I couldn’t believe my trainer was actually talking about the Tenebris Order.

“Here?”

“Think Adrian. Where would you go to cause chaos when there’s only one place in an area full of split territories where all three species clash.”

He was right. I’d been a bit brain-locked since the incident yesterday at lunchtime with that girl. She had wanted to put me in my place just like that. And nothing about my aura had frightened her. On the contrary. She seemed to enjoy being played with.

But there were more important things now, and I had to think straight.

Turning women into problems was something only sentimental fools did.

“It could be that someone from the Order is behind the murder. Someone who wants revenge on Tristan and his family.”

I pressed my lips together and looked across the campus.

I couldn’t allow myself to let anyone see how much I hated this man for what he had done to our family.

And I hoped Bastien didn’t feel into me. Then he would have questions. Questions I would never be able to answer.

“Whatever you find out, report back to me. And tell Miles that Laurent and I are increasing your training stakes.”

As if I hadn’t already spent enough afternoons wielding a dagger, letting Bastien kill me with his fencing training, or spending hours in hand-to-hand combat. The most annoying were the observation lessons and the chemistry lessons, where Miles always mixed up the chemicals so that the windows on the first floor had to be repaired at least once a month.

He was good at fencing. I had to give him credit for that. But he'd never been good at science.

“Every evening.”

I nodded.

Bastien’s expression relaxed a little.

“Do you think he’s here to warn us?” I asked.

Bastien looked at me thoughtfully. His body had been tense the whole time.

That was usual when it came to his favorite brother. He had always tried to keep him out of these dark things. Unsuccessfully. Tristan had become one of them. And at the same time, he had completely crashed. An alcoholic renegade.

“I hope not.”

I understood him. He preferred Tristan to be on the wrong track than to do the right thing and die because he was too stupid to get his own life under control.

I nodded.

“I have to go. Laurent is waiting for me.”

Whatever mission the two of them were on, he wouldn’t let me know anyway. Professional secrecy, as he always called it. Although, he often did things on his own. I never questioned it, because it was none of my business. We all had our private missions, I learned that early on. But with him, I always wondered what was going on in his head, what had made him this quiet yet determined man.

He never talked about his past and even when he seemed closest to me, he kept his secrets to himself.

Each DeLoughrey kept his own dirty little secrets. Secrets that could ruin the whole family if they came to light.

Bastien said goodbye to me before getting back into the car to meet Laurent.

When he was gone, another icy breeze blew in my face. It had become even colder. Almost too rapid a drop in temperature at this time of day. There was something ironic, almost symbolic, about the way the weather changed with Bastien’s bad news.

The wind blew through my hair and the dark crowns of the oak trees swaying in the breeze cast huge shadows over the terrain.

Then, for a brief moment, I felt as if a shadow was scurrying past the walls. Too quickly.

I scanned the surroundings, looked more closely at the spot. But there were only the shadows of the trees. Slow and quiet. As if the approaching storm had only just arrived, ready to envelop the town in a thick wall of clouds.

Chapter 49

Larissa

“How do you always manage to drag me into things like this?”

Bay looked around in all directions as if there would be someone else around at this time of night, while I was busy trying to open the little iron lock decorated with stone tendrils and snakes that just wouldn’t open.

The last time I had broken in somewhere was three months ago. It must have been a ring store, yes. And the locks of jewelry stores were always harder to pick than the conventional ones anyway. So, I was all the more annoyed that this damn lock from the last century wouldn’t open.

“Now, relax and try to help me,” I sighed, frustrated.

Bay stood next to me with her arms crossed. “Which one of us is the one with the criminal background?”

I ignored the comment.

Bayla thought she knew my whole story, but she didn’t know the half of the shit she’d been spared as the child of a rich scientist.

“This lock is weird. I’m only used to those cheap things or jeweler’s locks... What this is...” I hit the stupid snake again, half of which was covering the lock. “I absolutely can’t tell you.”

“Let me see.” Bay pulled me aside as if she actually had a clue.

“Whoever this professor is, he seems to want to protect himself well... For whatever reason!” I let out in frustration.

He couldn’t seriously expect someone to think of breaking into his office. A boring university director.

“Maybe he has good reasons,” Bay muttered in thought.

“Do you think he’s involved in this drug thing?”

All those things Grace said every day about the Copelands made no sense at all. It felt like everyone was dangerous if it was up to her or Vivienna’s clique.

Who could you trust if even the director of Vanderwood was a mafia member?

Bay looked at me for a moment, as if she wanted to get something important off her chest, but then looked back down at the lock.

“If you know something, you should tell me now.”