Page 136 of The Blairville Legacies

It had gone quiet, so I looked around.

My heart finally stopped as I froze into a pillar of ice. I stared into the center of the courtyard and a heavy shiver ran down my spine that I wished for nothing more than tofinallywake up.

“What in the world is going on here?!” a man’s voice rang out.

Professor Copeland had now entered the courtyard as well.

He looked first at the girls, then at Nash’s buddies, and then at the man-sized brown wolf in the middle of the courtyard, who bared his teeth greedily and turned with yellow-glowing eyes... toward me.

Chapter 32

Julie

Just a moment ago, I had expected that this day could not become worse, because the Senseque had been on the verge of tearing us into pieces. Now, Bayla Adams, a human with eyes wide open, was standing in front of us. And worst of all, in front ofEmely.

I didn’t know how much she had witnessed, which of course complicated the situation even more.

We all knew theoretically what to do, butno onemoved.

The first person to get moving was Emely Copeland. Or rather, it was the majestic wolf with the thick brown fur in the middle of the overgrown courtyard.

Until today, I had never witnessed such a transformation, but the sight of Emely a few seconds ago had made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Her body had deformed strangely, and she had fallen to her knees, her eyes still glowing. Grace had reflexively pulled me even further back, partially blocking my view of her transformation.

But for once, the Copelands werenotthe main problem, even though they hadonce againcaused quite a bit of trouble and their behavior would not only have consequences on our kinds’part, I recognized that in Professor Copeland’s eyes. Their Alpha would confront them all for it. More than that...

My eyes fell on the main problem:Bayla.

The professor, who had just joined all the others, stood motionless and stared at her. Then he turned to the wolf in the center of the courtyard.

“Emely...” he began quietly, standing wide-legged and now focused entirely on his niece.

“Emely?!” Bayla gasped in a shaky voice.

She sounded like me in seventh grade, when I’d had to sing that stupid weather song on stage in front of the whole school, which Vivienna had forced me to do because otherwise, she would have told Aunt Amara how I’d gotten a scared white cat out of a tree with my powers. Powers I should not have had back then.

The difference was that Bayla was anon-knowing, ahuman. And what she had just witnessed was pure poison to her existence.

Emely had been distracted by Professor Copeland, but now she turned her head alarmingly slowly, and then her entire wolf form, to Bay.

This was definitely too much, as Bayla turned and ran at speed toward the small passageway, almost into Nash, who dodged to the side instead of getting in her way, and finally disappeared from our field of vision.

The giant wolf, or rather Emely, wanted to go after her, but she had not made that calculation with Professor Copeland, nor with Julian.

Both were supernaturally fast in front of her. They completely blocked her way out of the courtyard and received an aggressive growl in return. Emely’s eyes blazed, and she bared her fangs.

“Emely...” the professor tried again.

I wasn’t exactly comfortable being here because at any second, we could have become food for the wolves. Suddenly, I realized that we were studyingright on the wolves’ platter.

A buzz sounded from the middle of the courtyard and my heart stopped.My cell phone.I had to have lost it somehow.

Another buzz sounded.

Erik. The guy I had actually been expecting to see in the biochemistry seminar this morning. To my disappointment, this Erik was really just a boring guy whose parents spent their afternoons on the golf field near the harbor, and when I had gathered up all my courage and asked him about his hobbies, he had spent the whole lecture raving about his chess tournaments and theworld debating championship, thereby robbing me of any chance of hope.

That definitely hadn’t been Erik.No one herewas Erik, and yet he could be anywhere. What I knew now, at least, was that he was using a pseudonym, just like me.

I could ask him, of course, but then, sooner or later, he would squeeze all the information out of me, too, and he would certainly find me faster than I would find him. So, I stood there with nothing except a false name and information about his hobbies. Slowly, I realized that in the whole attempt to remain a mystery, I had stumbled upon arealmystery.