Luce chose a desk close to the windows, between Jasmine and a cute boy-next-door kind of guy who was wearing cuto s, a Dodgers cap, and a navy sweatshirt. A few girls stood clustered near the door to the bathroom. One of them had curly hair and boxy purple glasses. When Luce saw the girl's pro le, she nearly bolted from her seat.
Penn.
But when the girl turned toward Luce, her face was a little squarer and her clothes were a little tighter and her laugh was a little louder and Luce almost felt like her heart was wilting. Of course it wasn't Penn. It never would be, ever again.
Luce could feel the other kids glancing at her--some of them outright stared. The only one who didn't was Shelby, who gave Luce an acknowledging nod.
It wasn't a huge class, just twenty desks arranged on the risers, facing the two long mahogany tables at the front. There were two dry-erase white boards behind the tables. Two bookshelves on either side. Two trash cans. Two desk lamps. Two laptops, one on each table. And the two teachers, Steven and Francesca, huddled near the front of the room, whispering.
In a move Luce wasn't expecting, they turned and stared at her too, then glided to the tables. Francesca sat on top of one, with one leg tucked beneath her and one of her high heels skimming the wood oor. Steven leaned against the other table, opened a heavy maroon leather portfolio, and rested his pen between his lips. For an older man, he was good-looking, sure, but Luce almost wished he weren't. He reminded her of Cam, and of how deceptive a demon's charm could be.
She waited for the rest of the class to take out textbooks she didn't have, to plunge into some reading assignment she'd be behind on, so she could surrender to feeling overwhelmed and just daydream about Daniel.
But none of that happened. And most of the kids were still sneaking glances at her.
"By now you must all have noticed that we're welcoming a new student." Francesca's voice was low and honey-thick, like a jazz singer's.
Steven smiled, showing a ash of brilliant white teeth. "Tell us, Luce, how are you liking Shoreline so far?"
The color drained from Luce's face as the other students' desks made scraping sounds on the oor. They were actually turning in their seats to focus on her.
She could feel her heart race and her palms grow damp. She shrank in her seat, wishing she were just a normal kid at a normal school back home in normal Thunderbolt, Georgia. At times over the past few days, she'd wished she'd never seen a shadow, never gotten into the kind of trouble that left her dear friends dead, or got her involved with Cam, or made it impossible for Daniel to be near her. But there was where her anxious, tumbling mind always came to a full stop: How to be normal and still have Daniel? Who was so very far from normal. It was impossible. So here she was, sucking it up.
"I guess I'm still getting used to Shoreline." Her voice wobbled, betraying her, echoing o the sloped ceiling. "But it seems all right so far."
Steven laughed. "Well, Francesca and I thought to help you get used to it, we'd change gears from our usual Tuesday-morning student presentations--"
From across the room, Shelby hooted, "Yes!" and Luce noticed that she had a stack of notecards on her desk and a big poster at her feet that read APPARITIONS AIN'T SO BAD. So Luce had just gotten her out of a presentation. That had to be worth something in roommate points.
"What Steven means," Francesca chimed in, "is that we're going to play a game, as an icebreaker." She slid down from her table and walked around the room, heels clicking as she distributed a sheet of paper to each student.
Luce expected the chorus of groans that those words usually evoked from a classroom of teens. But these kids all seemed so agreeable and well- adjusted. They were actually just going to go with the ow.
When she laid the sheet on Luce's desk, Francesca said, "This should give you an idea of who some of your classmates are, and what goals we work toward in this class."
Luce looked down at the paper. Lines had been drawn on the page, piding it into twenty boxes. Each box contained a phrase. It was a game Luce looked down at the paper. Lines had been drawn on the page, piding it into twenty boxes. Each box contained a phrase. It was a game she'd played before, once at summer camp in western Georgia as a little kid, and again a couple of times in her classes at Dover. The object was to go around the room and match a di erent student with each phrase. Mostly, she was relieved; there were de nitely more embarrassing icebreakers out there. But when she looked more closely at the phrases--expecting normal things like "Has a pet turtle" or "Wants to go skyping someday" --she was a little unnerved to see things like "Speaks more than eighteen languages" and "Has visited the outerworld."
It was about to be painfully obvious that Luce was the only non-Nephilim in the class. She thought back to the nervous waiter who had brought her and Shelby their breakfast. Maybe Luce would be more comfortable among the scholarship kids. Beaker Brady didn't even know he'd dodged a bullet.
"If no one has questions," Steven said from the front of the room, "you're welcome to begin."
"Go outside, enjoy yourselves," Francesca added. "Take all the time you need."
Luce followed the rest of the students onto the deck. As they walked toward the railing, Jasmine leaned over Luce's shoulder, pointing a green- lacquered ngernail at one of the boxes. "I have a relative who's a full-blooded cherub," she said. "Crazy old Uncle Carlos."
Luce nodded, like she knew what that meant, and jotted in Jasmine's name.
"Ooh, and I can levitate," Dawn chirped, pointing to the top left corner of Luce's page. "Not, like, a hundred percent of the time, but usually after I've had my co ee."