“According to this, you must be Roberta and Leisel, right?” The Brazilian looked at us with a smile, which only added to my confusion. 

Who on earth were Roberta and Leisel?

Bayla, who by now looked even more confused, dug out a piece of paper.

I raised both brows. “No, I’m Larissa, and this is Bayla.”

Now, it was Yin and Yang looking at us in confusion.

“And you’re sure you’re in the right place?”

“Yes,” I confirmed firmly to the Brazilian girl.

The secretary’s office hadn’t told me my accommodations until I had arrived earlier. Somehow, there had been a gap on my letter and I had already feared I would have to sleep on the street. That would have been nothing new, but in relatively chilly Canada, a not so pleasant experience.

“Are you Ruby and Julie?” Bay finally asked.

“I’m Julie,” remarked the elfin girl this time, who so far had only spoken one sentence. She seemed rather silent and reserved, maybe even shy. 

Wow, the two of them were really like fire and water.

“And I’m actually Grace...” the other laughed sheepishly. “What’s going on here?”

I would have liked to know that too.

“Then there’s one too many of us. Because for this room, Julie, Emely and I were split up. And another girl, which isn’t here,” Bay said, continuing to study her list.

“She might have gotten mixed up with me. Because I asked to come to a room with you.” 

My words made her face brighten.

What was she thinking? That I wanted to go to some boring Canadian girl I didn’t even know?

“It says Emely Copeland on it?” now the Brazilian girl, who had introduced herself as Grace, wanted to know.

“Yes, and that’s apparently her bed,” Bay replied to her, pointing to the bed on the other side of the room. It was already covered with black bedding and an indigenous looking blanket with colorful patterns lay on top of the comforter.

So, my previous guess hadn’t been wrong. She was certainly of indigenous origin.

“But...”, Grace was about to start, but Bay interrupted her.

“The secretary said to me earlier that something had gone wrong with the preparation of the letters. I had gotten another list, but it doesn’t seem to be correct either.”

Okay, that explained a lot.

“So, there’s one too many of us,” Julie remarked, looking around the room thoughtfully. 

“Maybe you’re registered in the room next door, Grace?”, I said thoughtfully.

And suddenly I felt sorry for Grace. I hadn’t meant to say that, but apparently it didn’t seem to bother her one bit, because she grabbed her suitcase and just said, “Well, it can’t get any worse,” as if she had absolutely pulled the ass card with us.

I looked after her in confusion and when she opened the door of the other room, she took a deep breath as if she knew the people in there. 

Probably she was familiar with these girls. After all, they had all lived here for half an eternity.

I heard the cocky girls say something, but didn’t understand anything because Grace was already closing the door behind her.

Somehow, my brain didn’t want to understand what was going on. 

What kind of strange people were these?

My fingers closed around the handle. Then I too pushed the door shut behind me.

Chapter 14

Emely

What on earth was he thinking? What if something were to happen? The very fact that he kept acting so carelessly, without even fearing my father's consequences, infuriated me.

With my arms crossed, I stood in front of my uncle Alarik, who not only taught at this university, but was also responsible for all the confusion in the administration. As the goddamn director!

At 41 years old, he was far younger than father and was ranked below him. So, it was damn well not his right to make such decisions. Especially not behind Father’s back.

I slammed one hand on the table. This one shook as menacingly as my mood.

“Emely, please calm down. It’s just a room reassignment. What’s going to happen?”, he replied, relaxed.

What was going to happen? What was wrong with him?!

“I’m sleeping under the same roof with witches! If Father knew!”

It made me so angry. And then it was those arrogant Blair cousins, of all people, and goddamn Vivienna Westcode!

“But he doesn’t know,” Alarik returned, shrugging his shoulders, and buttoned the second-to-last button of his white shirt, which he had just put on because, as usual, he had shown up here a little late with coffee stains on his other shirt.

He paced around the desk that belonged to his large office, which was flooded with light through the magnificent window. One had an excellent view of campus activity from this tower, which certainly had its advantages.

I looked at my uncle with a tense jaw. How could he just go behind Dad’s back like that?

Stunned, I stared at him and clenched my hands into fists so that I could feel my sharp fingernails on the taut skin.

“They’re just Quatura. After all, when you meet them on the street, you don’t jump on them right away,” he just said with a laugh, stroking his short brown curls that made him look even younger.

Alarik had never had a girlfriend, let alone a wife, although it felt like every second one was flirting with him. I had always suspected that it was because there were hardly any female Senseque, or that he didn’t have the heart to leave the pack for a human, for a short time. But in that moment, he proved once again how much he didn’t care about the pack.

It was a fact that witches, or Quatura, whatever they called themselves, were our competitors for this town. And that would never change. For them, we were inferior animals who could not control themselves and ate other living beings. But they were not one bit better. According to the stories, there were even some among them who had turned to a dark side some time ago and had taken human lives. Such a thing would not happen to us. Not as part of a pack, under the rules of the Code. The Code, the breaking of which had serious consequences.

Just then, I wondered if Alarik had ever broken the Code. I quickly pushed the thought away. He was still my uncle. Even if he almost dug his own grave sometimes.