use magic, and that my magic could turn a Fae into a mortal. I hoped the knowledge would encourage Mab to just leave me alone as long as I didn’t bother her.
My trip to Faerie, and my revelation of my power, had certainly made me safer than I’d been since the moment I’d set foot in Avalon. However, safer wasn’t the same as safe, and my dad, who had legal custody of me, insisted I remain ensconced in my safe house under twenty-four hour guard. Whenever I
complained, he pointed out that until I was eighteen, it was his decision to make, and that ended any argument. I wished I had another power: to speed up time so I could turn eighteen already!
My dad was paranoid enough that he’d categorically refused to let me go to school like a normal person. He thought having me out in public on a predictable schedule for seven hours a day, five days a week, would be inviting trouble. I’d wheedled, cajoled, begged, and otherwise made a major pain in the butt out of myself and finally got him to break down and compromise. To keep me from feeling like I was being buried alive in my safe house, Dad had agreed that I could audit one class at Avalon University so I’d be around other kids every once in a while. Kids who were all older than me, true, but after the things I’d gone through during the endless summer between my junior and senior years, I wasn’t sure I could even relate to ordinary high school kids anymore.
At first, I’d wanted to choose a class my best friend, Kimber, or my boyfriend, Ethan, were attending, but one look at their schedules had convinced me to strike out on my own. Kimber’s a brainiac sixteen-year-old who’s already a sophomore and studying to be an engineer. Her classes were way over my head and not even remotely interesting to me. Ethan is Kimber’s older brother, but he’s just a freshman, and his schedule is full of required classes—ones I would have to take myself for credit next year when I presumably would enroll in Avalon U full time.
I ended up choosing History of Avalon, because I was woefully uninformed about the history of my adopted home and because Kimber had had the professor before and said he was really good.
I was both nervous and excited as I made my way from my safe house to the university, carrying a backpack with my textbook, a notebook, and a handful of pens over my shoulder. Finn, my bodyguard, had offered to carry it for me, but I wanted to cling to any pretense of normalcy I could, so I stubbornly insisted on carrying my own bag, even if the textbook did weigh about thirty pounds.
I’d been anxious enough to get started that I’d managed to get us to the lecture hall almost a full fifteen minutes before class was scheduled to start, but at least I wasn’t the first one there. A handful of seats in the auditorium-style lecture hall were filled, and I paused for a moment at the back of the room to decide where to sit. I glanced back over my shoulder at Finn.
“Are you going to sit with me?” I asked, hoping and praying he would say no. He was a really nice guy and all, but he wasn’t exactly unobtrusive—he was a Knight of Faerie, and he dressed like he was playing a secret service agent in an action movie, complete with dark glasses no matter the weather, indoors or out. I might as well carry a billboard saying “Look at me, I’m not normal” if he was going to sit next to me.
Finn gave me an ironic half-smile. “I’ll sit in the back.”
The few kids who were seated had taken notice of us already. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see more than one curious face watching us. Even if Finn sat in back, people were going to know he was with me, but at least I wouldn’t be flaunting it.
“Thanks,” I told him, then blew out a steadying breath and started down the stairs with an eye toward snagging a seat in the center. I didn’t have the guts to actually sit next to some stranger, but I was hoping someone would eventually end up sitting next
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