Just when I was good and boiling, the double study period ended. Nuance and Observation was next, but no one actually called it that, at least not back at the Academy, where it was always referred to as the Sherlock class. As I followed the other kids out of the library and across the atrium, I could see that they had tried to re-create the circular theatrical seating of the Academy on a smaller scale. A small platform rotated in the middle of the classroom with desks clustered around it in a circle.

“So what’s your favorite century?” Eliana asked, coming to walk on one side of me while Tess commandeered the spot on my other side. I suddenly understood what the ham felt like on a ham sandwich, and I didn’t like it.

“What?” I said taken off guard.

“Your favorite century,” Eliana repeated. “You know, like mine is the early 1900s, but Tess really likes the 1600s.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ve never thought about it.”

“Really?” Tess said.

“Really,” I said, but they didn’t go away. They kept me solidly between themselves as we walked across the atrium, insisting that I swing by the dining tables with them to snag an apple out of one of the bowls of fruit that had appeared there. I did, even though my insides were still too knotted with anger to be very hungry. Finally, they left me alone to go use the restroom before class, and I heaved an audible sigh of relief.

“They want to be your friends,” Corban said, coming to stand in the same spot where Tess had been just moments before.

“I don’t want them to be my friends,” I said.

“You say that like you have a choice,” Blake said.

I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t?”

“Not if you want to make a go of it here,” Corban said. “This place is too small to avoid people. Don’t worry about it, though; the girls are cool. Tess is practically a genius, although she’d never tell you that, and Eliana is uncanny when it comes to getting the Chaos Cuffs on a Butterfly. She’s so quick it’s like watching a snake strike. Blam, snap, click and the Butterfly is standing there wondering what hit them. Of course, she’s an absolute disaster at actually identifying Butterflies, but she’s working on it. Regardless, she’ll give you a lesson any time you want to.” He clapped me a hair too hard on the back and together he and Blake walked over to Tess, who was chatting with one of the professors like they were old friends. This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder, I thought, turning back toward the Nuance and Observation classroom.