Page 208 of A University of Betrayal

“You just need the right introduction.”

“Maybe...”

My thoughts trailed off as I stared back down the porch.

I wondered if Emely felt the same way. I wondered if she felt a storm coming right now.

When we were little, she had always been the first to sense it. Her senses were generally incredibly precise, even back then. She was something special. And it had taken me this long to realize it.

“Tell me, why are you so nervous?”

I turned around in surprise.

Bayla had stopped reading and was looking at me with interest.

It had taken me a while to get used to the fact that she no longer looked like a walking corpse. She was no longer so eerily pale that you got chills when you looked at her. The many little freckles around her snub nose made her look alive. What I never would get used to were the two differently colored eyes. The one on my left, turquoise green, like an exotic crystal, in which the light refracted unintentionally again and again, and the one on my right, sapphire blue like a deep foreign ocean.

“It’s a Senseque thing,” I replied slowly and looked at her eyes again.

They were supposed to create disharmony.Actually. Actually, she was supposed to be a Quatura too, and I wasn’t supposed to be here with her to carry out this insane mission, let alone here in Quatura territory.

“How does it work?” She seemed genuinely interested in the species, even if she didn’t really want anything to do with them.

“We can sense the weather, especially when storms are approaching, sometimes even days in advance. Especially during the storm season.”

Her eyes were troubled, as if they mirrored the storm I felt coming.

“Funny.” She looked down at the book with a drifting gaze. “I don’t feel it.”

That was the other part of Bay. When she wasn’t reading, she was ponderingwhatshe might be.

I was starting to care too, only I was still caught betweenleaving and never dealing with Blairville againorstaying here.I hated this place, just because of the people, but it was also the people that kept me here. My dad needed me, my sister... And now Emely.

I took a deep breath.

Had it perhaps been a mistake to give her and me hope?

A loud humming sounded from the street, forcing me to stay in the present.

“Finally.” Bayla sounded frustrated, but her expression brightened as the noise grew louder, a pretty new and damn expensive-looking motorcycle came to a stop on the road and the rider – now familiar to me – took off her black helmet with the modern red patterns.

Larissa switched off the engine and I stared for a while at the thing, which had definitely looked different on my last visit.

“You seem to have deep pockets,” I laughed in amazement and Larissa immediately looked up at us on the veranda.

“TheDeLoughreyshave deep pockets,” she replied in a sharp voice, shouldering her black sporty backpack before pushing the black motorcycle into the driveway.

Bayla eyed her suspiciously... or rather the bike.

“What happened to Lara?” she finally asked.

“Lara?”I repeated, irritated and unable to hide my grin.

“That was the name of her old bike, which sheneverwanted to part with,” Bayla emphasized with quotation marks in the air, amusement in her expression.

“Times change. That thing was as good as dead anyway,” Larissa said with a dismissive wave of her hand and came rushing up to us on the veranda. Even a blind man noticed the ease with which she moved her body.

“You should be careful how you move. People might get suspicious.”

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