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of the rest of the students. Then, quietly, he said, “It isn’t just Drew. It’s all of them. They hate me.”
    Damien motioned for him to follow him a little way off the path, then he stopped and said, “You knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
    “That is true. I just—” Rephaim stopped himself and shook his head. “No. It is simply true. I knew it would be a difficult thing for others to accept me.” He met Damien’s gaze. The fledgling looked haggard. Grief had aged him. His eyes were red and puffy. He’d lost the love of his life, yet here he was showing Rephaim kindness. “Thank you, Damien,” he said.
    Damien almost smiled. “For telling you this wouldn’t be easy?”
    “No, for showing me kindness.”
    “Stevie Rae is my friend. The kindness I show is for her.”
    “Then you are a remarkable friend,” Rephaim said.
    “If you really are the boy Stevie Rae thinks you are, you’ll find that when you’re on the side of the Goddess, you’ll make a lot of remarkable friends.”
    “I am on the side of the Goddess,” Rephaim said.
    “Rephaim, if I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t be helping you, no matter how much I care about Stevie Rae,” Damien said.
    Rephaim nodded. “That’s fair.”
    “Hey, Damien!” One of the red fledglings, an unusually small boy, hurried up to them, giving Rephaim a look, then adding a quick, “Hey, Rephaim.”
    “Hi, Ant,” Damien said.
    Rephaim nodded, uncomfortable with the whole greeting process.
    “I heard you had fencing this hour. Me, too!”
    “I do,” Damien said. “Rephaim and I were just—” He paused and Rephaim watched several emotions pass his face, ending with embarrassed. He sighed heavily before saying, “Um, Rephaim, Dragon Lankford is the fencing professor.”
    Then Rephaim understood.
    “That’s, uh, not good,” Ant said.
    “He may still be at the school Council Meeting,” Damien said hopefully.
    “I think it best that I stay here, whether Dragon is absent or not. If I come with you it will only cause…” Rephaim’s voice ran out because all he could think of were words like: chaos, trouble, and disaster.
    “Unpleasantness.” Damien filled in the silence for him. “It would probably cause unpleasantness. Maybe you should skip fencing for today.”
    “Sounds smart,” Ant said.
    “I’ll wait for you.” Rephaim motioned vaguely to the tree-filled area around them. They weren’t far from one of the school walls where, just inside the stone façade there was a particularly large oak under which sat a wrought iron bench. “I’ll be sitting there.”
    “Okay, I’ll come by and get you after class. The next hour is Spanish. Professor Garmy is nice. You’ll like her,” Damien said as he and Ant started toward the field house.
    Rephaim nodded and waved and made himself smile because Damien kept glancing worriedly over his shoulder at him. When the two fledglings were finally out of sight, Rephaim walked to the bench and sat heavily down.
    He was glad for the time alone, when he could be unguarded—could let his shoulders slump and not worry about having others stare at him. He felt like such an outlander! What had he been thinking when he’d said he wanted to be normal, to go to school like everyone else? He wasn’t like everyone else.
    But she loves me. Me. Just as I am, Rephaim reminded himself, and thinking it made him feel a little better—a little lighter of spirit.
    Then, because he was alone, he said it aloud.
    “I am Rephaim, and Stevie Rae loves me just the way I am.”
    “Rephaim! No!”
    The whispery, semi-human voice came from the branches of the oak. With a terrible sense of dread Rephaim looked up to see three Raven Mockers, three of his brothers, perched there staring down at him in shock and disbelief.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Zoey
    Okay, I know I’m a teenager and all, but I suck at using Skype. Actually, I’m kinda moronic about technology in general. Casting a circle—yep. Communing with any of the five