Chapter 50
Quentin
The Room of Hidden Things
Alexander Horowitz, Hogwarts Legacy
J was a student. A damn student at Vanderwood University, and she hadn’t told me about it when I’d texted with her back then, saying I was starting at Vanderwood.
To be fair, I hadn’t told her that I was working here as a professor either, but she never asked. I’m sure – in my ignorance – I would have told her.
There could only be one reason why she hadn’t told me. She never wanted to meet me.
I gritted my teeth and quickened my pace through the corridors of the university’s east wing.
I wasn’t here to think about her, and yet that’s all I’d been doing since I found out that she was from that damned hole of a city.
I wondered how old she was and hoped she was already in her twenties. She had always seemed so mature and wise in our conversations, so adult and educated.
When she said she had arrived at the university, I assumed that she had changed universities or started a new course of study, like I had back then, but it only now occurred to me that she could have started here as an undergraduate as well.
Damn, I hoped she wasn’t a minor. And hopefully she was at least twenty-one.
But no matter how old she was, I had a problem because it was against Vanderwood rules for professors to get involved with their students. And since the new Quatura director had taken up residence here, that rule had been extended to relationships between professors and students who didn’t even interact in their academic lives.
Great. The gods really seemed to have a problem with me.
Would it stop me? No. This woman was everything I wanted. She was what I would choose if it ever came down to it.
But one thought disturbed me with abnormal intensity.
She knew a Quatura.
I knew that Quatura often cultivated friendships with humans and prayed to the gods that J was also human because I hadn’t seen any need to test her magic when we met.
What’s more, it wasn’t just any Quatura she was in contact with, but Julie Blair, damn it. That devious spy, of all people.
And suddenly, a shocking thought occurred to me.
What if J was working with the Quatura and hadn’t written to me for no reason back then? But would she have slept with me then?
No, Quentin. If anyone was real, it was her. And if anything was real, it was what had developed between us.
I had promised J that I would bring her the bracelet. And I would find out where she lived in a moment, even though it bothered me that I would do it through the unruly Quatara girl.
Just as I entered the hallway with the lecture halls for linguistics, the large double doors at the end of the hallway burst open, and I immediately turned around to wait in one of the dark side corridors.
Every freshman had to take English, and I had noticed that Professor Copeland also knew how to get all supernatural seminar participants into one class, although he probably had different goals.
I would have liked to take a closer look, but I had other problems at the moment.
It didn’t take long for the Ruisangors to walk past me, and I had to scurry further into the shadows so that Miles wouldn’t see me.
He would greet me loudly – I already knew that – and I couldn’t afford to be seen with a Legacy Ruisangor.
“Damn it, Julie. If you keep hanging out with those traitors, Vivienna will report it!”
Just her name was enough to put my entire body on alert and slide further into the shadows.
“Grace...” I heard Julie say, then the two girls passed me. “They’re good friends.”
I immediately inspected said Grace, who could only be Grace Blair. So not J, at least.
I wondered if I followed Julie often enough, would I find J? They had to talk to each other or at least greet each other on campus.
No. I would not stalk Julie. That went too far.
I waited until they had walked on before I stepped out of the shadows and ran behind another group of students to follow the two unobtrusively.
“Good friends?” I heard Grace laugh out loud. “Our families don’t care about that kind of thing. Or do you want trouble with Gloria?”
I paused and narrowed my forehead.
Just hearing that woman’s name made my blood boil.
But it made me wonder if this Grace was accusing Julie of causing trouble with the council leader. What if she wasn’t the spy I thought she was? What if she was also a follower or even suffered from their strict rules?
“Grace, you’re being loud,” I heard Julie hiss just before Grace stopped abruptly.
“What is wrong with you? I hardly recognize you, Julie!” Grace Blair snapped at Julie, who just stared at her and clenched her hands around the English book. “You criticize me all the time. First because of Mady, then because of Larissa and constantly because of such little things.” Grace took a step back. “Get a grip on yourself and your life, because I don’t want to have to talk to Amara first to get her to talk some sense into you.”
The more this conversation revealed about Julie, the more curious I became. Who was this girl that she had to be brought to her senses by the Domini of the circle?
Grace turned on her heel, shook her head and walked away, shouldering her backpack.
Julie stared into space, which irritated me. Her gaze wandered down to her hands, as if she was looking for something on them.
Now she was alone. I just had to follow her, wait for her to end up in a deserted side corridor.
And indeed, she broke out of her stupor and left the wide main corridor of the east wing to rush into a side corridor.
Perfect.
I felt a surge of excitement, but I skillfully suppressed it. There was no time for that.
I reminded myself that I would now get some information and if she didn’t give it to me, I would use the right means to make her tell me everything. I wouldn’t ask her twice to stay away from J, and I would make sure she did.
My hand automatically moved to my pocket as I pushed through the crowd of students towards the corridor that Julie had chosen.
The corridor was less crowded, and I just barely recognized the shimmer of her platinum blonde hair before she stormed around a corner.
