Even though I didn’t grow up in London, the city and I have an uncanny bond. When I walk the streets, unnoticed in my hat and sunglasses, I feel a sense of familiarity in places I’ve never stepped foot before.

When my mind gets too much for me to take, when the thoughts and theories become all too much, I just walk. I’ve convinced my mom, Bennett and the palace guards that not enough of the public know me. I get away with a disguise and a tracking device on my cell phone. My mom helped though, demanding that I needed my private time and space. She knows my secret. She knows how trapped inside my own brain I can get.

My feet brought me here, to the colorful row houses of Notting Hill. The simple beauty, the flowering plants and trees, washes over my anxious soul like a soothing balm. I’m faceless here, and I love it. The quiet elegance of London appeals to me, speaks to me in a way that no other place has. I’m finding more and more, with each open-air market or theater district I explore, that I was meant to find this city. Or, it was meant to find me.

Now that my head space is a little less cluttered, my thoughts carry back to a week ago in Paris.

When Eloise had drunkenly sauntered up to the bouncer, my insides had grown sick with dread. Where I came from, only people over twenty-one could even attempt to get into a place like that. The club was so exclusive that I couldn’t even see the front door, but she’d just kissed him on the cheek and shimmied inside. After some vouching by the others, I was let in too.

Let in on an experience I would have never had in a million years had my life not turned on a dime four months ago.

The music. The beat. The drinks. The luxury. The privilege.

It was an overload to my senses, trying to take it all in. The two drinks in my system had turned me silly, my limbs feeling fuzzy and happy.

Asher had approached me, first with his typical sullen attitude. And then he toppled me over, flashing that boyish, flirty grin in my direction. I hadn’t known what to do, what with the heat swamping low in my belly and my fingers twitching to reach out and feel the gesture on his face.

The way his hands had engulfed my hips, moving them in slow circles exactly how he wanted me. Even now, heat creeps down my neck and races down my spine, making me itch for … something.

I’ve never felt the way Asher made me feel that night on the dance floor. Like my insides would burn me alive if he didn’t touch me. Like the beat would swallow me whole if he removed his hands from my body, if he stopped the slow circle of his hips into my back. When he’d laid his lips on my neck, just skimming the surface, I thought I would combust from the flames licking up my core.

Not realizing how far I’ve walked until I reach the tube station fully on the other side of the district I’d intended to stay within, I look around me. No one is able to read my thoughts, obviously, but I blush all the same.

I shouldn’t want him. I shouldn’t have let him get that close. The one thing I know for sure about Asher Frederick is that he is no good. And I also know that if I let him in, he could be the one boy who would really be able to ruin me.

* * *

“And pencils down!” Professor Mullins wraps hard on her desk with a ruler, her favorite method of getting her point across.

My pencil has been down for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, so I’ve been watching my classmates as they struggle through the pop quiz in Advanced Math Theory. No one seems to be looking back at me except for Asher, who surprisingly transferred into this class four days ago. And simultaneously kicked whoever was sitting behind me out of their seat so that he could take the spot. I could feel his eyes on my back, looking over my shoulder.

His presence unnerved me, but not to the point where I couldn’t ace the course. Math, along with almost every subject, had just always made sense to me. You solved a problem to find the answer. It was simple, no emotions or symbolism clouding it.

“Okay, now please pass your papers to the right of you, and you will grade that person’s quiz. No cheating, or it will be off to the headmaster’s office for you.” Her thick Scottish accent was intimidating enough, not to mention her indomitable height.

I went to hand my paper to the petite blond girl sitting to my right, when it was grabbed out of my hand.

“Emma, you take mine, I’ll take Nora’s.” I turned to see Asher wink at me, and my blood boiled.

“You’re going to get us in trouble. Give it back.” I sounded like a twelve-year-old.

“Don’t worry, Mullins loves me. And besides, I need to see just how smart you are, princess. Can’t have a bampot in our inner circle.”

Fuming, I face forward and focused on the paper that had been set down on my desk. Thus far, no one at Winston knows or has even guessed at my abilities, and I would like to keep it that way. Maybe everyone else had an easy time with the test too, and my correct answers would go unnoticed to Asher.

My hands were beginning to sweat.

“First question …” Professor Mullins review drowns out behind the whooshing in my ears as my blood pressure skyrockets.

