Page 78 of A University of Betrayal

Now, I still had mixed feelings about Larissa. I didn’t know what to do, I was powerless, as so often.

Before I could say anything, Grace pulled me back again.

“We can’t help you.”

“But...” Larissa tried to protest, but Grace wouldn’t let her finish.

“And above all, we can’t be friends anymore.”

I realized how this sentence gave Larissa the hardest slap. She stared at Grace in bewilderment, then at me.

I was indeed a bad friend, would never be one of the good ones. It was already hard for me to be there for Grace.

Then my cousin pulled me away, further and further across the campus, until we disappeared around a corner into a corridor and suddenly, we both found ourselves in front of an open Gothic arched window that looked out onto one of the university’s countless courtyards. The corridor was deserted.

Grace didn’t look at me. She inhaled deeply before expelling the air in a gush.

“God,what was that?” Grace laughed with irony, and I had problems interpreting it. “I’ve never spoken to a Ruisangor before. If I’d known she had the gene...”

“You’re exaggerating,” I said dryly, hating myself for the tone. That also came from the Salma. At least I wasn’t shaking like I had been since leaving Moenia.

“What?” Grace looked at me with widened eyes.

“I said you’re overdoing it. She’s stillLarissa.We should be glad she survived it.”

“Every Ruisangor is one too many,” she began in a firm voice. “But you don’t care about the Circle anyway, do you? I mean, why else would you hide your powers from your family and blow up your own cousin’s first ceremony?”

Ouch.

“Family...” I laughed, surprised at the confidence in my voice. Maybe I should take a double dose more often. It didn’t seem to do any harm.

If she’d told me that this morning, I probably would have cried, because everything inside me was still in shattered pieces of sharp shards, and every day they dug deeper into me.

“Weare your family, Julie.Usand not the Westcodes!”

Grace’s voice was louder now.

I bit my tongue.

Simply that she assumed these people could ever qualify as family to me showed me how well she really knew me. And then a far more uncomfortable question popped into my head. Had Grace ever made me feel like she was family? Did I even know what that felt like, having someone that cared?

“What you did there wassotypical of you. If there’s one way to make my day harder, you grab that opportunity.”

I looked at her, stunned. “That’s not true.”

“Andhowtrue it is!” There was a green sparkle in her usually brown eyes. She was emotional. Added to that was the rising fall wind sweeping through her corkscrew curls. “One could almost think you were her daughter! Anyway, now it makes sense why you’re so cold sometimes!”

I winced.

This time it had really hit home.

She was comparing me to her. ToGloria Westcode.

“How long have we known each other by now? I can hardly believe we grew up together.” She snorted and turned away from me. Tensely, she leaned on the stone ledge of the window and stared at the statue of an unknown goddess in the courtyard, holding up a scepter. “I’m beginning to feel like I don’t even know my own cousin.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Grace’s words had hit the mark.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. A storm seemed to be brewing. The sky darkened, and a shadow fell over Grace’s face. It was as if we had made the gods angry.Ihad made the gods angry.