Page 64 of A Drop of Anguish
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Jarron’s nostrils flare and his jaw tenses as he reverts his attention back to the notes I found in my room over the last few weeks.He examines each closely, looking for a clue I missed. Someone has been stalking me, and he’s even less happy about it than I am.
He’s not yours.
He was never yours.
I don’t want to know what his expression shows over that one. The jinn obviously knows what’s been digging at me most. Very few people know that secret.
Jarron belonged to my sister, not me.
Never me.
That’s fine. I don’t need a handsome, powerful, considerate prince as a boyfriend.
As incredible as Jarron is, and as much as my stomach squeezes uncomfortably whenever I think about how we can’t be together, that isn’t the future I ever considered before this year.
It was, however, something my sister would have wanted.
So, really, it’s another thing that the jinn and the game runners stole from my sister. And Jarron.
If I hadn’t caught feelings like a dummy last semester, things would have been just fine. I wouldn’t have known what I was missing when Liz and Jarron eventually found each other and fell deeply in love.
I would have been happy for them both while I went along my ambitious path toward human power, where I could make an actual difference.
Now, I don’t know if I can ever go back to that life. I’m too far into this world. Magic has dug its claws into my soul, and now I’m hooked.
“What are you thinking about?” Jarron asks.
I jerk my attention back to him. “Oh… what-ifs, I guess? What my life would have been like if none of this had ever happened.”
He examines me long enough that discomfort squirms through me. Why do I feel like he can see into my soul? Why do I want him to?
I shake that thought from my mind. Nope, Jarron isn’t getting any deeper into my heart. I can’t let him.
“You’re very confusing, sunshine.”
My lips curl into a bitter smile. “I know.” I clear my throat and sit up straighter. “So, what now?”
“Well, I don’t know if you realized, but this room is good for more than just chai lattes.” He nods to the counter with shelves and shelves of vials.
“I assumed.” There are certainly more substances in those jars than just edible ingredients. Most of them are consumable, but some, not so much. “What do you plan to do?”
“Well, I’m going to have Laithe track one of the notes, so we can possibly see where the writer or messenger came from. Which one is the most recent?” I point to the one with the journal entry.
He squints at the ripped page. “I wonder if the fact that it originated in your sister’s journal will make it harder to track. It’ll have passed several hands, including hers.”
“This is from the journal too,” I state, pointing at the ripped corner. “These two are on different parchment.”
One is the longest letter of the bunch, and the other is the ripped parchment that came along with the flowers.He was never yours.
“The writing looks similar,” he comments, staring at the two in question.
“Yeah. Why?”
“The messaging seems different, though. This one,” he holds up the longest of the three notes, “I could believe came from the jinn. Threats and taunts about your perceived inadequacies. They want you to feel weak so they can manipulate you into the games. But this one reads more like a jealous ex.”
My brows shoot up. “Do you think Auren wrote it?”
