They chanted the first part, before shouting “united” to finish. Three times they repeated the phrase and each time the energy coating them rose, moving above their heads, swirling, and then as the four of them bled their individual power, it formed a peak above them. Energy flashed outward, filling the room with a single wave of light. I tensed as it shot through me, but there was no kickback at all. It just flowed through our bodies and off into the universe.

I looked up after the wave had passed me and froze.

Grace’s voice was barely a whisper. “Holy fuck me.”

Cardia and the witch healer were slowly moving closer to us, and I couldn’t blame them. The boys were even scaring me, and I had never been scared of them in my life.

The quads were not like the Four – they didn’t look identical or anything – but they were the most alike I’d ever seen them, as if facets of each of them had blended into the others. Braxton’s hair was a little lighter, Jacob’s a little darker, all of them with a highlighted golden brown sheen. All of their eyes were black, their skin the same shade of tawny brown – at least their faces remained true to them. Braxton’s scales were gone, as were the four elemental powers which had surrounded Jacob. They were awash in a glowing energy, power thrumming in the room. Four sets of black eyes leveled on me.

“Why are they staring me down?” I was proud that my voice didn’t tremor. They wore the look of a predator – well, four predators to be exact – who all seemed to have found what they were hunting.

Footsteps echoed from the back of the room, near the elevators. I wanted to spin around, hating anyone unknown coming at my back, but the far greater danger was in front of me. I didn’t turn from the dome.

A high, familiar voice sounded across the space. “They are the same as the others, they are not natural. They need to be eliminated.”

Okay, now I was turning around. No one talked about eliminating my boys without getting their ass kicked. Louis and Jonathon fell in beside me as we faced off with the fruit twins. And Mischa. My sister had clearly run straight back into the arms of those crazy ass bitches. I glared at Mischa, who remained quiet but didn’t back down from her place in the terrible trio.

“They are unnatural,” Orange said again.

Her words triggered a memory. This moment screamed of the dragon dream – where I’d stood on the opposite sides to Mischa in a war I knew nothing of. Those obscure references which had scared me, made sense now. They’d been talking about the Compasses. Didn’t these bitches know I would never turn on the quads? Not in this life, the next or the one after that.