She needed to find him before he returned to Ruthven’s so she could tell him she had just spotted the New Blood from the park. As she wound through a stand of stalagmites, she heard Jules’s voice coming from up ahead. Rounding a cone-shaped rock, she spotted him standing next to one of the great columns that supported the roof of the grotto, looking up toward the ceiling. “Praise the Founders I found you,” she said as she hurried toward him. “Hi there, Lili,” he said, turning to greet her. “I was just talking to my cousin,” he explained, pointing upward. Lilith raised her eyes and found herself staring up at Xander Orlock. Jules’s cousin was clinging to the side of the column like a lizard on a garden wall. “Uh, yeah. Hi, Exo,” Lilith said, fighting back a grimace as she looked into his face. Unlike the majority of students who attended Ruthven’s and Bathory, Xander did not use any kind of artificial tanning agent on his skin. His complexion was so pale it was actually translucent, giving him a slightly bluish cast.
