Page 35 of A University of Betrayal

“He was a goddamn child, just like you were a stupid girl who seduced my son! If I had known... That could have changed so much!” Gloria looked at me again, as if she was thinking about something that pained her.

The door burst open again and a pretty, stern-looking red-haired woman in a light gray robe entered.

“The Councils expect a statement,” she said harshly, before looking to Bayla and her mother. “And you two will be escorted home.”

Gloria turned and eyed Bayla, who looked unsettled and rose when her mother did.

“Diana, we’ll be in touch as soon as the ceremony can be made up,” Gloria growled, unimpressed, and then turned to the red-haired woman. “Rebecca, inform the members that a statement will be made at midnight. From me personally!”

The woman nodded and then disappeared with the Adams.

The two most influential Quatura families of Blairville were left behind, divided and yet somehow united... byme.And suddenly I was the center of attention. A place where I was at Gloria’s mercy. I knew this was going to be a long evening. And I didn’t know if I would get through it without breaking down inside.

Chapter 9

Bayla

Swept

Jay Varton

My head was full of questions. So many unanswered questions, from which I could now build a dusty collection.

Just barely, by a hair’s breadth, Julie Blair had saved me from this diabolical ritual and her cousin from her first murder... and had thrown the whole Circle into turmoil.

The red-haired Madame had brought us back, so we hadn’t noticed anything else. She and my mother had been silent the whole ride, forcing me to listen to Oliver Bexley forecasting more storms and a late winter for the next few weeks, before the Madam had turned off the radio.

This silence was clearly due to recent events in Moenia. And,for heaven’s sake,Julie’s skin was the last one I wanted to be in.

I stood in the kitchen at the countertop, where Mum had begun hastily clearing out the sink. A little too hastily. She was behaving strangely again, but this time that wouldn’t stop me from asking questions. I wanted to know what was going on.

“Mum...” She turned to me as if I’d told her I’d taken drugs. Something she’d written her dissertation on. Just bringing the subject up caused heated discussions, and I was sure it was one of the reasons why the relationship between her and my best – still missing, by the way – friend was so fraught with tension.

“Yes, my darling?” she said as if I had snapped her out of a daydream. Her face was as white as a sheet of paper.

“Julie’s powers... Are they special? I mean, you only told me about four elements...” Mum stared at me. “I mean, there might be exceptions. Mixtures...”

I fiddled with my blue crystal necklace, which I had put back on as soon as the Madame had disappeared. The pointed crystal of those witches had hurt, and so I had banished it to my brown leather backpack.

Mum’s gaze relaxed a little, and she folded the wipe in her shaky hands.

“Indeed. There are particularities. Just not like this.” She reached for the glasses on the worktop and put them in the dishwasher. “There are four elements, just as I explained to you, and no, there’s no mixing. That’s impossible.”

“But she has...”

“Julie has, for whatever reason, inherited her father’s magic. That can happen with strong bloodlines. But it’s rare, and since male Quatura don’t walk around everywhere, it’s very special.”

“How rare is Julie’s gift?” I asked.

“There was supposedly a Blair in 1880 who inherited her father’s gift, but that’s all I know about it. Anyway, it was a common element. Not like this one.”

“And the whole drama was only because Julie and the other woman, her mother, hid it?”

It seemed strange to me that you were apparently obliged to reveal something like that, even if you wanted nothing to do with the whole mess. But Julie also seemed to have a problem controlling this element, otherwise it wouldn’t have been revealed this way – at a ritual with so many crazy hooded satanists.

Even though my mother was one of them, I tried to mentally separate her from this sect, which I was becoming less and less successful at doing.

And even though I had scrubbed it directly off in Moenia, I could still feel the dirt on my forehead. And this time it had felt likerealblood again.