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"I could se've met before," she said "Am I crazy?"

"Crazy? Isn't that why you're here?" he said, brushing her off

"I'm serious"

"So am I" Daniel's face was blank "And for the record" - he pointed up at a blinking device attached to the ceiling - "the reds doyou" She stiffened, very aware of the distance between their bodies "Can you honestly say you have no idea what I'ed

"I don't believe you," Luce insisted "LookThat I've never in my life seen you before this week"

Chapter Seven

SHEDDING LIGHT

"Nohere are you going?" Calasses

He'd appeared outside the entrance of Augustine so suddenly that Luce alht into him Or maybe he'd been there awhile and she just hadn't noticed in her haste to get to class Either way, her heart started beating quickly and her palan to sweat

"Um, class?" Luce answered, because where did it look like she was going? Her arms were full, with her two hefty calculus books and her half-conize for leaving so suddenly last night But she couldn't bring herself to do it She was already so late There hadn't been any hot water in the locker showers, so she'd had to trek all the way back to the dorm Somehohat had happened after the party didn't seem important anymore She didn't want to draw any- especially not now, after Daniel had made her feel so pathetic She also didn't want Ca rude She just wanted to steer past hi's string of eazed at her, the less i over Daniel's dismissal How could one look from Cam do all that?

With his clear, pale skin and jet-black hair, Cauy she'd ever known, He exuded confidence, and not just because he knew everyone - and how to get everything - before Luce had even figured out where her classes were Right then, standing outside the drab, gray school building, Caraph, his red shades Techni colored in

"Class, eh?" Ca the entrance, and so about the amused way his mouth was set made Luce want to knoild idea he had up his sleeve There was a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, and a disposable espresso cup between his fingers He pressed Stop on his iPod, but left the earbuds dangling around his neck Part of her wanted to knohat song he'd been listening to, and where he'd gotten that black-reen eyes dared her to ask

Ca up his index finger, he said, "Allow me to share my motto about Sword & Cross classes: Setter never than late"

Luce laughed, and then Calasses back up on his nose The lenses were so dark, she couldn't see even a hint of his eyes

"Besides" He s her a white arch of teeth "It's just about lunchtiot a picnic"

Lunchtirowling - and the idea of being rea all but the last twentythe longer she stood next to Ca "Did you pack enough for two?"

Steering Luce with a broad hand on the small of her back, Cam led her across the coates to the cemetery, he stopped

"I know this is a weird place for a picnic," he explained, "but it's the best spot I know to dip out of sight for a little while On caestured toward the building

Luce could definitely relate to that She felt both stifled and exposed almost all the time at this place But Cam seemed like the last person ould share that new-student syndroht, and now the forbidden espresso in his hand, she would never have guessed he'd feel suffocated, too Or that he'd pick her to share the feeling with

Past his head, she could see the rest of the run-down campus From here, there wasn't ates and the other

Luce decided to go with it "Just promise to save me if any statues topple over"

"No," Cam said with a seriousness that effectively erased her joke "That won't happen again"

Her eyes fell on the spot where only days earlier, she and Daniel had co up in the ceel that had toppled over theone, its pedestal bare

"Co with hirown patches of weeds, and Ca to help her over mounds of dirt burrowed out by who- knehat

At one point, Luce nearly lost her balance and grabbed on to one of the headstones to steady herself It was a large, polished slab with one rough, unfinished side

"I've always liked that one," Caers Luce crossed around to the front of the plot to read the inscription

"Joseph Miley,'" she read aloud "1821 to 1865 Bravely served in the War of Northern Aggression Survived three bullets and five horses felled fro his final peace'"