The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber Page B

ways, heading in separate directions down the academy’s various halls. Marianna strolled off to a composition class, and Percy became nervous. The very name Mathematical and Alchemical Studies sounded both exotic and threatening, a true barrier to what she imagined would otherwise be effortless study here.
    It was hard enough to ignore the murmurs of the living, let alone those of the dead, who also sprinkled the school grounds. Percy heard everything, despite attempting to hide beneath her numerous accoutrements as she crossed thecourtyard. Living students wondered if she was a ghost haunting the academy, while the dead wondered the same. She prayed to someday grow accustomed to this trial.
    Alongside her, nineteen other students shuffled into a chamber that looked more like the nave of a gothic church than a classroom. It was filled with long tables, lined with stone beams and bordered by stained-glass windows of mythical creatures.
    Sitting near the back, Percy tried to become invisible. However, pale as she was, transparency was impossible. She wished she could join those around her, the dead floating through the walls. Some spirits paid avid attention to the assembling class; some simply hung in a wandering breeze; while others chattered softly about the woes that tethered them to this world.
    Percy began to curse inwardly. She denounced the gift that alienated her from both populaces; she cursed her ability to see and hear those she more closely resembled, and also her kinship to the living who would never understand the strange sights that her eyes now found commonplace. It was as if she watched distant members of her family on both sides, but through windows that precluded her from joining them. Yet the family could not be ignored; there was always noise to keep them in mind.
    A door burst open, and the assembled company, ghosts included, started. Out from an office at the front of the room strode a tall figure in black, and the ensuing silence was deafening.
    The newcomer turned to face his students. Percy’s breath caught. Here stood the most striking man she had ever seen. Lustrous dark hair hung loosely to broad shoulders. A few locks turned out in an unkempt manner contrary to the rest of his appearance, while a few strands clung to his noble, chiseled features—a long nose, high cheekbones, defined lips like a Grecian sculpture and impossibly dark eyes. He was dressed in a long professorial robe that hung open over asmartly buttoned velvet vest, and a crimson cravat at the throat was the only colour this distinguished figure sported.
    Percy gaped a moment before coming to her senses and shutting her mouth, her face growing hot. The professor’s hair was not greying, yet a few creases upon his regal forehead betrayed years of deep thought. Percy guessed that he might be twice her own eighteen years—and yet, as she looked around, she found her male peers plain and unremarkable in comparison.
    She felt a pang of recognition, too, that bothered her greatly. Percy would never have forgotten seeing such a man. And there was something in his personality, in his commanding presence, which was beyond the limits of mortality.
    As the two other females in the room appeared wholly unaffected, Percy ordered her heart to stop racing; its intoxicated pace was alarming, and she chided herself for such a foolish, hasty spark. Nonetheless, her distaste for science suddenly seemed an extraordinary misfortune, as she hated the thought of doing poorly in a class taught by someone so breathtaking.
    The newcomer wrote a name upon the board in scrawling script. His voice took hold of his audience, a richly resonant, unparalleled baritone. “I am Professor Rychman. Welcome to my class.”
    He swept the room with his eyes, coolly evaluating his new students. When his gaze found Percy, it lingered. Caught in that stare, she shrank into her chair.
    Though his eyes widened, she could see him make an effort to remain polite. After a