The next morning I got to headquarters early enough to wave goodbye to the other me. She stared at me blankly before waving back, then heading out. Man, I was going to look even more stupid than I actually was until we found Jaden. I’d spent the whole night going over homework that somehow had been waiting for me on Starren’s desk. I didn’t ask. Other Me probably dropped it here. The homework had taken a lot more effort last night since I hadn’t been in class that day, even if I didn’t usually pay much attention.

The rest of the team was waiting for me when I got back to Starren’s office, carefully counting doors so I didn’t walk in on some other fae doing some other fae thing that I probably didn’t want to know about.

“Cray has another hit,” Starren didn’t even take time to say hello. “Let’s head out.”

I followed them to the portal. Starren stayed focused and ignored everything. Wade totally ignored me. What was wrong with him? Polite yesterday and now this today? That guy had issues. At least Cray had the decency to smile at me. I returned it. We stepped through the portal together and instead of ending up in the forest, this time we were spit out in a dark, dirty alley of some city.

A strange sense of déjà vu swept through me, of not knowing where I was, making it hard to breathe for a second. It was okay, this was a city, not a forest. And people flowed by in both directions. I wasn’t alone. But I still needed to know where we’d ended up. “What city is this?” I asked.

“San Francisco,” Cray answered after waiting a second to see if either of the other two would.

San Francisco. See, not that bad. It was a cool city. I glanced at the others to see if they had noticed my near panic attack. Starren hadn’t, or was acting like she hadn’t. Wade was watching me. I sneered in his direction. The whole panic attack thing was his fault. I caught myself getting upset and nipped it in the bud. When he saw my look change his face went impassive.

Jerk. But it didn’t matter. No way he could ruin this for me. I hadn’t been to San Francisco in a while, and it was a neat place. Maybe we could hit Chinatown after checking out Cray’s lead. They had the best restaurants.

Cray closed his eyes for a second. “About a mile from here.”

“Ugh, why do these trips always involve so much walking?” I asked. “Can’t the portal get us any closer?”

“We can’t pop in too close, we don’t know his ability. If he has anything like Cray does, he’ll feel the portal being used and he’ll be gone before we have a chance to lock onto him,” Starren answered.

That made sense, but it didn’t make me feel much better about the walking. “I still don’t get how you don’t know what his ability is.”

“It hadn’t manifested yet when he escaped.”

Starren glanced back at me and kept walking. I jumped forward to keep up with her. “Part of the reason he’s considered so dangerous is that he’s a direct descendant of a previous royal couple and has not had his eighteenth birthday yet, so his powers are undetermined. The fact that he escaped without them is disconcerting, once he has his power we don’t know what he’ll do.”

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“When is his birthday?” I asked, stepping over a trolley line. Glad I noticed it before I fell flat on my face.

“November ninth on a human calendar,” Starren answered.

“You mean we have less than a week to catch him before he becomes a super-villain?” I squeaked.

Starren’s forehead crinkled in the first sign of confusion I’d ever seen from her.

“A bad guy with powers,” Wade interrupted. “She made me watch a lot of superhero movies.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. A man walking toward us gave me a funny look. I gave him a glare and went back to the conversation. “Is there any way to know what powers he might get once he turns eighteen?”

“No accurate way,” Wade said. “We can do some guessing, considering his family line. But if we get it wrong, things won’t go well for us, preparing for one ability and he actually has another.”

“So, being descended from the royal couple, he’s a prince or something?” And we were hunting him down like an animal?

“No, he is a descendant of a previous royal family,” Starren said, like that should make things obvious.

“We aren’t humans. Our leaders aren’t chosen by who’s next in line,” Wade explained. “His grandparents led the fairy court for a hundred years, then were exiled.”

“What did they do?”

Wade shrugged.

Did they not know anything, or was that his way of avoiding the question? “Why are you worried about him having his powers when he isn’t eighteen yet?”

“The birthday we were given for you was false, who is to say his was recorded correctly?” Starren answered.

“And the fact that sometimes the royal line comes into their powers early,” Wade added.

Wait, what? What did that say about me? They didn’t know that I’d had my power a lot longer than they thought.

I’d always healed quicker than other kids, but the first time I specifically remember regenerating was when I was eight and fell skiing. It was one of the few times my mom had let us slow down enough to do something fun. My bone had been sticking out of my leg. Mom must have known about the healing, she pushed it back into place, held me while I screamed for a couple minutes and voilà, all better.

She had made me promise not to tell anyone unless they saw me heal. Under the no lying rule, I couldn’t break that promise even if I’d wanted to. Not long after the skiing incident, she’d dropped me off at a kids’ home, first of many. She’d said she’d be back, but it had never happened, leading me to believe she was dead. Not that I wanted her to be, but she better not be on a beach somewhere. At first I’d thought she’d left me because of the new power thing, but as I got older it didn’t seem to make as much sense. Then I just stopped thinking about it.

“Speaking of families, Trisha, what is yours like?” My head whipped over to face Starren. Her tone was far too casual. And she’d never cared about any life details before. This was weird.

“Your fae family, not the humans,” Wade added, just as casual.

“I don’t know,” I answered, keeping it short. Where had that come from? It wasn’t like they were just trying to find something to talk about. They let it go though, and didn’t keep asking. So weird.

We walked and walked, me deep in thought, the others just naturally quiet. Eventually the air started to smell like salt. “We must be getting close to the bay,” I said.

“It does smell like water,” Starren said. “What do you know about this bay?”

“It’s big. People swim it. I don’t know, what is there to know about some water?”

Starren rolled her eyes. “Is there somewhere nearby that would attract fae?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. What attracts fae?”

“You’re fae,” Cray said.

“Yes, but I’m not sure what you mean. I find Orlando Bloom attractive, does that make him a fae magnet?”

Starren sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Should I ask who that is?” Wade shook his head. “Fine. Fae are attracted to anywhere that has energy, good or bad.” Starren said. “Non-humanoid fae are attracted to the bad energy in this world while we are basically immune.”

I glanced at Wade. He was being awful quiet. “Alcatraz,” I said. If we were looking for bad energy, that had to be the best option.