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Chapter One

Bleakwood Acadeious school in the world for boys with talents like mine

The only probleirl

The air is unseasonably hot and dry when I step off the bus A gust of wind kicks dust up intome instinctively reach up to brush the hair out of my eyes—only to find it shorn short

Right Gotta look the part

I push back that aching pit in the hollow of lance back down at themy hair so short, especially when I had to do it in the diht froa outside the airport in Zurich

Who sells scissors outside of an airport? Isn’t everyone just going to have to throw the, just to keep fro, as I snipped lock after lock of my curls into a neat pile on the tile floor I didn’t stop until the face looking back at nizable

I never knew before today just how small my head looks

No matter which way I turn it, the uide had told me to use the mountains to help orient lance around me—all I see are mountains And they all look exactly the saodforsaken ht be able to use it—but for now, all I can do is stuff it back intofurther up into those same mountains

They have to end so up, up, up … spiraling forever into the fog at their peaks

I haven’t made it ine followed by the sudden screech of tires behind me

“Hey you there, idiot!”

I glance back just in tier sideof a very well-maintained Aston Martin I’ve never seen one before, but with four overly rambunctious brothers there was bound to be one of them who ended up obsessed with cars That brother turned out to be Caleb, the youngest of them at only a year older than me He would die just to be this close to a car like that

But even still, while my brother would take note of the car, I have to take note of the boy leaning out of it … and just how strikingly beautiful he is Slicked-back blonde hair, broad shoulders, cut cheekbones The Scandinavian in him somehow stands out even more here, in the heart of the Swiss mountains

“You headed up to Bleakwood?”

Even as he staresand realize he is, in fact, talking to isters the look on my face as it dawns on me too slow and doesn’t let it slide

“Yeah, I’ to you, boy So then, are you?”

It takes me a second to find my voice, and then another to remember to force it down an octave

“Y—yeah What of it?”

I cringe, inwardly Apparently, the

“Well, unless you plan on spending the seirl’s school, you’d better hop in with us”

I glance back up over irl’s school here all along?

“Don’t look so shocked Gonna give the impression you’re as stupid as you look”

There’s a chuckle from inside the car when I finally look back As classically attractive as this boy is, there’s so I don’t trust

“Maybe I’ll just walk”