Friday morning. At this time last week, I was dead in the woods. Time went by so fast. It didn’t help that I’d been out of it for two of those days, but still. I learned more about fae in the last week than in all the years of Mom teaching me.

Not so much book type knowledge, but real life knowledge. Only so much came across when being explained, instead of experienced.

I left for headquarters super early for two reasons. One, Nina was being all emotional. She was the only reason I remembered the whole being dead a week ago thing. Two, I wanted to get there in time to tell Starren to not send Other Me to school. It would be better to take the risk of the school calling Nina about me not showing than it would be for Amy, Rissa, or Addison to try to talk with O-Me at school. That thing didn’t seem too smart and it had no idea what had happened yesterday.

Actually, I didn’t know how that worked, now that I thought about it. Did they make a new Me every time they needed one with all the memories intact, or did they just send the old one out? Either way, it just didn’t seem like a good idea. I’d gotten home last night before Dan and Nina and deleted the message I’d left for them. What they didn’t know wasn’t going to hurt them. Especially Nina, who’d be so excited about me having friends.

I biked to the entrance and stopped just outside. Cumat wasn’t here to greet me like normal, so I pushed my bike tire against the wall in just the right spot. It disappeared. I shoved off with my feet and coasted through the portal on my bike. I slid to a stop, barely through.

Plopping my bike down, I half jogged up the hallway. Today was the day. I could feel it. We were going to find Jaden.

I met Cumat part way up the hall. He was probably on his way to get me. He nodded a good morning but was uncharacteristically quiet, just spinning around and leading me to Starren’s door.

The others were already there. I could hear them fighting with the door still closed. Something about a mom. My mom? I looked over at Cumat, but he didn’t pause. Shoot. If he hadn’t been here I would have stopped and listened.

When Cumat shoved the door open, Starren snapped her mouth closed.

She didn’t say anything, just brushed by me and headed for the portal room.

Wade shrugged when I sent him a look, and we followed.

My mom was coming up an awful lot. Did they know who my mom was? If so, they knew more than I did.

We followed Starren at a good clip. Starren moved into the room, stopped us outside of the portal door and grabbed Cray, who had been waiting inside. “Where in Chicago? We have three portals to choose from.”

Chicago? What happened to California? No one seemed to be in the mood for questions, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Near water. Something to do with wood?”

Starren thought for a moment, then nodded. She grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open, then stepped through without a backward glance.

The rest of us jumped through after her. We arrived in the early morning sometime. What was the time difference anyway? Mom and I had skipped this place on our tour. She had never said why, just didn’t want to go there. I remembered because I had wanted to come to see the aquarium but she had said we couldn’t.

“Lead,” Starren said. Cray looked down at the asphalt and headed out.

I kept about ten percent of my attention on him, the rest I used to check out the city. We were in a nice section, for sure. What section, I had no idea. The shops were amazing, crazy styles that I’d never seen before decorating the windows.

There was a record shop, a shop selling painted china. I stopped at a clock shop and looked inside for a moment. The clocks all ticking in tandem was nearly hypnotizing. I looked at one of the clocks closer, a grandfather clock, wood shining a beautiful dark color.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Nine o’clock here. Ten at home. Mrs. Hemp definitely knew I was a no show for class by now. If she’d called Nina about me acting strange, what was she going to do when I disappeared for the second time in a week? Poor Nina. She was going to think I was lost in the state forest again.

“Hey, guys, wait up,” I called after the others who were leaving me behind. “Can I use one of your cell phones?”

The group looked at me.

After a moment Wade took pity on me. “None of us have cell phones, Trish. We don’t have anyone here to call.”

True. Now I felt stupid. “Well, can we find a pay phone? I need to come up with a reason that makes sense for me not being at school and call Nina.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Starren snapped. What was wrong with her today? She was so uptight.

“I don’t have a choice. Dan will throw a fit.”

“You think I care about what these fake parents do? You think I care about their feelings? You’re crazy,” she practically snarled.

“Hey, take it easy,” I said, blowing a breath out of my nose, fighting the urge to yell back. Obviously something was wrong today, she was being weird. “No, I don’t think that. But he works for the government here. Trust me, you don’t want my face plastered all over everything.” Okay, so the news that I was missing again probably wouldn’t make it this far unless I was gone for at least a week, but it was a good excuse. “You need my help with Jaden. Just wait two minutes.”

She got in my face, her eyes slightly crazy as she leaned in. “You think we can’t do this without you? What did we do until we met you this week? Sit around and wait to be rescued?”

“She’s right, Starren,” Wade said.

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this even with her help,” Cray said nervously, pushing up his glasses. “I would prefer waiting to hear back from the Council, but if you aren’t willing to do that, we don’t stand a chance without Trisha.”

Starren snarled under her breath, her face contorting into something scary.

Wait a second, why were they so worried?

“Tomorrow is his recorded birthday. We have to find him today,” Cray whispered to me.

Oh crap. How had I not thought of that? We did seriously need to find him. But first I needed to call Nina.

I ignored Starren and walked away. There had to be a pay phone around here somewhere. I knew they were getting rare, but we were in a very public area. It took a couple blocks, but I found one next to a bus stop. I reached for the phone and paused, hand in midair. Did I really want to do this? Which was worse, calling Nina and making her and Dan mad, or letting them worry? I stood by the payphone and chewed my lip.

“If you’re going to do it, just do it,” Starren said.

They would be mad either way, maybe less mad if I warned them. I dropped in some loose change and dialed. Good thing I’d thought to bring money, couldn’t depend on these fae for everything. The phone rang and rang. I let out a quiet breath of relief. A message would do.

Then, of course, Nina picked up.

“Hello?”

“Um, hi Nina,” was all I could think to say at first. I’d been going over the message I was going to leave in my head. “I’m going to be home a little late.”

“I’m glad you called. Are you going to a friend’s house?” She laughed. “Where are you calling from? The caller ID says Chicago. Obviously something is weird. Unless you’re traveling?” She laughed again, cracking herself up.

Oh, crap. I hadn’t thought about caller ID. What did I say to that? What a stupid idea. Had I actually called because they needed me to, or because I wanted to hear Nina’s voice? “Gotta go,” it came out rough, the week catching up with me. I wanted to let everything that had happened pour out to her right then and there, but I couldn’t. For one, fae or not, she’d probably kill Wade. “Talk to you later.”

“Wait, Trisha, where are you? What’s going on?” Her voice faded as I reached forward and put the phone on the hook. I wasn’t going to feel bad. Nope, not bad at all. Okay, maybe a little. But I’d done the right thing in calling her. I couldn’t help it if she worried more.

“Ready yet?” Starren impatience radiated from her stiff body.

“Yep, let’s go.”

Cray led us forward. We followed him, twisting up and down the streets for more than an hour. Every once in a while he would pause, close his eyes and focus, then we would be off again. Slowly the city changed from skyscrapers and fancy shops to office buildings, from office buildings to nice homes and from nice homes to not so nice homes. It was a good thing Cumat had taught me how to go invisible. Somewhere along the way we had all done it automatically.

The houses were starting to look a little unkempt as we moved further from the actual city. Weeds were growing in tiny fenced yards, bars showing up on windows.

Eventually we got to a small house, better kept than the ones around it. The flowerbeds out front had some nice plants. I didn’t know what they were, but they were nice. The paint on the house was a faded blue that had probably once been pretty, and the picket fence around the property was missing some boards.

“This is it,” Cray said quietly. “If it’s him, he’s in there.”

If it was him. Hopefully this didn’t turn out like the last couple of times Cray had said that.