❝you know, you're pretty cute, considering you're 4,000 years old.❞
❝thank you?❞
luna clair loves museums. she loves history, mythology, all that old shit. so when her best friend's dad gets a new job as the night guard of the new york national hist...
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CHAPTER ONE
❝The moon will guide you through the night with her brightness, but she will always dwell in the darkness, in order to be seen.❞
Shannon L. Alder
✦✧✦
For most people, studying is a chore. It's something they force themselves to do, late at night, when the press of an early-morning deadline weighs on them. Something that requires a few cups of coffee, Wikipedia, and the promise of sleep at the end of a long essay.
But it is not this way for Luna Clair. There's nowhere else she'd rather be than sitting here, at her best friend's kitchen island, books strewn across the counter, an earbud in each of their ears playing the soundtrack to West Side Story. She knows it's silly, but she adores the scene in front of her: ten library books on Ancient Egypt, each open in front of her; a steaming cup of hot tea; and her color-organized highlighters and pens poking out of their case. This is perfect to her.
Most of her teachers are convinced that she's the single thing that has kept Nicky Daley in school, since it's apparent that they're best friends, but this isn't true. In fact, Nicky's incredibly smart-maybe even smarter than Luna-but he just hates studying. So Luna gets him to study with her, and then afterward, she lets him drag her into some ridiculous war video game. It's a happy compromise: Luna gets the good grades she always wants, Nicky gets to play Call of Duty, and they get to enjoy each other's company.
It's during one of their regular study dates that everything changes. Luna's rewriting her history notes, Nicky's muttering the words to "Something's Coming" and doodling on the corner of his own notes, and snow is fluttering down outside the window behind them.
"Okay." Luna sets down her pen and looks up at her best friend. "The Nile River is how many miles long?"
Nicky chews on his lip, trying his best not to look at the answer beside him. "Um... 3,690?"
"You're really close. It's the world's longest river, at a whopping 4,160 miles long."
"Why in the world does the public school system find this valuable information?" Nicky asks to nothing in particular, gesturing feebly at the textbook open beside him. "I mean, I don't know how to do taxes or buy a house, but I know how long the Nile River is, so I'm set for life!"
"It's school, Nicky." Luna sips her tea, eyebrows raised. "It's designed to keep you in line, not teach you valuable information. Getting smarter is your job." It boggles her mind how most people don't love to learn. Or that it's possible to dislike musicals.
