“I think she just…finds comparison uncomfortable.” I shrug, like it doesn’t matter knowing how offended she’d be if anyone linked us so easily.
A locked vault isn’t supposed to resemble an open door.
“Well, you should try and join Visio Aternae if you’re planning on sticking around this semester. It’s Professor Dupont’s baby, and he always favors students who enlist. Could help your current standing as his class punching bag.”
“Visio Aternae?”
Meg gives me a slow once-over. “Man, it’s a good thing you’re pretty. Maybe that’ll save you.”
Embarrassment scalds my face.
Students have started filtering into the class, and as one drops into a seat in front of us, horror etches into his alabaster face. “Are you suggesting Professor Dupont can be bribed, Meghan?”
“Well, it neverhurts. Pretty privilege is a real thing, you know.”
Lexington slides in next to the other student, slinging his backpack onto the floor. “And I’ve got it in spades, let me tell you.”
“Ohbrother,” Meg mutters.
“He’s not wrong,” the first guy agrees.
“I didn’t say he was wrong,” Meg says. “Just annoying.”
“Technically, you didn’t say that either.” Lexington looks at me, his blue eyes sparkling. “Noelle, good to see you again. Glad Professor Prodigy hasn’t run you off yet.”
“It’s Just Elle,” Meg tells him, twisting her arm around to reach into the bag hanging on the back of her wheelchair. She digs out a purple pen with a fuzzy top, handing it over to the other guy. “This is Percy, by the way, since apparently these two have no manners and can’t introduce themselves.”
“I’m still trying to process your gross mischaracterization of our professor,” Percy replies, shuddering. “Reducing a man’s hard work down to the potential for scandalous behavior seems trite, don’t you think?”
“Don’t worry,” someone else adds, a voice from a few rows up. “No one’s accusingyouof being able to sway the professor, Perciville.”
“Nobody asked you to listen in, Sabrina,” Percy says, blushing as he glares at the girl with dirty-blond hair seated in front of him.
Her suntanned skin is visible through the geometric cutouts of her white blouse, and her dark eyes are hard as they landon me. “As an important Visio Aternae member and Professor Dupont’s former TA, it’s my duty to ensure his name isn’t being slandered by randos who’ve decided to plop down in one of his classes out of nowhere.”
“Why is a former TA in an introductory acting class?” I ask, cocking my head to the side. “Shouldn’t you have advanced?”
“It’s a refresher course—not that I’d expect an old hag like you to understand.”
I make a face. “I’m twenty-five.”
“My points stands.” Sabrina juts her chin into the air. “What’s a supposed rising starlet doing in this class? Couldn’t hack it in Hollywood, so you decided to actually learn how to act?”
Jeez.I may not have been onThe Delphic Pages, but clearly someone’s been talking.
Shaking my head, I let out a perplexed laugh and refocus on the nicer people sitting around me. “So does everyone know who I am then?”
“You made friends with the nosiest group in the country and fought with the professor on the first day,” Sabrina replies even though it wasn’t directed at her. “Doesn’t seem like you were trying all that hard to keep a low profile.”
“I resent that,” Meg says. “Implying we’re worse than Pythia is categorically untrue.”
“You’re gossipmongers, Meg. Let’s be real here.”
“We only gather pertinent information and discuss it among ourselves.”
“Is that why you got caught searching through Professor Dupont’s garbage in the fall?”
My eyebrows raise as I glance at Meg. “Stalker behavior. I like it.”
