Not knowing what was going on with it drove me nuts. I focused on keeping an eye open for Seb’s tainted cross instead. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I found it – call Father Will, I supposed.

It wasn’t really my business. A tainted cross was for angels and priests to deal with, not Asgardians. But still, I could keep an eye open. It was all part of the same thing. Protecting people. Working with them. Tolerance?

Maybe. Maybe that was part of it. But I remembered the angel and shivered. He had been the scariest entity I’d encountered, counting demon lords. That cold strength bothered me. Disturbed me deeply. But Father Will wasn’t like that.

It probably just had something to do with all the rules they had to follow, or something like that. The Christian religion had a lot of them, and maybe angels had even more. That was why so many of them had ended up demons, after all.

Of course, I was having this conversation with myself in English class.

“Ms. Doe?”

I should make them change my name on the roster. Maybe they wouldn’t, even if I couldn’t fix it legally until I was eighteen. “Uh,” I said helpfully.

“Have you read today’s chapters?”

I actually had, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you can tell me why Tess was in so much disgrace.”

“Because women back then weren’t supposed to have sex before marriage, and the circumstances didn’t matter.”

“Close enough, but you can write me three paragraphs on that by tomorrow.”

Which wasn’t a full essay, but it was bad enough. I really needed to remember to pay attention in class. Instead of hoping that nothing bad would happen to disturb class. Something almost always did, though.

I shook my head, but she’d moved on to another victim. I started making notes for those three paragraphs. Which were on top of an essay about tragedy and how it differed in different periods of society.

“At least they aren’t making us read Hardy’s poetry,” Kanesha whispered as we left.

“Oh?”

“I read some of it. It’s basically distilled suicide.”

I shuddered. “I’ll stay away from it, then.” I had enough angst in my life without adding to it with poetry or anything else. The book was bad enough.