Chapter 41
The trouble started small, the way most trouble did.
Luca was walking back from the library one afternoon, arms full of borrowed textbooks, when he bumped shoulders with a tall, broad student named Marcus near the courtyard steps. It was nothing, really, an accident, the kind of small collision that happened a dozen times a day on a crowded campus.
"Watch where you're going," Marcus snapped, shoving Luca hard enough that two of his books tumbled to the ground.
"Sorry," Luca muttered automatically, crouching to gather his fallen books, keeping his head down the way he always did when confronted by someone bigger, someone louder.
"Sorry doesn't fix my shoe," Marcus said, gesturing to a small smudge on his boot that Luca could not even see. "You think you can just knock into p
