Page 66 of A Drop of Anguish
That very likely means the actual jinn has been sending me letters.
29
The Jinn Was Here
Iignore the glances in our direction as Laithe leans over the notes.
Those ugly words stare up at me.
He’s not yours. He was never yours.
I should have just left that one behind. He had enough information to look into with the others. Then, I wouldn’t have had to share that message with anyone else, and I wouldn’t have to let it stare at me for what feels like hours.
Not that Laithe reacted to the words. He may not have even read them.
We headed back into the main entryway of Elite Hall to meet with Laithe.
The few wolves that were in the area scattered the moment we arrived, leaving the area more bare than usual. Only Manuela and Lucille, her girlfriend, sit in the leather armchairs by the window, watching closely.
I half expect Laithe’s spell to do nothing.
If it is from the jinn, what are the chances he’ll be able to track her?
But only a moment after, a thread of silvery blue magic drifts up from the notebook page and hovers in the air in front of Laithe’s nose. It dances midair, like a tiny shimmering snake, and then in a blink, it darts down the hall.
I suck in a breath.
The silvery thread heads straight out of Elite Hall, like someone threw a ball of glowing blue yarn and held the end taut. Moments later, it doubles back, crisscrossing this room, creating a web of glowing string through the halls.
It darts down the hall to the right—toward Jarron’s room.
Jarron lifts his chin. “Manuela,” Jarron says firmly. “Can you please double-check where it ends?”
Manuela and Lucille both hop up and head down the hall toward Jarron’s room, following the glowing line of the tracing spell, while Jarron and Laithe follow the other thread.
I jog to keep up with their rapid pace. “What exactly does it show? Everywhere the being has been?”
“Everywhere the note has been,” he answers. “So, the path from Elite Hall to Minor Hall makes sense. That’s where you carried it. We want to check where it was before that.”
“So… that note was carried to your room?”
“Or possibly Trevor’s. Or Bea’s. There’s very little else down there.”
Right, so that’s what Manuela is checking. If it went to Bea’s, we’ll have a whole different suspect on our list. Trevor’s girlfriend had been involved in the games before. I don’t think I could negotiate her out of Jarron’s wrath a second time if she were involved now.
We march out of Elite Hall toward the south wing. Several students stand with their backs to the walls, watching us chase the path of the silver magic.
We follow the thread to Minor Hall and then where it diverges. The silver thread winds down and around several corridors. Whoever wrote the note did a bit of trekking around the school, then.
Finally, we follow the thread into the portal room, where the silver thread leads straight into an empty archway. A portal. There’s a symbol on the top of it I only vaguely recognize. “That’s not—”
Jarron nods gravely. “Oriziah.”
30
Duty Vs Desire
“I’ll call Ms. Bhatt to open the portal. I need you to follow it,” Jarron says to Laithe.
