“Ma’am?” Emily jerked up to see that she was the center of attention. A young waitress was staring at her, notepad in hand and a patient smile on. “Your order?”

“Oh, oh, uh, sorry, I’ll have . . . what she’s having,” Emily said with a finger pointing toward Melanie.

“A second lobster and filet mignon plate then,” she said.

Emily blanched. That sounded expensive. But then, Melanie was the one footing the bill.

“And you, miss?” the waitress asked Teddy.

“Yeah, I’ll have the fishy sticks, but not if they look like bears.”

“Um, noted,” the woman said. She had a bit of a smile that she hid from Teddy by raising her notepad. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, I’ll have the train meal, too.” Teddy pointed to an image of a cardboard train with a chicken breast and fries and cheese.

“That’s a full meal,” the waitress said.

Emily waved her arms to try and dispel the comment. “It’s okay. She, uh, eats lots. Weird . . . metabolism?”

“Yeah, I got the best meta.”

The waitress nodded. “Of course. And to drink?”

“I’ll have a pint of vodka.”

Emily wanted to press her face into her hands.

“Um,” the waitress said. She looked over to Emily and Melanie.

“It’s best when served really cold,” Teddy explained. “Maybe with some ice?”

“She’ll have juice. Any sort of juice,” Emily said.

The waitress nodded rapidly and turned to Athena next. Fortunately, the owl girl just ordered some chicken risotto with a glass of grape juice.

“So,” Melanie began when the waitress walked off. “Actually, wait, you never told me about the new girl.”

Athena leaned forward so that she could better meet Melanie’s gaze. “I’m Big Sister Emily’s little sister,” she said.

“Ah, so she knows everything, right? Because I just assumed back there.”

Emily nodded. “She knows, yeah.” She wasn’t going to admit that Athena had her own power, not when she herself wasn’t familiar with it yet. She had to remember to test that, actually.

Bringing a notebook around with her was growing to be a priority. She had so many little things to remember all the time—it was getting to be too much.

“Cool,” Melanie said. “So there’s this thing where the corps and the government grab all the newbies and jumble them together. It’s a semipublic thing. So no press, but plenty of press.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Teddy said.

“It kinda does,” Melanie returned. “When we say that the press is somewhere, it usually means that they’re there in force. Cameras and reporters and all. Now they’re aware of the event, if you want to call it that, but they’re politely told not to show up. So lots of paparazzi hide around the planned routes and take ‘in action’ photos. They’re big sellers. It makes the new Heroes out to be pretty active.”