Page 208 of Sigils & Spells

A handful of students were already seated. Daniel nearly shot down the back row when…there she was. Ravyn, wearing her long, straight black hair down over her shoulders. From his position, he couldn’t tell what she wore other than a black leather jacket. Currently, she was laughing with a platinum blonde sitting next to her. He longed to know what had made her laugh. Hoped he, too, could bring a smile to her face.

“Dude, just sit next to her and stop being creepy. Damn,” a guy in a dark green hoodie said, shoulder-checking him on his way into the second to last row, where he took the seat all the way against the wall. Daniel didn’t remember talking to him the day before, so he probably wasn’t new to campus. The guy glared at him and pulled his hood up over his face, then turned so he wasn’t visible. For whatever reason, once the guy’s focus was off him, the room felt as though fresh air had flowed in where it wasn’t able to before.

I need to go to bed earlier at night.

Daniel made his way toward the ladies, praying he wasn’t quickly dismissed. Two heads swiveled in his direction as he chose a seat two down from Ravyn at the last second. The empty seat between them hopefully enough to keep her from being bothered by his sudden appearance. She smiled as she recognized him.

“Oh, hello again.” She wore a dark gray T-shirt that had holes cut out in random places and a pair of black jeans.

“Hi,” he said dumbly and wanted to kick himself. Daniel leaned forward enough to see the blonde, dressed in an olive-green dress and white cardigan. “I’m Daniel.” She didn’t seem familiar to him either.

“Aoibhe,” she said and nodded her head subtly. She had a soft, lilting accent. “Nice to meet you.” She shared a look with Ravyn he hoped was good and not bad. They giggled.

“You don’t have to sit that far away,” Ravyn said and glanced at the empty seat between them. “Unless you’re saving that seat for someone else?”

He shook his head, perhaps a bit too generously because their grins grew wider at the action. “You really want me sitting next to you?”Oh, God. What kind of a dumb question was that? Had he suddenly forgotten how to speak to beautiful women?

Ravyn leaned with one elbow on the table, hand against the side of her face. “Daniel, you’re already sitting next to me. But you don’t have to be so far away about it.” A faint pink tinted her cheeks, and he swallowed down a lump in his throat. The bashfulness made her prettier, and he couldn’t really say why.

“Okay, but when I get annoying, don’t say I didn’t try to give you space.” He needed to stop talking. Entirely. Becoming mute looked better by the minute. “I mean—”

She laughed. “I understood what you meant.”

Around them, more students entered the classroom, though there didn’t seem to be a lot. Daniel had thought a class about mythology would appeal to more people. It sounded fun and interesting and not as serious as the standard curriculum.

When all sound quieted, Daniel glanced up as a tall woman with long, curly red hair made her way down the stairs to the front of the room holding a brown, leather briefcase. Recognition perplexed him. Why was she here? He looked back down at his schedule, searching for the name of the professor.

“I can see by the look on some of your faces that you’re confused,” Dean Caelan said as she set her case on the desk and faced them, clasping her hands in front of her as she leaned back against the furniture. She had a broadness to her shoulders and carried herself in a way that warned anyone who dared to mess with her that she would not tolerate such foolishness. Probably took some sort of martial arts class or something. “Don’t worry. Professor Oliver is okay. He had a family emergency and had to return home at the last minute. I will be taking over this class, and other staff members will take over his others.”

Murmurings about the room demonstrated the confusion of having this shake-up so soon into the semester. Beside him, Ravyn said nothing, but then, as a new student, it wasn’t as if she knew any of the staff yet. Daniel had never met Professor Oliver before, but of all the replacements—

“Aren’t you too busy to teach a class, Dean Caelan?” a girl up front asked, mirroring his own thoughts.

The dean chuckled. “Yes and no. I quite enjoy this subject matter, so I took it upon myself to cover this course.” Her demeanor changed from cheerful to serious in a mere second. “So, I expect every student to devote just as much of their time and energy into it as I am, if not more.” She smiled again as if her entire tone hadn’t changed before. “Any questions?”

Nobody said a word, so the dean shrugged and extracted a pile of paperwork from her briefcase. She handed it to the person closest to her to take one and pass it along.

“This is your syllabus for the semester. Note that there is one additional book I require from Professor Oliver’s original list. The bookstore will accept a return ofMythology Meets Modern Theologyin exchange for this one without costing anyone a dime. They have used copies to trade for used copies as well. I made sure no one would have to spend more due to a staff shake-up.”

Daniel accepted the stack of papers and took his packet, handing it over to Ravyn and looking down at the title of the new textbook.Death Omens Throughout the World: A Guide to Superstitions from Folklore and Mythology.

“What?” The word was whispered beside him, but something in Ravyn’s demeanor made him nervous. She seemed upset, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. A quick look around the room showed similar expressions on many other students’ faces. Did the idea of death bother them that much?

A brief memory of his brother last year at Halloween flickered through is mind. Something had happened to him that night. Then there were those weird reports on the news… Those mysterious deaths…

“Are you okay?” Ravyn’s voice snapped him back into the present. “You went pale.”

Well, that’s embarrassing.“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” He shook his head with a laugh. “Just worried about my brother back home. He’s been acting weird lately.”

Her brow furrowed. “I’m so sorry. Where are you from?” Her question was a clear desire to escape what could have been an uncomfortable topic. He wasn’t mad about it though since he didn’t want to talk about it either.

“Sleepy Hollow, New York.”

Her cute mouth parted on an exhale. Even Aoibhe leaned over to look at him.

“As in…?”

His hometown always garnered the same reaction. “Yup. That Sleepy Hollow.”

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