Shaking my head, I tossed my bag next to my desk and put on my most no-nonsense voice to ask, “So what’s up?”

David blinked behind his glasses. There were circles under his eyes, and I wondered if he was still having trouble sleeping. I could ask him that, right? I mean, that was Paladin/Oracle business, not girlfriend stuff. And the more I focused on Paladin stuff, the easier it was not to feel angry or hurt or any of the other things I’d been feeling since that afternoon in his car.

But just to be on the safe side, I didn’t mention it, and instead sat down backward on my desk chair, folding my arms on the back and resting my chin on top of them.

Clearing his throat, David gestured to my bed. “Can I sit?”

“Sure,” I said with a wave of my hand, trying not to remember how the last time he’d sat on my bed, I’d been sitting with him, my arms wrapped around his neck, our lips—

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, not thinking kissing thoughts.

But I thought maybe David was thinking them, too, especially since his neck was red and he wasn’t quite meeting my eyes.

He sat down on my purple comforter and pulled an enormous book from his messenger bag. “I think I might have found something.”

I should not have been disappointed. Of course he came over to talk business. That was good. Hadn’t he promised to keep looking for more information about the trials? So, yeah, not disappointed at all. Pleased. Proud. Happy things like that.

“There isn’t much,” he said, opening the book on his lap and flipping to a page marked with a yellow sticky note. “Apparently they wanted to keep it pretty secret.”

“Makes sense,” I observed, twisting one of my rings. “Isn’t the element of surprise the whole point? See how quickly you can think on your feet without getting killed?”

David glanced up at me, his lips quirking. “Basically, yeah. But here”—he tapped the page—“there’s a story about a sixteenth-century Paladin, another girl—er, woman—like you, who went through her Peirasmos. It seems like the trials themselves are geared toward the particular Paladin. So, like, the first one was specific to you because of... the school, I guess.”

Taking a deep breath, I stood up and walked back to my desk chair, bracing my hands on the back. “Thanks for this, David.”

He gave an uneasy shrug, shoulders rolling underneath his gray T-shirt. Wait, David was wearing a T-shirt? A regular one without, like, a dragon on it or an ugly pattern? Then I took in the rest of his outfit. Jeans, and regular jeans at that, not those super-skinny ones he liked so much. Even his shoes were plain sneakers.