Fallen University: Year One

Her golden eyes widened and got bigger with each word I said. She shook her head. “Umm… no. Mostly, I’ve been super cold. You think this place has central heating?”

I almost didn’t hear her question, although it was probably rhetorical anyway. I gave a noncommittal shrug and frowned at the clothes I was hanging in my wardrobe.

“Just me, then,” I murmured. “You haven’t noticed anybody in particular? I mean, did you see anybody downstairs who you absolutely had to know?”

“Oh, God no.” She shuddered. “I mean, I’m sure they’re mostly good people, just wrong place wrong time like us, but… I don’t really want to find out. Not now, anyway. I’m glad there’s a week left before school starts. I need time to wrap my head around all of this.”

Definitely just me then. Super.

I shifted uncomfortably, trying to settle the feelings ricocheting through my body. Heat was still trickling through my veins, pooling in places it had no right to be. I was high on it, completely strung out. I tried to focus on the next step.

What is the next step? Dinner?

I shook my head. My skin felt sticky. It was as if the erotic aura I’d encountered downstairs had been an actual smoke, and the residue was hanging on me.

“I’m going to shower.” I stepped away from the wardrobe. “Then we’ll go find food.”

It’s just all the changes, I decided. I’ve been violently uprooted from my life. First Colin, then the turning into a creature of the underworld thing, now the school; my subconscious is just trying to form a tribe, that’s all. The most basic primal need. Nothing to worry about.

I walked across the hall, looking forward to a long, hot shower.

Or maybe I should make it a cold one.

Chapter Six

“Ugh… I’m so nervous. I hate it.” Hannah hugged her stomach and moved a little closer to me as we walked.

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so nervous if you had talked to anybody at all this week,” I said, softening my words with a smile. “It’ll be fine. Everybody I’ve met has been pleasant, for the most part. They’re all in the same boat we are. We’re the lost boys. Er… girls. Demons? Whatever. The point is, we’re all in this together, and you’re going to be fine.”

She smiled wanly up at me. The golden tunic she’d chosen for the first day of classes brought out her eyes and contrasted gently with her light hair. She didn’t notice the appreciative glances in her direction as we walked down the hall, but I did.

“You’re going to do great,” I told her. “I know you are. Everybody likes you already.”

She shook her head, making her hair snake over her spine. “They don’t even kno

w me.”

“I don’t think that actually matters around here,” I noted as a faintly blue-skinned man spotted her and blushed purple. “Feels like everybody in this place is desperate for a tribe. For some kind of connection.”

“Maybe. But I had a tribe. Well, a family. I really hate the no-contact-with-your-old-life rule. I read that handbook cover to cover and couldn’t find a single loophole. They really, really don’t want any of us talking to our friends or relatives back home. It’s so stupid! My grandma must be wild with worry.”

I squeezed her shoulder sympathetically. I almost felt bad that I had nothing and nobody to miss. I could throw myself headlong into this new adventure and enjoy every second of it if I wanted to. Hannah’s week had been a lot rougher than mine. She’d cried herself to sleep the first three nights, curled up under the heavy blankets on her bed. Then she kind of went numb for a while. Now that classes were about to start, she was just anxious.

“Here it is. History. You ready for this?” I glanced over at her as we paused outside the small door.

She sucked in a steadying breath. “I guess.”

We took a pair of desks at the back, and I was struck all over again by the strange combination of normal school and medieval décor. Supplies had been sent up to our room—usual things like lined paper and mechanical pencils—along with two oiled leather satchels to carry them in. The desks were the usual laminated wood and metal, complete with scratched-in graffiti. But they sat in a cavernous stone chamber with long, narrow windows on one side that overlooked striking peaks in the distance.

We settled in, and I pulled out a notebook and a pen as I watched the other students shuffle in. Many of them wore the same expression as Hannah—they looked puffy-eyed and pale, anxious and miserable. Some of them were crackling with fascinated energy, and others were cautiously watching everybody else, scoping out the room. I recognized most of them from my frequent hall wandering, but couldn’t remember their names.

“This is great! Isn’t this great? History! Real history, not the history we think is history. I knew there was something missing.” The words rushed to my ears on a wave of sea-foam and sandalwood. I whipped my head around to find the source.

It was the blond guy from that first day. He was chattering at a short, dark-haired man who looked like he missed coffee more than anything else in the world as they both entered the room. The other student deliberately snubbed the blond guy, squishing through an aisle to find a solitary seat. It didn’t bother the surfer dude. He looked around, cobalt eyes sparkling, for someone else to talk to.

“Free seat over here,” I called immediately, waving at the empty seat beside me.

“Great! Awesome! Love it, perfect spot.” Enthusiasm rolled off of him as he moved to sit beside me. “Aren’t these satchels awesome? And that fucking view! I didn’t think the world could get this tall. Hi, I’m Jayce.”