For a second I was jealous — Ella had so much more of my mom, all the time, her whole life. Then I felt guilty. Ella deserved to have our mom, and it wasn’t her fault that I couldn’t. The fact was, my mom had had Ella in the normal way. I had been an egg donated to science and was fertilized in a test tube. Neither of us knew the other existed until this past year. And now, no matter how much we cared about each other, it was still too dangerous for me to live in one place for any length of time. Being with my mom would also mean putting her and Ella at risk. And I wouldn’t do it.

Amazingly, I’m not that selfish. Yet.

“You’ve been doing an incredible job for the CSM too, honey,” my mom said to me. “But I agree that the air shows must be canceled. There’s just no way to guarantee your safety.”

Jeb Batchelder pulled out a chair and sat down, propping his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together. “Has everyone had enough to eat?” he asked.

I slowly let out a breath, not looking at him. I would never get used to seeing him again, after thinking he was dead for years. I would never accept that he was a good guy, after everything he’d done to me and the flock over the last — what was it now? Eight months? Time was so — stretchy, in my life.

Somehow my mom trusted him. And I trusted my mom. But that was as far as it went, despite the fact that as far as I knew, he was my biological father, the other half of the test-tube cocktail that had produced me. But I never, ever thought of him as my father. Ever.

“The CSM isn’t our only concern right now,” Jeb said. His hair was starting to go gray. I’d love to think that I caused some of it. “We need to discuss your next steps.”

Instantly I felt my face set like stone. I didn’t look at Fang but knew that he’d have the same expression. None of us had ever reacted well to the amusing notion of having grown-ups decide things for us — like our future, or what we did, and so on.

“Oh?” I said in a voice that would have made most people pause.

Jeb was used to it, having heard it from me since I was about three years old.

“Yes,” he said. “A new school was recently created — the Day and Night School. It’s for gifted children, and it’s designed to let kids learn at their natural pace, in ways that suit them best. You’d all do really well there. It’s one of the only schools on earth where you’d fit in.”

“Yeah, we’re all about fitting in,” I said, rolling my eyes.