I bit my tongue.

“She’s even supposed to come to Moenia this weekend.”

“Who’s supposed to come to us?”

I stopped abruptly on the Victorian wooden staircase. A feeling of unease spread through me, and for a moment, I forgot all my other problems.

My mother stood in the hallway, her dark brown, straight hair sticking up in the form of a ponytail in a showy way, the way I would never wear my hair.

My hair was longer, my ponytail not as high, and we both looked as different as we could. Of course, we had similar face features, and we were both very short and slender, if not petite. But I had always been different from the rest of this family. Too soft, too weak, too quiet, too sensitive, and too lacking in strength.

Margot, as I called her, because she had never felt like a mother to me, smiled at me, but I looked away, over at the ornate stained-glass window in the stairwell of our hallway, through which sunlight dimly filtered.

Moenia was my home, even if it didn’t feel like it.

And Margot was back. I had hoped that, as usual, she would get in the car with the next guy and never come back.

“There’s a new Quatura,” Grace gave enthusiastically in response.

I couldn’t repress the feeling that it was anything but normal that Bayla would suddenly be participating in an initiation ritual. Or that Margot was standing down there in the hallway on the dark marble floor. Just as dark as her blue eyes...a contrast to mine.

“Already the 3rd new member this month,” she replied in amazement, as if she hadn’t just reappeared here.

“I wouldn’t have expected that, either”, someone commented from the dining room.

Amara had to be back from the Adams.

I started moving again and followed Grace to the dining room, where it was immediately much brighter than in the candlelit hallway and stairwell. The large windows let in the residual sunlight from our front yard, and combined with the candlesticks, created a cozy atmosphere.

“I never thought Bayla would be one of us,” Grace laughed as she sat down on one of the ten chairs of the richly set table.

“I didn’t notice her magic,” Amara sighed with a pensive expression.

Something like that could happen, and it meant that the magic was weak to nonexistent.

Knife and fork flew slowly through the kitchen passageway to the five covered places and settled next to our plates.

Margot’s powers.

“You brought in an ungifted girl, Mum?”

“Ivy!” Grace snapped.

“Grace, she’s not that age yet,” Margot said sympathetically, stroking Ivy’s dark brown hair. They looked more alike than we did.

Ivy was Grace’s little sister, only ten years old, and therefore, not yet bound by the naming law that required us to address even our closest family members by their first names. I had never had a problem with that, because I wasn’t really close to anyone here, except for Ivy and Grace.

We knew, of course, that it was for protection from stranger attackers, so we couldn’t give them too much power over us, but that tradition came from the founding days. It was downright outdated.

“She doesn’t have to be ungifted just because we can’t sense her magic, Ivy. On the contrary, just the fact that other Quatura can’t perceive her abilities can make her much stronger.”

Amara sounded serious.

I honestly didn’t want to know how Bayla must be feeling right now. This day must have been pure chaos for her.

When everyone was seated, Amara raised her hands.

“Habete gloriam in donis tuis.”

We looked up at the glassed-in salon ceiling with the image of a beautiful brown-haired woman holding a bowl of fruit in her hands, her robe the colors of the earth.

Darana, the goddess of harvest offerings, daughter of Moenia.

I always tried to recognize similarities between our gods and the Greek ones, be it attributes, objects, symbols. And as always, my fingers were tingling to text with Erik about the Quatura gods.

But he would probably laugh at me, and I would not be able to explain to him where these gods had their origin.

“Habete gloriam in donis tuis.” We all repeated together as our hands touched, mine Grace’s and Margot’s.

I had gotten used to blocking out this unpleasant feeling over the last two years, even though it was getting stronger every day. Margot stroked mine with her slender fingers adorned with gold rings, and this time, I couldn’t help but wince.

As soon as we said the words, a warm yellow glowing ribbon began to circle our arms, almost like a tendril growing around us.

It seemed thicker on Grace and Amara, but not as intense a glow as it did on me and Grace. Amara had her eyes closed and her head up, as did the rest...except me and Margot.

I looked at the thin, dimly glowing band between us, then at her. Her gaze irritated me.

I looked up again, where Darana was looking down at us with her soft gaze, as if everything was all right.

Nothing was all right.

At the same time, we released our hands again, and the bond between us disappeared as if it had never been there.

“Enjoy your meal, sisters,” Amara said, putting some of the baked potatoes on her plate. Ivy grabbed the bowl of fried onions with bright eyes, and I had to stifle a slight smile.

Blub.

My body tensed.

I hadn’t expected that.

I pulled the cell phone out of my back pants pocket and clutched it with both hands.

Blub.

“Could you please turn the sound off while we eat, Julie?” Amara asked, and I flinched, perhaps a little too startled.

No one seemed to notice except Ivy, who raised an eyebrow. I glanced at my phone.