I still didn't really know how fae abilities worked. “So can you feel humans too?” I asked Cray.

“Yes,” Cray answered. “If I know what I’m looking for. It’s a little more work. There are a lot more of them around.”

“So you aren’t just following the feeling of fae magic in a non-fae world, you can track specific beings?”

Cray pushed his glasses up on his face, his eyes flicking from Starren to me, and back. “Sometimes. But I need to actually know them. I don’t know Jaden, so I can’t just track him like that.”

Great. That pretty much cut out running if things went south. I sat down on the ground and leaned up against a rock, needing a second to recover from the last fifteen minutes.

“Cray and I are going to start trying to sniff Jaden out again. You two stay here and guard the body until the clean-up crew arrives. I stepped into Faerie and had a message sent.” She grabbed Cray and took off before I had a chance to argue. She couldn’t just tell me to stay here. And I wanted to hear more about Faerie, even if I didn’t want to go there.

Had she really just stepped in and out of it while in the cave?

Just about to push to my feet and follow her, Wade’s voice stopped me. “I wouldn’t.”

“What?” I knew what.

“Don’t ruin your chances, Trish. Don’t make her mad.”

Ugh. I’d been pretty open with him back when we were dating, he knew me too well. Especially frustrating now, when I didn’t know if anything he’d told me about himself had been true or not. Obviously his feelings hadn’t been or he wouldn’t have killed me. Or tried to kill me. Whatever, I was getting all mixed up.

Time crawled by, not helped by the fact that I couldn’t check it on my phone. How was I going to explain that one to Nina? That along with the ripped clothing could make for an interesting night.

Wade passed the time by going through the dead troll’s pockets. The pockets were huge. The first thing he discovered was some string the size of a large rope. He tugged and tugged, pulling more and more out until a shiny rock popped out, tied to the end. I sat there, pretending I wasn’t paying attention, but really, how often did a person get to see the contents of a troll’s pockets?

Next came out some more shiny stones like the first. They flashed in the sunlight. Wade must have seen the look on my face.

“From the shores of the Crystal Lake, in Faerie. It’s beautiful there. He must have had a rock in his pocket and this is the sand left over.”

I didn’t answer him verbally, but when he held them out I took them. Unlike most stones or crystals, these were slightly warm. Whether they were that way naturally, that way from Wade’s hand or still held the warmth from the troll, I didn’t know.

“Can I have them?” It took quite a bit of effort to get the words out of my mouth, considering who I was asking, but something about the inner light of these things was mesmerizing.

“No. We aren’t allowed to keep anything from there. Don’t want any humans finding it on us. The cleanup crew will take care of everything.” He took them from me and tossed them on the ground before sticking his arm back into the pocket. So gross, who knew what things that monster had put in there.

While Wade stuck his head into the opening almost the size of a tent, I scooted over and scooped up a couple of the stones. They were in my pocket in a flash. Good thing I’d had a lot of practice pilfering stuff. If these were just the leftovers from a rock the troll had thought was shiny, I could only guess at how big it had been.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Wade threw more random junk out of the pockets, but I stopped paying attention. The stones cooled as I played with them in my pocket. Strange.

A sound in the woods made me flinch. I jumped up and turned that way, lifting my wooden sword. I saw Wade out of the corner of my eye pull his not so fake sword and face that direction, subtly shifting his weight so his body moved between me and the woods. Nice thought, but that didn’t even begin to erase the last week. He had a lot to make up for.

Cumat’s head popped out of the tree line. “Is this the correct place?” I knew the exact moment he noticed the troll. His nose wrinkled and he sniffed loudly. “Obviously it is. What are we supposed to do with that?” He sighed. “Watch it for another moment. I’m going to have to ask for more help.” He disappeared back into the trees. I could hear him talking to himself until the sound of cracking branches faded away. Poor guy, with his shiny shoes and pressed pants, he was definitely out of his element.

I kicked at a tuft of grass and pretended to ignore Wade.

When he acted all sweet, the way he only was to me, it reminded me of before. A couple times today he’d tried to take care of me. It had to be because I was part of the team. Had to be. Or he had some other reason, something worse. Whether it was that or not, I was going to tell myself it was. No room for that mess right now, I had plenty of others to deal with.

It took ten minutes for Cumat to show up again. This time he had a crew. My jaw nearly dropped. More fae in one place than I’d ever seen, not counting all the ones that had stuck their head out to watch me yell at everyone yesterday at headquarters. And all sizes and looks too. One guy might as well be a troll himself, he was so huge. At least he was dressed better, actually like a person except for the crazy colors of his clothes. Two more men followed them out of the woods, no doubt fae also, but nothing stood out about them.

Cumat did not look happy. I had the feeling we were about to get an earful.

“What happened?” Cumat asked Wade. “At least you had the decency to drop it in a forest, not in the middle of a city this time. I’m always having to clean up your messes,” he muttered to himself without waiting for an answer. He walked around the troll, inspecting everything. “He’s big enough that we will need to do a full sweep.” He looked up into the giant’s face, nearly tipping over backward because of the height difference. “Can you drag it to the portal, Jack?”

“Yes,” the giant said, his voice making me feel a little better. At least he didn’t sound like a troll. Didn’t really look like one either, once I got over his size. “Shouldn’t be a problem at all. One time I took care of two trolls bigger than this at the same time, and it was a rush job too.”

“Good, good.” Cumat looked at Wade. “Where is the portal? Starren mentioned it when she called for a clean-up team.”

Wade nodded toward the waterfall. “Behind there.”

“Did you hear that Jack? Get to it so our other friends here can do their job too.”

The giant nodded, reached down and grabbed the troll by its ankles. He leaned back, the muscles cording in his forearms, his face going red. He let out a loud grunt, gave an extra tug and the troll moved, leaving a slight groove in the ground.

“You got this then?” Wade asked.

Cumat turned to look disapprovingly at Wade. “Of course I’ve got this. Don’t you think I know how to do my job?” He turned back to yelling directions to the giant without waiting for an answer.

Wade shrugged, then started for the tree line. “Guess they don’t need us ‘til Cray comes up with something else to track. Might as well get you back.”

“What happens if a hiker comes along and sees that giant?” I asked.

“It would have to be a special human to see any of those guys without them wanting to show themselves. Haven’t you ever used that skill? That’s something all fae share.”

My mind flashed back to Waterton Heights, me sitting under a tree, alone, feeling invisible. “Not intentionally.” But maybe I had been invisible. I was going to have to figure out how to do that, but I sure wasn’t going to let Wade be the one that helped me learn. Now that I was thinking about it, Mom may have said something about it in our lessons. I could probably figure it out by myself. Or ask Cray. He seemed like an okay guy. Being invisible was definitely something that could come in handy, something I needed to learn ASAP. Maybe I’d be able to sneak out of math class.

Wade was walking in the opposite direction I thought we’d come from. Maybe I was wrong; I wasn’t very good in the woods, that was certain. I paused. No, we had come at the waterfall straight on. Wade was taking us to the left of it.

“Where are we going?”

“Back.”

He was so annoying. “I got that part.”

“We have to get to a static portal. The one we came through is gone.”

“So that portal can drop us anywhere, but we have to go to another portal to get back?”

“That’s right,” Wade answered.

“How far is the closest one?”

“Five more miles.”

“Five miles?” I groaned. Hungry had become an understatement. With the healing, swimming and walking, I was burning a ton of calories. Besides, walking was so boring. Especially when it meant I had to spend time with him. We covered some ground in silence. He must not have had anything to say and I didn’t want to be the one to start a conversation.

This was going to be a long five miles.