The Golden Lily (Bloodlines, #2)

by Richelle Mead

“I like that he’s smart,” I said. “I like that I don’t have to dumb myself down around him.” Now Adrian frowned. “You do that a lot for people?” I was surprised at the bitterness in my own laugh. “‘A lot?’ Try all the time. Probably the most important thing I’ve learned at Amberwood is that people don’t like to know how much you know. With Brayden, there’s no censoring for either of us. I mean, just look at this morning. One minute we were talking Halloween costumes, the next we were discussing the ancient Athenian origins of democracy.” “I’m not going to claim to be a genius, but how the hell did you make that leap?” “Oh,” I said. “Our Halloween costumes. We’re dressing Greek. From the Athenian era.” “Of course,” he said. And this time, I could tell the snark was about to return. “No sexy cat costumes for you. Only the most dignified, feminist attire will do.” I shook my head. “Feminist? Oh, no. Not Athenian women. They’re about as far from feminist as you can—well, forget it. It’s not really important.” Adrian did a double take. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He leaned toward me, and I nearly moved back… but something held me where I was, something about the intensity in his eyes. “What?” I asked. He pointed at me. “You stopped yourself just now. You just dumbed it down for me.” I hesitated only a moment. “Yeah, I kind of did.” “Why?” “Because you really don’t want to hear about ancient Athens, any more than you wanted to hear Brayden talk about Chaos Theory.” “That’s different,...