Page 43 of Sorrow & Strangers

Alice is waiting for me just inside the canteen doors. “Hey, how was class?” she asks, obviously anxious.

“It was fine.”

“Fine?” she asks as we walk toward the serving area.

I nod. “Have you ever met Professor Ziven?”

Alice grimaces. “Oh, she took one of my classes last week when Prof Gregg was out. She’s very weird.” Alice opens the fridge and selects a pouch of blood. “Apparently, she’s a sphinx, and decades ago she got that sand sickness when she was visiting her relatives. She’s been psycho ever since, but from what I’ve heard, she’s a leading expert in hieroglyphics.”

I start making a salad.

“Also,” Alice continues. She’s obviously done some digging into this teacher. “Rumor has it, she had this wild affair with this super-powerful pharaoh’s wife, like, centuries ago, and it all ended in some massive curse-off, but there’s not a whole lot of information about it.”

I lift my eyebrows as we walk toward our table. Maybe I should give this professor a chance. I mean, I probably seem crazy to most too. The psycho who had a stalker who . . .

My blood runs cold at the thought of Aqua, her image burned into the backs of my eyelids. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of it. Noticing my discomfort, Alice moves in closer and slides her arm through mine.

“How was your class?” I ask, changing the subject.

Alice shrugs. “Boring.”

Alice bristles as we near our usual table, and I glance up from my tray, noticing a short, gangly kid sitting there. He is handsome, with dark brown skin, dark eyes, and a mane of tight blond locs of varying shades.

“Move,” Alice hisses at him, and he blinks up at her, his large eyes too big for his face. He looks like he might be eighteen, but I know he has to be older. He’s a shifter, and one that appears to be slow to develop, but with how large his hands are, he’s not far off. Shifters don’t shift until they reach their late twenties. It is then that they experience overnight growth in their bodies and power. Before that, they are known as pullus shifters, and I didn’t know they could even attend Avalon.

While he looks uncomfortable, he doesn’t look threatened by the vampire flashing her fangs at him, and to his credit, he relaxes and takes a bite of his apple. “Why?”

My eyes swing from him to Alice.

Her eyes flash red. This poor kid is about to get it. “This is our table.”

“Looks like there is enough space for all of us,” he says, and there is a deepness to his voice that doesn’t quite match his body. He’s definitely a shifter who hasn’t shifted yet. “Sit somewhere else if it bothers you.”

Alice flashes her fangs, and I know that I’m going to need to de-escalate this situation before we have a dead shifter and a blood-soaked Alice.

I squeeze her arm. “Al, it’s fine.” I look at her. “We don’t need the whole table.” Anymore. That word drifts through my mind, burning me cruelly.

Alice hisses again and snaps her fangs before she sits down, though her shoulders are still lined with tension. I sit next to her and take a sip of water, watching the kid’s eyes bounce between us.

“Vampire and fae,” he says. “You must be them.”

“Them?” Alice growls.

Uh-oh. Careful, kid. Don’t poke the bear. The bear being Alice.

He tilts his head, his locs brushing over his forehead. “You’re infamous.”

I blink.

He shrugs, taking another bite of his apple. “They call you the Disaster Duo.” This time, it’s my turn to tense, but he continues, oblivious. “I’m Leo.”

“Don’t care,” Alice snaps back.

I look at him and can’t help but notice that there is something familiar about him. Something about him reminds me of Connor, but I can’t put my finger on it. “Shifter, right?”

“Not yet,” he grumbles, discomfort and resentment radiating from him.

I spear a piece of lettuce. “Soon, I’d imagine.” Leo glances at me, a mixture of fear and curiosity in his eyes. I point at his hands with my fork. “Given the size of them.”