《The Academy’s Most Underestimated Student》全部章節：第 1 章 - 第 5 章

I ran after him. “Hey!” I shoved through two people carrying grocery bags, my sneakers slapping the wet pavement. “That’s mine, you absolute—” He cut left into the alley behind Denny’s Pharmacy. Mistake. I knew that alley better than he did. Dead end, dumpster, a fence with a gap just wide enough for someone my size. Not his. I caught him right as he hit the fence, both hands fumbling with the wire, my bag still looped over his shoulder like he actually thought he was getting away with it. “Give it back,” I said. “Back off, kid.” “I’m nineteen. And that bag has my rent money in it, so no.” He turned around swinging. I’d love to tell you I saw it coming because I’m skilled, or trained, or secretly a genius at reading body language. Truth is, he telegraphed it so hard a blind man could’ve dodged it. I stepped inside the punch instead of away from it, drove my elbow into his ribs, and grabbed the strap of my bag while he was busy remembering how to breathe. “Thanks,” I said, and

Registration was a folding table set up in a hallway that could’ve swallowed my entire apartment building, staffed by a woman with antlers and a clipboard who didn’t look up when I approached.“Name.”“Mia Callahan.”She looked up.Not fast, not dramatic, just a flick of her eyes to my face and then down to whatever list she was holding, and I could see her expression change. I’d gotten good at reading that look over the last day. It meant she’d found my name and understood what it meant that I was standing there.“Human,” she said.“Last time I checked.”“House assignment’s already flagged. Special candidate.” She said the words like they tasted bad. “You’re in Vale House. Dorm building’s east side, room 214.”“Great, thanks.”“Physical evaluation’s still pending review,” she added, not looking at me anymore. “Some professors think the waiver should be revoked. You’ll want to keep your head down.”I didn’t have anything good to say to that, so I grabbed my room key and left before sh

Sandra was waiting on my bed when I got back to the room, sitting cross-legged with a mug of something that steamed purple, and she took one look at my face before I’d even shut the door.“Okay,” she said. “Tell me everything, and don’t skip the part where Ronan Kade apparently carried you across a battlefield.”“He didn’t carry me anywhere.”“That’s not what I heard. Three different people already told me three different versions, and in one of them you punched the chimera.”“I threw a rock at it.”“See, that’s so much less impressive than the story that’s currently going around campus, and I need you to understand that as your roommate, it’s my sacred duty to make sure the better version survives.” She patted the space beside her. “Sit. Talk. Tell me what happened.”I sat.I told her most of it. The chimera, Ronan getting hurt, throwing the rock, but left out the part that mattered most, the crack in the stone that hadn’t come from anything either of us did. I told myself I wasn’t l