“I had a backache when I woke up, too. A scream woke me up.”

He continued to look over my shoulders.

We’d definitely both had the same dream. Without a doubt.

He looked back up at me. His gaze was more insistent than usual.

“I got up and went to the window because I had such a strange gut feeling.”

I no longer understood anything. But Julian just kept talking.

“She told me she had to go to the Quatura.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Bayla. I sensed that she wasn’t home last night. It was so strangely quiet over there.”

The fact that Julian too was sleeping five meters away from a witch sent a shiver down my spine. Just the fact that he could sleep peacefully in that neighborhood was a miracle.

Julian ran a tense hand through his hair.

“I swear to you, they did something to her.”

I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“Julian... Let them do what they want. It’s none of our business.”

“You’re with us...” I almost said, but I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t scare him off any more.

“No, Ems, you don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I think we both saw what she saw.”

By now, I was convinced that Julian had lost his mind.

“What are you talking about?”

Julian’s shiny green eyes snapped open as if he had just learned something earth-shattering.

“Ems!”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, and I shuddered a little. His hands were warm, his grip firm. He himself looked worried.

“Did she touch you?”

I could only stare at him questioningly. Wherever his thoughts were, they were far away from mine. I didn’t understand him at all.

“Touch me?”

Julian looked around again before continuing.

“Remember last week when I told you about the incident with her eyes in the forest?”

I nodded. How could I have forgotten a single detail from last week?

“You said you saw it, too.”

Again, I nodded, remembering the day I’d looked into her glowing eyes.

I swallowed.

“In the forest, she had touched me and for a moment she had blocked out everything around me. That feeling... I can’t really describe it.”

“As if you had arrived home,” I added, shocked by my own memories.

Julian looked at me in silence.

“Do you think she put a spell on us?”

“If she did, it wasn’t on purpose...” Julian whispered thoughtfully.

A slight anger was gathering in my chest.

Bayla Adams had cursed me and Julian. A damn witch had gotten inside our heads. Whether on purpose or not didn’t matter.

I clenched my fists.

“Ems...” He loosened his hands on my shoulders and ran them down my arms, where he paused, bringing me fully back to him.

My heart began to leap.

If he only knew the effect, he had on my emotions...

I looked him in the eyes.

“Please don’t do anything rash.”

I suppressed the burgeoning anger, but it came back. I took a step back from his manipulative hands and hoped he didn’t take it personally.

“But I don’t want a witch going into our heads whenever she wants and making us feel her pain,” I snapped.

“I’ll find out what that means, Ems. Don’t worry about it for now and leave it to me.”

“Whatever...”

I snorted and decided to go back to Nash and the others in the pack. It was important that I was somewhere where I could let off steam without messing things up with Julian. At the same time, I was stunned.