Grace put down her stuff, took off the necklace with the emerald crystal, and threw it on her bed, annoyed.
“This can’t be happening...” Julie muttered.
Vivienna just rolled her eyes.
“So much for the prophecy.”
There it was again, the prophecy. Even if I didn’t believe in this mumbo jumbo of the gods, everyone else did. The Senseque, even the Ruisangors, and above them all the Quatura. Even if only the latter believed in the gods themselves. Gods whose existence they had probably made up.
“Don’t question the prophecy,” Grace reminded Vivienna.
“Who says I do?” Vivienna twirled one of her golden blond strands between her thumb and forefinger and looked out into the forest. “I’m just firmly convinced that the Circle has made some misinterpretations.”
“Grace may just be having a bad day, Vivi.” Julie tried to relieve the tension somehow, but only earned a disapproving look from Vivienna.
“So did the Earth Quatura, who misinterpreted the prophecy.”
Grace looked at Vivienna angrily, but then stood up and began marching up and down nervously, which began to make me nervous.
I still hadn’t had a chance to let them know, and actually, we were just running out of time. Bayla was still out there somewhere, and she was in danger, even if Emely knew how to control herself at all times. At the end of the day, she was as much of a monster as I was.
“Maybe the hair was too old?” Julie interjected questioningly.
“Naturalis don’t even lose their effect over centuries...and the magic was the same as always, too...” Grace sounded frantic, and I had no idea what this was about at all.
“Now you know why you shouldn’t always be so reckless, Vivienna!”
Grace had lost her temper and the clay vase on her desk shattered into a thousand shards.
I took a step back and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, veins showing on my arms.
Fucking magic.
Vivienna had jumped up, ready to fight like she had this morning, completely ignoring Grace’s accusation.
“Don’t do that, Julian!” she hissed in my direction.
“I can’t control that if you use your powers!”
Julie jumped up and retrieved the necklace Grace had so carelessly thrown away first and handed it back to her. Grace accepted it and hung it around her neck again.
“You should always have it on,” Julie said.
“I know…”
The two exchanged very serious glances, then Grace looked at Vivienna.
“He’s not a threat right now, let him be, he can help us track her down.”
“They’re all the same!” Vivienna eyed me suspiciously again. “We can’t trust them. Who knows what they did to that girl...”
My gaze began to fix on her, my veins standing out more.
“I didn’t do anything with Bayla. And I’m not one of the Copelands either.”
It made me mad as hell that everyone saw me as someone I wasn’t anymore. Like I was being robbed of any right to self-determination.
“It doesn’t matter if you want to be part of them or not, you’re all the same!” Vivienna turned to the Blair cousins. “Sooner or later, they will kill us all if we don’t do something about them now.”
Vivienna’s family was one of those who hated the Senseque the most and attributed the dark part of that ancient prophecy to them.
I knew they actually hated all of us, but this was going too far.
I took a step toward them.
“Let me tell you this. I don’t want to hurt you, even though you’re pretty much a pain in the ass. So, leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone, just like our families agreed.”
“Vivienna, leave him alone. He’s right.” Grace sounded serious.
“Vivi...” Julie sighed.
You could feel the Quatura’s tension so strongly that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Alarik had shown up straight away to defuse the next confrontation.
“You’ll see what you get out of trusting him.”
Vivienna had enough. She took a step back, gave each of us a withering look, and finally stormed through the open door of the room.
“I warned you!” she screeched loudly, then slammed a door.
