I took off, running up the dock, practically bouncing off everything in my way. I had the small advantage of not getting tired, but several other men from the dock joined the first guy, all of them trying to grab me as I ran past.
Dodging another man, I barely caught sight of Cray tripping one of my pursuers. I almost laughed, then thought better of it. Go Cray, I cheered silently. Starren ran ahead of me, waited until I got past and knocked a trashcan into another guy. Only three left. I laid on another burst of speed and a few blocks later started to lose them. And Cray too, but he could catch up.
“Whew, that could have been bad,” I said after the last pursuer had been left behind and the team was gathered around.
Starren sent me a withering look. “Wade,” Starren said. “You’ll be spending the rest of the day teaching her anything a normal fae would know. Like how not to be seen, so we don’t go through all that again.”
“I’m not working with Wade.” Starren had a point, but that didn’t mean I had to learn from Wade. “Cray can teach me.”
Cray had just caught up. His eyes widened at my statement.
“He can’t. He’s going to be busy finding us our next target. It’ll have to be me,” Wade said.
Did I dare ask Starren? Could it be any worse than being forced to spend time with Wade? Maybe if I appealed to that ego Wade had mentioned. “You would be a great teacher, Starren. Could you give me some pointers?”
“No.” She turned and walked away. Okay then, who did that leave?
Cray looked at me for a second, then hurried after Starren, whispering to her. I took off after him, not wanting to be left behind with Wade. Things were awkward between us again, now that I wasn’t quite as sure that I could hate his guts.
“Are we headed for a portal?” I asked.
No one answered. I guess that meant duh. We walked several blocks before heading down an alley. Starren didn’t even look around before stepping into a wall. She didn’t really need to, no one could see her. I checked behind us before jumping through after Cray. Home again. My watch read eleven. Strange with the time change.
“Cumat,” Starren called.
“Yes, ma’am.” The dwarf was already there.
“Take Trisha somewhere and teach her how to be fae, starting with invisibility. Cray, you’re with me. We need to find Jaden.” She headed for her desk, totally dismissing us. Something Cray had said to her must have changed her mind about who was going to teach me.
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Cumat sighed, crooked a finger at me and headed for the hallway without even questioning Starren. I followed him two doors down and into a room similar in size and décor to Starren’s. Were all the rooms the same here? Except for the empty portal room. After closing the door behind me, Cumat walked forward and sat down on the other side of the large desk. He gestured for me to sit across from him.
“What do you already know?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t understand this human body expression, Miss Penchant, does this mean you don’t know anything?”
“Well…” I broke eye contact and looked at the floor. Close enough. “Yes.”
Cumat threw up his hands. “Whoever heard of a fae that didn’t know how to use her powers? Fine then, first we are to start with remaining out of human sight.” Like I hadn’t been in the room when Starren gave the order. “All it takes is concentration.”
That’s what they’d told me back in San Francisco, but it hadn’t worked. “You sure there aren’t any magic words or whatever?”
The poor dwarf sighed and pinched the bridge of his thick nose between his thumb and forefinger. “No. No words. Just thoughts.”
I tried to do what he’d said and concentrated. Really, really concentrated. Harder than I’d ever done in my life. “How’s that? How do I know if it worked?”
“You’ll look strange, even to yourself. Try again, just one part of your body at a time.”
We worked like this forever, me struggling, him giving me tips. I finally went from trying my whole body, to my upper body, to my arm and finally my hand. My eyes closed, I begged my hand to listen so I could leave this stupid place. It was starting to feel like a jail. When I opened my eyes I wasn’t expecting anything to change, but my hand had a strange pearl cast to it. My gaze flew to Cumat. He was blinking hard, like he didn’t believe what he was seeing. He probably wasn’t, after hours of failure.
“That’s it,” his tone was cheerful. “You’ve got it. Keep working on just your hand until it happens naturally, then move on to the rest of your body. Don’t forget to make your hand visible again. You might get some unwanted attention if a human sees you without it.”
I nearly squealed in delight, then remembered where I was and held it in. I was doing it, for real, like a real fae. I’d always known I was fae, but until this moment hadn’t really known what that meant. The regenerating thing happened on its own, I didn’t control it. Here was something tangible about being fae that only happened when I told it to.
“Continue working on just this tonight and you should be able to disappear completely by tomorrow. Fae will still be able to see you, it’s only humans this works on, they are so dull. But they can still hear you for now, so be careful. It should be late enough for you to go home. Tomorrow you can show me your progress. If you’ve done well enough, we will start on something else.”
“What? What something else?”
Cumat looked ruffled at my question. “I will talk to Ms. Starren and see what she prefers.”
I rolled my eyes at his back as he walked toward the door. Didn’t he feel like an idiot catering to her?
No one was around to tell me goodbye when I got into the hallway. Cumat walked me to the brick wall and gave me a small bow before leaving me standing there. I guessed that meant I was dismissed. Time to go home and eat a massive amount of food. All this concentrating had worked up an appetite.