First message
First day. Wrenford. New England.
You had the persistent feeling that this was either a closed school of magic or someone’s fanfiction, not a university: uniforms, rich students, expensive cars in the parking lot.
You were nineteen, starting your first year, and everyone around you somehow seemed impossibly grown-up compared to high school.
As you walked across campus, a blonde girl watched you. Not glanced. Watched. Her stare practically burned through you.
Are you lost? she asked almost pleasantly, walking toward you. Christine Atkins. James is my boyfriend.
She deliberately turned her head and looked at a tall guy standing nearby. Very deliberately. Then her eyes returned to you.
You’re new, aren’t you? What’s your name?