Page 292 of A University of Betrayal

“What does DUIO stand for anyway?”

“DeLoughrey Underground Information Organization,” Miles and I answered simultaneously, and he eyed me for a few seconds as if I were an attraction at the circus until I raised my eyebrows, and he turned his attention back to Larissa.

I looked at the tombstones. The reason we had come here. Only I didn’t know where to start. These graves could be anywhere.

As if Bayla had read my mind, she asked aloud. “Do theBlairshave something like a family vault?”

“Right,” I mumbled, realization hitting me like Gloria always did with her spontaneous practice sessions. “Follow me.”

We made a turn to the right, across the cemetery, where the graves were getting bigger and more weathered. Back then, people had apparently been more interested in the deceased.

Finally, we reached a garden surrounded by a gothic black and silver fence, in the middle of which was a small pool with water lilies, surrounded by a tiny path with various gravestones around it.

I opened the small door and motioned for the others to follow me.

“Your family really gets the best of the best,” Miles remarked with amusement and I saw him run his hand over the not yet rusted decorations in admiration and immediately withdraw his hand.

“Damn,”he cursed, stopping Larissa from touching the metal. “Don’t touch that. It’s real silver. A protection against us.”

Bayla listened and immediately stretched out her hand toward the fence. Of course, nothing happened. What was supposed to happen? She was one of us.

“Silver,” I sighed when Julian couldn’t resist bringing his hand closer to the fence. “Better not do it. There’s a wolfsbane protection on it too.”

I knew that such protection was only possible with crystals, which ensured that the essence of plant substances remained in place for centuries. And then I also discovered the crystals that had been melted into the metal on the corner pillars of the fences.

“You’re so paranoid that you’re even protecting agraveyardagainst us?”

Miles sounded annoyed and rubbed the spot on his hand where I could see a red burn.

Yes,my families were paranoid. Andyes,I didn’t just mean the Blairs, but the Westcodes as well. Two families that couldn’t be more different.

“You have a separate cemetery for yours,” I reminded Miles with a shrug and turned back to the graves.

“Look, here’s a grave of a woman calledRosalynd Blair.Does her name mean anything to you? She died twenty years ago.”

I joined Bayla, who had stopped in front of a very pretty grave. I immediately recognized from the three-part circle placed in the middle at the top of the gravestone that it belonged to an Earth Quatura of high rank. And then I remembered the symbols of the other elements.

“This woman had been a Domini... maybe... my grandmother...” I whispered, rummaging for memories, in vain. I hadn’t even seen any pictures of this Rosalynd, although there were plenty of portraits of our ancestors on Moenia’s walls.

“So she was most likely Alice’s mother too,” Bayla murmured and immediately looked around at the other tombstones.

“There really aremenwho can control elements...” Miles laughed and pointed to a gravestone. I hurried to it, my hopes higher than usual, then I read the name.Beckett Blair.

Disappointment spread through me. There didn’t seem to be a single gravestone here that could take us any further.

Beckett had been the first male Blair in Blairville, one of the founding fathers thanks to whom the Quatura had managed to survive the harsh practices of the conservative humans. Even though, as a result, the Quatura society had been part of a Catholic cult for far too long.

“Guys, I think I’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Larissa waved her hands. She stood in the corner of the private cemetery. The tombstone was tiny compared to the others and almost hidden under all the ivy.

“She’s really dead,” she sighed in disappointment and I read through the inscription.

Alice Blair.Born 11/20/1978, died 11/2/1998.

Miles ran his fingers through his hair.“Holy shit,she was about to turn twenty.”

“Not scary at all,” Bayla replied and squatted down to run her fingers over the edges of the stone triangle. A single one.

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