Chapter 1

Hayley Donovan could name at least a million places she'd rather be than where she was at the moment. Like at the bottom of a burning pit in some obscure corner of Hell to name one. It had been years since she'd done the whole first-day-at-a-new-school-thing, but she could say without a doubt that it sucked just as much as she remembered. Maybe even more than she remembered. At least back in elementary school she'd already known most of the kids in her class and didn't have to worry about being stared at.

But, then again, I don't really have to worry about being stared at now, either. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and focused on keeping the spell strong. She couldn't afford any cracks in her wall. Especially not now that she was well and truly on her own.

But Hayley hadn't spent the last 5 of her 17 years being trained in magic for nothing. She was confident that she could handle this simple "invisibility" spell on her own. Unfortunately, the spell wouldn't make her that walk-through-walls ghostly invisible. Instead, it would give her the nobody-notices-you invisible that plenty of new students in the history of new student-ism would've killed for.

When she felt that she had made the spell as strong as possible, she opened her eyes, took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the classroom. Grabbing a copy of the syllabus from the corner of the teacher's desk on her way, she hastened to the only empty seat in the back of the room. As she skimmed the syllabus, she thanked the gods that her grandmother had given her such a thorough education. At least she wouldn't have to worry too much about the workload for the class since she'd already read every book on the list.

When her grandmother's lawyer first told her that she would be attending boarding school after her grandmother's death, she'd worried that she would be behind in class. A school with tuition as outrageously high as she knew this one was must be a hell of a good school, right? Then Hayley thought about the antiques and expensive paintings she saw in the hallways, the 75 acres of freshly manicured lawns, and the ornate architecture. The tuition was clearly being put to some use. Whether or not it was being put to good use had yet to be determined.

She had to admit, though, it was a gorgeous campus. What Hayley enjoyed most about Crestwood Preparatory Academy was the fact that it sat right on the coast of the Pacific. Hayley had loved the beach for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, her family used to make the forty-five minute drive from southern Houston to Galveston to spend a couple of weeks on the beach every summer. The only problem with Crestwood was that was the water of the Pacific was a bluish-green instead of the brownish color she was familiar with from the Gulf of Mexico. Call her biased, but Hayley thought brown water had a lot more character. Blue water was so predictable. Who wants water that they can see through? Where's the mystery in that?

She laid down the syllabus and scanned the room. Since when is cloning legal? Everybody in this damn school looks exactly the same. Seeing the students in their pastel polos with popped collars, Hayley was grateful she'd remembered to cast her invisibility spell this morning before leaving her room. Being able to move through this new school without gaining the curious stares of her classmates was yet another thing for which she was indebted to her grandmother. For some reason, she seriously doubted the fact that her style leaned more towards gypsy and less towards Abercrombie model would be her ticket to popularity.

He noticed her as soon as she walked into the room. She was obviously new. He'd remember if he'd seen someone her sometime within the past 5 years that he'd been at the school. And yet she walked into the classroom—fifteen minutes late, mind you —and acted as though she had been doing it everyday for years.

Aidan's gaze followed her as, without even a glance at the teacher or a word of apology for interrupting, she walked to the back of the classroom. Remembering his first day at Crestwood, he was surprised by how uninterested the class seemed to be at her arrival. As a matter of fact, he realized with a quick scrutiny of his classmates that no one but him seemed to notice her at all.

What the hell? How come nobody has even looked at her? We haven't had a new student in our class for years; you'd think these people would be a little more interested.