Page 170 of A University of Betrayal

It bothered me that Grace immediately judged everything and everyone just because the Circle and the Councils told her to. I was surprised that she didn’t even care what had happened to this Alice. This was her aunt.

Larissa gave me a look that made me understand that Grace’s behavior made her uncomfortable, and the only reason she didn’t comment on it was because she was probably mad at Grace.

“My mother wouldn’t be making such a huge secret out of this room if that Alice girl had just been sent away. It might sound silly, but I think there’s more to it than that,” I voiced my concerns out loud.

Now Grace laughed for the first time. “Do you think there’s a conspiracy?”

“Quite possible, with all the things that are going on here,” Larissa interjected sarcastically and crossed her legs.

Grace eyed her suspiciously, as if she had turned into a monster overnight. To me, she was still Larissa Champson, my best friend. And I didn’t understand the rules any more than she did. We were both clueless.

“What if this Alice had something to do with my father and that’s why she had to disappear? What if...” Julie looked up, and her next words weighed heavier than my last meal. “What if your mother covered for her?”

I froze into a pillar of salt.

Grace’s jaw dropped.

“Do you know what you just accused Bayla’s mother of? That would be treason against the Councils,” Grace whispered, her face filled with bewilderment.

Larissa, who didn’t seem to understand anything, leaned against the modern bed railing and interrupted the serious bewilderment, her gaze fixed on Julie.

“May I know what’s the matter with your father?

By now, we were all downstairs in the kitchen, even though Grace had kept her distance from Larissa, and Julie hadn’t said a word since Grace had told Larissa about Alaister. Nothing new had come out of it other than what I already knew.

All we had been told was that no one talked about him because he was supposed to have done bad things.

But ever since I had read the pages of Alice’s diary, curiosity raged inside me. And I knew it wouldn’t go away until I knew everything.

Since Grace had been cooking her carrot soup in annoyed silence, Larissa had given me threewe-must-go-after-it-anyway looks.And that was after Grace had told me upstairs that I should return the diary and preferably not interfere in my mother’s private affairs. Larissa had rolled her eyes, and I’d had a hard time stifling my knowing grin.

Emely slammed her law books shut with a snort and stacked them on the coffee table in between the couches. She and Grace skillfully ignored each other.

The entire time, Emely seemed unfocused, which was probably because Larissa was a Ruisangor. Just this morning the Copeland girl had attacked Miles DeLoughrey and Julie had told me that things were really hostile between the Ruisangors and the Senseque. I was surprised that she hadn’t fled the accommodation or threatened Larissa by now.

Confrontation

Christopher Tyng

“I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, but one of you is in big trouble.”

Vivienna appeared on the stairs together with Amber.

She was wearing a white pantsuit and Turkish rose-colored high heels. If it hadn’t been for that devastated look on her face, I probably would have spent a minute longer trying to figure out how she managed to always look so polished. Everything about her screamed money. From her car to her behavior.

She stopped in front of us at the kitchen island and waved a long piece of plastic in the air.

“What’sthat?”Grace asked at the exact moment I saw the two red lines.

Vivienna slammed the object onto the marble countertop and pushed it into the middle so that it lay between us like a menacing omen.

“Maybeyoucan answer that question for us,” Amber said snappishly, and their mischievousness literally spilled over so that you could have taken a bath in it.

“A pregnancy test,” Larissa blurted out in surprise. She looked confused. Very confused. And my alarm bells immediately rang.

I tried to stare at her, but she just looked at the test and then at the other girls in the room. And at that moment, I realized that everyone was watching each other very suspiciously. Grace and Larissa looked at each other, but Grace seemed very confused. Vivienna’s eyes were also on Larissa, as if it was obvious that it washerpregnancy test, and I began to wonder if it could actually be. Larissa was... No… She was a risk-taker, but with whom should she...?

No matter how hard I tried to meet her eyes, it took and took... Then she looked at me.

---