But me? I’m nothing. I’m meh. I’m so bland I make dry toast look exciting.
Which is why I’m usually able to fly under the radar of the pretty people—in this case, Morganna Starchild.
Morganna was a Fae with perfectly coiffed honey-blonde hair and huge blue eyes that sparkled like sapphires in her perfectly sculpted face. Like all Faes, she looked a little like an Anime character come to life with eyes and boobs that were just a little too big and perfect, and cheekbones that would make any plastic surgeon retire on the spot. She was just basically perfection.
And lately she’d really had it out for me.
I don’t know why Morganna started picking on me. Maybe because I’m not as pretty as her. But then again, to the Fae, all humans look like toads. I mean, we’re just so much less perfect than they are we might as well be one step down on the evolutionary ladder.
For whatever reason, Morganna had made it her personal mission to make my life miserable lately. And having Bran as a lab partner wasn’t going to help her decide to ignore me and get back to her regular life of being perfect and pretty.
Speaking of Morganna, she was currently sitting beside my crush, Elian Darkwing and smirking at me as I settled in my chair beside Bran. She was flirting shamelessly with him, which was supposed to be against the rules. For time out of mind The Edict—this really strong magic spell—kept species of Others from dating or having romantic relationships outside their own species. But since my friend Megan and her Nocturne boyfriend Griffin broke the spell, it seemed like all bets were off.
I tried not to notice the way she was whispering to Elian as she watched me, but I couldn’t help hearing what she was saying.
“Looks like poor little Emma finally found a boyfriend. And he’s almost as pretty as she is!” she said, in a voice low enough that Mr. Barron couldn’t hear it but loud enough that the pretty people in the room—mostly other Faes with a few Nocturnes thrown in—who were grouped around her like a court around a queen, could.
A ripple of unkind laughter followed her remark and I felt my cheeks getting hot and red. Great, this was just what I needed this morning—another dose of Mean Girl hazing.
I didn’t understand why Morganna wouldn’t just leave me alone. But once someone like her decides she’s got it in for you, there’s not much you can do but try to keep your head down and try not to attract her attention.
Which was why having Bran O’Connor for a lab partner was such a liability.
As I got settled in my seat, I saw that Bran was looking at me. I didn’t think I’d ever been this close to him before, even though he was also a Norm—a regular human with no magical powers—like me. Maybe because he didn’t live at the school like most students—he stayed with his family and commuted to Nocturne Academy every day. He also wasn’t a Frostproof lifer like me—meaning he didn’t grow up in our crappy little town here in Central Florida.
In fact, he had just transferred here at the end of last semester, but that was long enough for the beautiful people, (Morganna and her crew) to label him a “troll” and dismiss him as nothing more than an ugly little guy taking up too much of the available oxygen.
“It’s all right—just ignore them,” he said in a low voice and I got my first surprise—his voice did not match his body. At all.
It was deep and smooth like dark chocolate melting on the back of your tongue. The kind of voice that sends tingles and chills through your whole body, just to hear it. Hello, ASMR hottie.
Or he would be if his body matched that voice.
I looked at him in surprise—or tried to. But somehow my eyes kept sliding away from his face. Frowning, I tried again with the same result. I got only a glimpse of his awful skin, lank hair, and no-color eyes before my own eyes just kind of slid to the side and I found I was staring over his shoulder.
Weird.
See, this is what I meant when I said it was hard to look at him. It really was—my mind somehow didn’t want to let me study him too closely.
Well, maybe it was a psychological thing. I knew having him for a partner was going to make me the butt of more of Morganna Starchild’s jokes so I subconsciously didn’t want anything to do with him.
Yeah—that had to be it.
“Okay, people,” said Mr. Barron, interrupting my train of thought. “Today we’re going to start with an easy lab, just to get our toes wet. This exercise is called ‘Measuring Heart Rate Accurately’ and it only has two requirements—a partner with a pulse and a watch. Everybody good?”
Several of the girls complained that they didn’t wear watches because they always just looked at the time on their phones. Most places in the Nocturne Academy castle cell phones don’t even work—the magic interferes with them. However, Mr. Barron’s classroom was one of the rare exceptions where you could actually get a signal.
It didn’t matter though because Mr. Barron had a strict no-phones policy in his classroom. He had one of those clear plastic shoe holders hung over the back of his door, only instead of pairs of shoes, the rectangular pockets were numbered. Everyone had to turn off their cell phone and slip it into a pocket at the beginning of class. No exceptions.
Woe to the hapless student who tried to keep his or her phone or who forgot to turn their phone off or at least on silent. Mr. Barron was pretty easy going about other things but he was death on cell phones ringing or
