I hadn’t heard anyone approach through the underbrush, but a tall, dark-haired boy leans casually against a tree as if he’d been there the whole time; arms over his chest and black combat boots crossed at the ankles. The boy’s expression is lazy with disdain, like he can’t even be bothered to muster up a full dose of the stuff.

“Forgive me for interrupting. It looked like you were about to jump off a cliff. Alone. In the dark,” he drawls.

He is unsettlingly beautiful. His face is aristocratic and sharp, framed by high, pale cheekbones. The rest of his body is borne from shadows: black jacket, black pants, and ink-black hair that falls over his forehead and curls just below gauged ears bearing small black rubber plugs. He can’t be more than eighteen, but something about his features doesn’t belong to a teenager—the cut of his jaw, the line of his nose. His stillness.

The boy who is both young and old lets me study him, but only for a moment. Then, he levels his tawny gaze in challenge. When our eyes meet, a stinging shock races through me, head to heels, leaving fear in its wake.

I swallow, look away. “I could make that jump.”

He snorts. “Cliff jumping is asinine.”

“No one asked you.” I have a stubborn streak aggravated by other stubborn people, and this boy clearly qualifies.

I step to his right. Quick as a cat, he reaches for me, but I twist away before he gets a grip. His eyebrows lift, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new?”

“I’m leaving.” I turn, but the boy is beside me in two steps.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“I’m Selwyn Kane.”

His gaze sends tiny, invisible sparks of electricity dancing across my cheek. I flinch and throw my hand up between us like a shield.

Fingers, too hot, too strong, instantly close around my wrist. A tingling sensation shoots down to my elbow. “Why did you cover your face?”

I don’t have an answer for him. Or myself. I try to yank away from him, but his hold is like iron. “Let go!”

Selwyn’s eyes widen slightly, then narrow; he is not used to being shouted at. “Do you—do you feel something? When I look at you?”

“What?” I pull, but he holds me tightly without effort. “No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not—”

“Quiet!” he orders. Bright indignation flares in my chest, but his unusual eyes rake across my face. Snuff it right out. “Strange. I thought—”

Suddenly, shouts break the night, but this time they’re not from the cliff jumpers. We both twist toward the forest and beyond it, to the party in the clearing. More yelling—and not the happy, drunk kind.