Page 82 of A Society of Traitors

“And before you two stare any more holes in the ground, I'm going to brief you on research methods adapted to this lab. If you manage to familiarize yourselves with the data of this research project so far by four o'clock, I will also grant you access to my latest evaluated discoveries.”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake my paralysis.

Erik was a Quatura. I had slept with a male Quatura.

If I was a Quatura and he was a Quatura...

That meant my child would undoubtedly become a Quatura.

I had racked my brains for weeks, hoping that it might become an ungifted Quatura, but the chances were already low, because my father and mother were descended from two powerful Quatura bloodlines. On top of that, I was descended from two Quatura.

But this?

What game were the gods playing with me? Were they mocking me? Was it because I didn't believe in the prophecy?

I would never believe in the prophecy, even if the mere existence of the supernatural should be enough to believe in anything imaginable. At least, that's what one could think, but it wasn't that simple.

Elemental power was energy, bound to genetics and the laws of nature, even if it was capable of breaking a few of them. Elementalism was explainable, traceable to mutations. At least, that's what I assumed when I got too fed up with the stories of the gods.

That's why I wanted to do research, to find out how the species had come into existence. Because when you researched elementalism, you recognized a system, a formula behind the reactions of our Quatura body.

I was fascinated by what Quentin was doing here, but quickly pushed that thought aside.

There was no longer any room for such things in my life. I had more important concerns at the moment. More worrying ones...

Somehow, I had managed to get through the old research results with David. He had been looking at me strangely the whole time, as if he had wanted to say something. But I had drifted off too often, unable to concentrate on the results, so much so that we had not made it by four in the afternoon.

Quentin had snorted with a smirk and looked at me as if he were disappointed in me.

And strangely enough, that had made my mood drop even further.

I gathered up my things and packed them into my backpack before picking it up and grabbing my coat, ready to leave and immerse myself in illegal research on male water Quatura in Moenia's underground archives – just as I would have preferred to do with guidebooks on human babies – but when I heard Quentin's deep voice behind me, I froze.

“Julie.”

Love Is a Bitch

Two Feet