Page 19 of A University of Betrayal

“What’s going on up there?” asked an unfamiliar, high-pitched female voice, and I did the next best thing, slamming the cupboard doors shut, hearing a mighty thump from inside, but it was too late to fix anything. I slipped back under my covers and waited to see what happened.

It had sounded like someone had been at my door, but I seemed to have been mistaken, because there was no one there.

Suddenly, there was a sweet smell in the air, and I couldn’t help but soak it up completely. Had Mum been baking?

The door burst open and a slim woman in her late thirties with red hair pulled back in a topknot entered the room. She wore dark amber-colored glasses that made her feminine contours look more severe. With her arrival, the smell became more intense, almost as if it emanated fromher.This woman smelled like the most delicious food I had ever smelled, and she was just standing there in my room... with a clipboard?

Her freckles caught my eye, but something about them made me shudder. I perceived them with an intensity I couldn’t describe. Every pore of her face, the fibers of her gray irises, the small brown irregularity in the right eye... I noticed everything, even the air bubbles in her crystal-dark amber earrings.

What the...

“Bayla Adams.Finally,you are awake,” the woman said, strangely loud, scrutinizing me insistently. “They were right. How bizarre. I would never have thought that a Quatura could disguise herself so well.”

“I don’t quite understand,” I said, puzzled by her presence.

“Your elemental magic, my dear. One cannot sense it, not even if one has been trained in it, like my humble self,” she murmured and came closer, causing me to scoot back a little.

She held out her hand to me. “Professor Rebecca Harlow. There’s no need to be afraid of me.” She gave me a brief smile, but it seemed rather artificial, before reaching for a chair in the corner, carelessly shoving my folded clothes onto the floor, only to sit down afterward.

Who in God’s name was this woman? And what was she doing in our house?

“I would like to ask you a few questions now.”

“I...”

Overwhelmed, I tried to resist the urge to smell her.

What was wrong with me?

“I think I need some more rest...”

“Fine. Let’s get started.” She didn’t even let me finish.

How rude.

“Are you in pain somewhere?”

I shook my head, completely taken by surprise.

“Show me your neck.”

Without hesitating, she grabbed my neck and brushed my now shoulder-length hair to the side, her smell getting deeper and deeper into my nose.

Damn,why did she smell so good?

“Any strange sensations?”

I paused and looked at her.

“Hallucinations, nightmares?”

I shook my head slowly, wondering if I should tell her about the closet or her smell, but I didn’t, because on second thought, the fact was beyond weird and inappropriate.

The woman wrote down all the answers with a rather expensive-looking pen decorated with an R entwined with thorns, made crosses, and continued.

“Your attacker. Describe him in more detail.”

Slightly overwhelmed, I began to stammer, “Um... well... I don’t really remember.”

---