Page 314 of The Blairville Legacies

Bastien seemed to be struggling for temper. “Amara... you don't understand.”

“Bastien, that's enough. She's one of us!” Diana told him and straightened up. She wiped away her tears, which had something childlike and fragile about it. “I want Amara to take care of her!Here!In my house!”

“But in Moenia...” Amara began, but Diana interrupted her with unexpected assertiveness.

“If you don't want a war, then you should bring her tomy house. I think everyone here knows that the death of my daughter would mean chaos, and by the time she is somewhere else, it may be too late!”

I hardly recognized Ms. Adams. She immediately seemed less fragile, more stubborn, and superior.

“We should take her into the house,” Alarik finally said, taking Bayla out of Bastien’s arms, not without their eyes meeting for a moment. They were not hostile, as I would have expected, but scrutinizing, cautious.

And then something happened that no one had expected. Bayla's body began to tremble. Slightly at first, then stronger.

“What's happening to her?” Emely asked, and for the first time, there was fear in her voice.

“Something's wrong...” Amara finally said and began to whisper something I didn't understand. She put a hand on Bayla's forehead, which was now filled with beads of sweat.

Bayla's body vibrated and vibrated, then a deafening rumble of thunder sounded above our heads, and lightning flashed across the city.

“What the...” Mia gasped, and I pulled her to me.

The ground began to shake slightly, and the storm above us thundered powerfully, almost threateningly. The wind swept thousands of leaves into the air, blew away Emely’s jacket and shook the facades of the house.

Then it started to rain.

This damn storm...

To make matters worse, countless disturbed ravens shot over our heads and... formed a circular formation.

I watched in shock as the noisy animals grew in number, but no one around seemed to notice.

“Amara, what about the girl?” Alarik asked aloud, because the thunder was ear-splitting.

Something dark was settling over the city at that very moment. It had started a few weeks ago whenshehad come here, but I had suppressed that uneasy feeling in the back of my neck day after day. Bayla was the trigger for something in this city, the key to a lock. Her appearance had set something in motion, and a deep, knowing feeling made its way into my consciousness. The feeling thatthis town would soon perish. And we with it.

Chapter 68

Emely

As if paralyzed by the events of last night, I stood at one of the windows of the entrance to our estate and stared out into the expansive garden, toward the meadow where Hunter and Cody were training my little brother, Finn. The smiles on their faces seemed so surreal, like they were living in a different world than I was at that moment.

Whatever had happened in the Quatura neighborhood yesterday, it would take me a while to process it.

Alarik had taken me home with him, and we hadn't said a word to each other the entire journey.Not a single one.When we had finally arrived, I had asked him if he would tell Father about it. And he had done so.

Father knew.And he had locked himself in his office.

I knew he was sitting there staring at the chessboard, knew he was racking his brains, fearing that if a human and a witch had been attacked,wewould be next. He assumed the DeLoughreys were trying to give us a warning.

What if he was right? What if they were plotting to kill us all?

I fought the urge to rush up to Alarik's apartment and tell him about the connection to Bayla.

If there was one thing I didn't like, it was losing track of things and not knowing what was going on.

“Dimitrio,” I heard my father's exhausted voice through the office door. “No, there have been no further incidents.”

I looked up, turned to the double doors, and carefully crept over the floorboards that didn't creak until I reached the frame.

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