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Amanda took a sip and set the glass aside before lowering her voice so that the other seventy Quatura in the hall couldn't hear us. “When our mother rises in ranks, she will no longer only be part of Rosalynd’s opposition, she will control the Domini.”

I looked at the two of them again, paying attention to Mother's posture, how she had been playing with her fingers for a few weeks now until her knuckles stood out.

“You think she'll get the position?”

I didn't look at Amanda.

“She's always gotten everything she wanted in life since she married Sylvan,” my sister replied judgmentally, and now I had to look at her.

“It's not because of him. It's because she worked hard for it.”

Where Mother came from, no one would have believed she would make it this far.

Amanda leaned toward me and began to whisper. “I feel like she's forgetting who she is, who her family is.”

“The Circle comes before family. You know that.”

The words stung on my tongue. I didn't like that fact. But maybe it was better that way.

Mother had made sure we grew up well and that no one treated us badly.

“She doesn't even want me to call her ‘Mother’ anymore,” Amanda just laughed and picked up her glass again, her eyebrows raised. “Gloria.”

Gloria Westcode. Born Westcode, just like both of us. She would never have given up her name for that man. A violent man who had almost sullied her name before disappearing without a trace.

“Don't make fun of it,” I muttered.

“Whatever.”

Those were my sister's last words before she got up and made her way over to Rosalynd's eldest daughter, Amara Blair.

I watched them for a while until Amara looked at me.

The two of them looked far too much like our mothers... Would they one day become like them?

My gaze wandered back to my mother, to the way she hung on Rosalynd's every word. She envied her for everything she had.

Just as she still does.

Saturday, June 21, 1997

Entry 6

“Why isn't it working, goddammit?!”

We had arrived home, and it was as if she had dropped her mask. She was no longer the elegant and reserved Quatura who served in the temple, but my desperate mother. And I was no longer her showpiece child. I was the monster.

My powers had burst out of me when I had desperately tried to melt ice and make water float, thereby demonstrating to the Councils that my powers were a combination of water and air.

But I couldn't separate my ice energy. It just didn't work. And I wondered if it was even possible. Because I had never had access to the element of air before.

Mother hadn't let up, and I had accidentally killed one of the cats that always sneaked through the temple.

Icicles. Thick, fat icicles had pierced the animal, and the High Council had stared at me as if I were the downfall of the entire Quatura society.

The stone floor had turned a deep crimson, just like my fingers a few months ago. A color that was supposed to be warm, not cold.

“Relax, Mother. Cats die all the time in Blairville.”