whispered. Sometimes I loved being fae. Super hearing was definitely a perk. “It didn’t have anything to do with us.”

Wait, they thought I was disappearing because I didn’t want to be around them? It was totally the opposite. Sigh. I should have figured that one out a week ago.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I just need to do this. For closure. I’ll pay you back for the ticket.”

A look that I didn’t understand passed between Dan and Nina. Was that a good look, or a bad look? “Can you give us a couple minutes?” Dan asked.

That had to be a good sign. They hadn’t outright said no. “Sure.” I headed for the stairs. Time to work on Plan B in case they said no. Of course to work on Plan B, there had to be a Plan B. I sat on the bottom step and tried to listen to the conversation going on in the kitchen.

No luck, mostly mumbling. And they never left the water running that long, Nina had to being trying to cover up their voices. I leaned forward on the step, like that could help me hear better. No such luck. Their tones intensified, then lowered again. How long had this talk taken already? Plenty long enough. My knee jiggled and I pushed down on it with my hands, trying to channel the nervous energy. This had to work. I couldn’t even begin to come up with a Plan B. The invisible thing, but that was a super longshot.

Whatever was going on down there was serious. This was taking forever. I knew it was kind of a big decision, at first glance. But not really, I’d pay them back for the ticket. If I survived. The wait for their answer just might kill me.