A few weeks after my initiation by firespell, his ghost story didn’t sound so unusual. I had a few ideas about where Sister Bernadette might have gone . . .
The man in black noticed I was heading for the gate and waved his hand at me. “Young lady, are you a student at St. Sophia’s School for Girls?”
The people taking the tour turned to look at me. Some of them actually looked a little scared, like they weren’t entirely sure if I was real. Others looked skeptical, like they weren’t entirely sure I wasn’t a plant.
“Um, yes,” I said. “I am.”
“Mm-hmm,” he said. “And have you seen anything mysterious in the hallowed halls of St. Sophia’s?”
I looked back at him for a moment and kept my features perfectly blank. “St. Sophia’s? Not really. Just, you know, studying.”
“They’re definitely St. Sophia’s appropriate,” I murmured, “but they aren’t exactly pretty.”
Okay, maybe I imagined it. Maybe I was tired, or the run-in with Sebastian had finally scrambled my brain.
But just as the words were out of my mouth, and before I’d taken another step forward, the gargoyle on the right-hand corner of the building tilted its head and stared down at me with an expression that was none too amused.
Frankly, he looked a little irritated.
My jaw dropped. I wasn’t sure if I was more surprised that he’d moved—or that he’d been offended because I didn’t think he was pretty.
Within the blink of an eye, he reassumed his position, and looked just the same as he had a moment ago.
Surely I hadn’t just imagined that?
On the other hand, I thought, walking toward the door again, stranger things had happened.
It was St. Sophia’s, after all.
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