Page 73 of A University of Betrayal

“Could you please explain to me why I’m here?” I started the conversation a little too upset. I felt strangely frantic, energetic, and… aggressive. The last emotion was new to me.

“Couldyouplease explain to me what just happened out there?” he returned my question demandingly, ran his fingers through his hair in stress and noticed that the water had just boiled.

The fine electric yet elegant vintage kettle hissed and steam rose. He rushed over and poured a cup, into which he had just put a handful of herbs. A stinky smell immediately hit my nose.

“I don’t get it.” He turned the pages of a book, but then looked up again. “Diana should...” Alarik shook his head before reaching for the cup somewhat absent-mindedly, looking at me and deciding to come over to sit in front of me and put the cup down under my nose. Some tea spilled over, and the smell stung my nose, making me flinch.

“But then you’d have to be a boy.”

I didn’t have the faintest clue what he was talking about.

“Could you maybe enlighten me? I don’t understandanyof this.”

Why was everyone here so incapable of expressing themselves clearly?

“And why isn’t Larissa here? That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think? And anyway, do you know what they’ve done to her? She’s become one of them! Who knows what that does to her body…”

I realized how upset I was, and finally Alarik Copeland responded to me.

“It’s rare, but it does happen. She seems to be a Legacy.”

“ALegacy?That creature bit me, too, and I’m the same person I was before.”

“It takes a special gene, a father who passes on this genetic material, and when the offspring is born, all it takes is a bite to activate it. If a human is transformed by a Legacy, he is aTransformedand Quatura and Senseque cannot be transformed by them.”

I widened my eyes. “Her father is a Ruisangor?”

I tried to block out the rest of his sentence. Because it said as much asIwould be a vampire now if I had been human... but only if our attacker had been a Legacy, right?

I tried to process all the information.

“From the looks of it, yes.”

Where on earth did Alarik suddenly get this deep relaxation from?

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m sitting here now,” I snorted indignantly.“Sheprovokedme. And anyway... we didn’t make a scene.”

And yes, I took that personally, Alarik.

“That’s not the point, Bayla.” Seriousness spread across his face, mixed with... concern?

“Then what is it?”

Now, I was curious.

“Out there, you almost turned.” His gaze rested calmly on mine. “Into one ofus.”

“No...” I started to laugh. He had to be joking. I jumped up and continued laughing, shaking my head. “No, maybe my mother can say that, or that absurd Circle, butthisis too much.”

“Sit back down, please.”

I shook my head.

“Bayla,please.”

“You’re all crazy.”

Alarik took a deep breath, then exhaled and rose to walk toward me. I didn’t know why I didn’t back away and why I let him lead me by the arm to the dark-gold-framed mirror in the corner of the room where we both stood, he slightly behind me.

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