As he crested the hill, the orphanage came into view, and he stood staring down at it for a moment, his grip tight on the strap of his knapsack. Now that he was here, he was almost afraid to look – the continuous hope, and then the inevitable let-down, was becoming so much harder to bear. Yet he had to go through with it. The last hour of his life stuck listening to that cabrón in the truck would have been completely wasted if he didn’t do what he’d come for. And besides, this might be the place. This really might be the place where he finally found her.

Despite himself, Seb felt a stab of anticipation so sharp it was almost painful – the hope that he couldn’t ever totally quench. He left the road and lay down flat in the grass on his stomach, with the orphanage in view below. Concentrating solely on his other self, he closed his eyes.

He glided down the valley towards the run-down building, his wide wings glinting in the dusk. With barely a ripple, he passed through a wall of the orphanage and flew inside. As usual, his muscles tensed to be entering one of these places. Unwanted, the memory of the room came, with its total darkness that had pressed down on his five-year-old self like a weight. But the room had turned out to be a blessing in disguise – because it was there that he’d first realized what he really was. It was the only thing that had kept him from going insane in that place.

No one saw Seb’s other self as he glided noiselessly from room to room. He saw immediately that this orphanage was one of the few that weren’t too bad – it was clean, if depressingly bare. And the auras of the children and teenagers looked healthy enough, once he found them all sitting in a dining room eating their dinners with the staff; they showed signs of boredom, rather than abuse. Circling overhead, Seb scanned them, noting all the colours. A dull blue, a flicker of lively pink, a gentle green. None had even a hint of silver, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything; he’d been shifting his own aura since he was a child. As he focused on each one, he opened his senses, checking out the feel of the energy – listening almost. His whole being craned with anticipation as he touched each person’s energy with his own. They were all completely human.

He checked again, just to make sure, but his heart had gone out of it. Then he forced himself to explore the other rooms, though he knew already that he wouldn’t find anyone else in them, and he didn’t.

She wasn’t here, either.