Was she running? What if she had noticed that I was following her? No, that was impossible. I had only just entered the corridor.
I pushed past more students, started running too, and ignored the curious glances of the other people in the corridor. I stopped briefly before the next corner, approached it, and spotted just in time how Julie stormed out of the corridor into one of the courtyards further back in the corridor.
Why the hell was she running?
I tried not to run, stepping carefully but quickly through the empty hallway to the second-last courtyard into which she had disappeared.
There I slowed down even more, looked around before pressing myself against the wall and looking outside through the glassless arched window.
This was one of the overgrown courtyards that probably saw the visit of a human soul once a day. It was the perfect place where no one would notice if you suddenly disappeared.
The thought was tempting, but I forced myself to push it aside and continued peering into the courtyard.
Ivy was rampant up the walls, engulfing the benches and the active fountain with the statue of a goddess, which was already slightly weathered and surrounded by white moon flowers.
The goddess Lunaria.
I had already looked at her a hundred times, researched her, but I couldn’t find anything about this goddess on the internet, neither in Greek nor in Norse mythology, let alone in the countless other mythologies. Only the name in Latin letters on the pedestal under the statue and the crescent moon, which was set in her crown and pointed upwards, revealed to me that it had to be a moon goddess.
She was looking up at the sky, her arms entwined behind her head, one leg raised. She held a scroll of parchment decorated with patterns in one hand, as if it were a scepter.
This statue was full of grace.
It was as if the architect of Vanderwood, Nathaniel Vanderwood, had come up with these figures. At least, that’s what I had believed until a few months ago, when I had started taking the time every Wednesday afternoon to carefully inspect one of these statues from the courtyards, to study it and compare it with other myths.
What had begun as an interest in mythology had become another theory that I now counted among the secrets of this university that needed to be deciphered.
When I spotted Julie standing next to the fountain, staring at her hands, my inner tension returned.
Destiny
Brian Tyler, Klaus Badelt
She was alone, not moving. And she had dropped her book.
What the hell was she doing?
I ducked, crept closer to the passageway leading into the courtyard, and peeked around the archway.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched her irises turn completely white, as if a milky layer were covering them, before an icy blue glow added to it.
She raised her hands, rolled up her sleeves as if in a trance, and watched in shock as I watched her veins shimmer ice blue, almost whitish, under her skin, while ice crystals spread over her skin.
I swallowed.
What was going on here?
White dust fell from the sky into the courtyard, and it took me a few seconds to realize that it was snow.
What the...
Julie opened her lips slightly, reached out to touch the snowflakes, and I stared at her as if spellbound as it began to snow harder and harder, covering the ground with a patchy blanket.
My gaze remained fixed on the fountain. Paralyzed, I watched as the four fountains that had just splashed out of the fountain statue froze into elegant tendrils of ice. The surface of the fountain froze just as slowly.
I automatically stepped back, let myself be overcome by inner tension, and tried not to take my eyes off her.
Whatever was going on here. It was something I had never seen before, and I knew that Julie must have something to do with it.
Her skin glistened glassily, just like the tiny ice crystals on the fibers of her blouse and the dark blue sweater.
What on earth was she? What kind of magic was she using?
Clack.
Julie’s head shot around, and I managed to pull back behind the wall just in time, cursing myself for having moved out of the wall at all.
I heard hurried footsteps and when I looked into the courtyard, Julie had disappeared. All that remained was the ice and snow, even though it had suddenly stopped snowing.
“Damn it!” I swore, stepping out onto the courtyard, running a hand through my now-disheveled hair and kicked another rock away before I looked around, transfixed.
I strode to the fountain, touching the ice crystals at the edge.
It was real ice. Cold and sharp and beautiful at the same time, like a deceptive weapon. Cold, destructive magic... And Julie Blair, a Quatura, was responsible for all of this.
But now she was gone. And with her, my chance for answers about J or about whatever had just happened.
I could follow her, this time consistently implementing my plan, but something in me held me back.
Only now did I really realize what I had just observed, so much so that I was paralyzed... fascinated.
As soon as something captivated me, aroused my curiosity, I had to get to the bottom of it. And as much as I disliked it, the little annoying witch had just piqued my interest.
What if she was a weapon of the Circle? If so, then these people were more powerful than I or my boss had expected, and that could be our undoing. In their hands, she was wasted research material, but in mine...
The thought frightened me, but I dared to pursue it further. Something in me wanted to get to the bottom of it, wanted to find out what this magic was all about, because it didn’t belong to any of the four elements.
What if I could research it? The results could be groundbreaking...
I bit my tongue because the thought of researching this girl made me feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t afraid of her magic, even though it seemed unpredictable, because Julie had seemed to have no control over it, but at the same time, it felt more illegal than all the other experiments I was already researching.
She was a Quatura. I would have to kidnap her, force her to cooperate...
But if I made her disappear, the Councils would start a witch hunt against me. I would throw all my research away, risk my head.
There was only one way left for me to make Julie Blair my little experiment.