“Then I highly recommend The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall,” he said, walking toward the table where he’d apparently left his cell phone.

“Jane Austen and The House of Medici?” Jaya was impressed he was familiar with the latter; it wasn’t exactly light reading. The book charted the eventual decline of a wealthy, powerful family in Florence. “Well, thanks,” she said. “But I’ve already read it.”

He didn’t look back as he lumbered toward the exit. “You could always read it again.”

She frowned at his back. “Pardon me, but you haven’t introduced yourself.” He kept walking, as if he didn’t hear her. “Hello?” Jaya heard the double doors shut with a muffled thump.

How rude. Some people just didn’t have the same breeding she did, she supposed. And she was hard-pressed to remember an odder encounter. Why would this absolute stranger care whether or not Jaya read some old book? Maybe it was an omen, him recommending it. Royal families were rather prone to superstition, and she wasn’t an exception. Maybe the mention of the Medici family meant the Emersons would fall into decline as surely as the Medicis did. Or perhaps the boy was just rambling because he wasn’t used to human company. He certainly looked the part of the misanthropic recluse.

Jaya shook off the bizarre incident and turned back to the bookshelf, still happy. She was surrounded by books. Heaven couldn’t be marred that easily. She’d read until she was sated and then see where the day took her.

Grey

So that was Jaya Rao.

Grey sat back in the recliner in his room an hour after their encounter, a small stack of animal science books on the end table at his elbow. She was smaller, more harmless-looking than he’d expect for someone from such an evil genetic line. He stared out the window at the gardens below, wondering again why she was here. St. Rosetta’s International Academy was a fine institution, but he knew from experience—he’d been here more than a decade now—that most students who transferred in this late in their academic careers had something to hide. St. Rosetta’s was a holding cell for the wayward teens of high-profile parents, a place they could be kept safe and away from the public eye until they were old enough to be sent even farther away to college—or until fate intervened. Grey should know.

Grey’s own father didn’t want to see Grey, didn’t want to see his wife’s eyes in his son’s traitorous face. Grey could understand. He’d been a newborn when his mother died, but he alone had been responsible for her death.