The hairs on my arms stand up as I hear groans and grunts of frustration around the room. Every kid beside me knows they got the first problem, and then the second problem, and so on, wrong … meanwhile I take a red pen through the quiz in front of me knowing that I’ve answered each one correctly so far.

“Hmm …” The sound comes from behind me, and I’m too scared to turn and see the look on Asher’s face.

Ten minutes pass as we grade the quizzes, and when we pass them all back, I hear more grunts of failure. My test comes floating in over my shoulder, he couldn’t even be mature enough to hand it to me. Each problem has a big red check mark next to it, my answers all completely right. He doesn’t write any sarcastic remark or even leave me a smiley face, but I feel the curious glance at my back.

“Maybe you should all be studying harder rather than attending parties and the theater.” She gives the room a stern glance. “Who got more than two correct?”

A couple people raise their hands, and so do I, since I still blend in with the crowd.

“And more than five?”

Two of my fellow students put their hands down, but six still remain so I play along too. My heartbeat is in my throat, not knowing when to hedge my bets and lower my arm.

“How about seven correct, anyone get that?”

I play it safe and place my hand back on my desk, my palm sweaty and my thoughts racing. As long as I appear normal, nameless and just one of the crowd, I’m fine. I’ve spent years of my life hiding my gift, attempting to blend in as just another high school student.

No one’s hand is up now, and Mullins makes a clicking sound with her tongue.

“Uh, wait Professor, it seems we have a modest student among us.”

I wish a big black hole would open under my desk and swallow me up as Asher opens his big blabbering, enticing lips.

“It seems that Nora here solved all of the problems correctly.”

And he’s outed me, without even batting an eyelash. When I turn around, my stink eye in full force, he’s leaning back in his chair with his long legs crossed hanging out into the aisle. Those green eyes flash with victory, and his strong jaw tics upward with a smarmy grin.

“Well, Miss Randolph, is that true? Why not share it with us? Your classmates could use a little friendly competition, well done.” Professor Mullins tips her beakish nose at me and shares that night’s homework, before dismissing the class for the day.

But no one is listening. All around me, stares ranging from mysticism to jealousy are targeted right at my body. The looks of wonder, the distaste, the annoyance … I’m all too familiar with it. When people find out just what I am, their whole opinion of me changes, the way they regard me flips in an instant. My heart drops, knowing that I no longer have my shield of normality.

As everyone gets up to leave, the silence is broken and they begin to walk out with friends or chat in groups. I take my time, collecting my books slowly and waiting until I’m the last person to walk out.

“So, you didn’t want to let anyone in on the fact that you’re a genius?”

His accent hits my ears as I’m halfway down the hall, and I can’t help but shrink even more into myself. My feet keep moving, ignoring the fact that he’s gaining on me.

“Nora, don’t take it so personally, there are a lot of smart kids here. We’ll still think of you as the commoner, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Asher’s sarcastic jabs only succeed in making me cringe more, because these are labels I’ve never wanted to carry. Turning swiftly around the corner, I head up the wood-paneled main entrance hall and straight for the doors leading to the courtyard. I have to get out of here.

But before my hand can push the door open, fingers lock around my elbow. “Bloody Christ, would you just wait?”

“Get off of me!” I swat his hand away, tears threatening to spill.

Shit, crying in front of this guy is the last thing I need, but he’s pushing every button that lights up my anxiety meter.

“I was just joking.” Asher shrugs as if he hasn’t just cut me off at my knees. It’s ridiculous how he fills out the uniform that every other male in this school seems to fade into the background in. I try not to notice.

Rage burns through every pore. “You were just joking? Do you have any idea what you just did? As if it’s not bad enough I’m the new kid, that people gossip about me every day for being the new gold digging queen’s bastard daughter, you have to go and expose my abilities to them? Who gave you that right? You could have kept your mouth shut, done me a solid, helped someone out for once in your pathetic, spoiled life. But you couldn’t do that, right, Asher? Manipulation and one-upping is the name of your game, and I shouldn’t forget that. Thanks for revealing your true colors, I’ll remember them next time.”

Halfway through my meltdown, he actually has the decency to look truly stricken. But I don’t stay to listen to any bullshit explanations.

My brain has already extended itself enough today, and I feel a migraine coming on. I retreat before the full attack pulls me into its dark abyss, too paranoid to let Asher see another one of my differences.