Page 81 of Shattered Jewel

“The fucking devil’s work.” Sasha whispers a soft prayer, her fingers dancing over the gold pendant hanging around her neck. Her doe eyes are stretched to their limit, but she doesn’t look away from the unfolding drama.

A moment later, Kaspian pulls back from the screen and turns to face us.

“They’re all connected,” he confirms, his voice grim. “Every single one of them has ties to Titan Falls’ founders or influential families.”

Elara squares her shoulders and crosses her arms. “We need to warn the ones that are still alive.”

“And what? Tell them their children could be next in a dark arts sacrifice by a secret society that doesn’t exist to them?” Cav shoots back incredulously.

“We can’t just do nothing!”

Cav runs a hand through his dark hair and sighs heavily. “Hundreds of people settled here 200 years ago. Since then, families have split off, names have changed, and family trees have been broken. What you’re asking is impossible in the amount of time we have.”

“Sacrifices,” Elara whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear her. She’s grabbed the one word Cav used to describe why those girls were taken. “It’s got to be linked to the ruby Heart somehow.”

“Founding families, Sarah’s legendary treasure, dark rituals.” I flex my fingers to stop my hands from shaking. “Cav’s and my scars … I’m just the surface of it.”

If my body is any clue, the Court isn’t merely a group of wealthy elites seeking power and influence; they are devotees of an ancient, occult order, willing to sacrifice innocent lives in their pursuit of dark ambitions.

“Each of us is a thread in whatever fuckery the Sovereigns are weaving,” Kaspian adds, his voice cold and hard as he closes Jonquil’s ledger with a thud.

Suddenly, Sasha whirls on Elara, her hand reaching out to grasp her friend’s. “Oh my god, are you next? You’re related to this Jonquil guy, and he—has anyone figured out what happened to him while he was investigating his version of these Sovereign guys?”

I grip the edge of the desk, finding it hard not to lunge for something at the thought of—”Nobody is taking Elara.”

Even I’m surprised by the vehemence in my voice.

For one heart-stopping moment, everything else seems to melt away. The looming threat, the cryptic symbols, the disturbing pattern of missing women. There’s only her, her natural light pulling me out of the darkness I’ve been drowning in.

Kaspian rises from the chair, snapping me back to the grim present. “Why not? If we could figure it out, so could they.”

His attention rests on Elara for a second before he quickly looks away, as if afraid of revealing too much.

“I won’t let it happen,” Cav adds, echoing my sentiment.

“If they wanted to get at Elara, they shouldn’t have surrounded her with us,” Wilder affirms with a killer smile. Literally a you’re dead if you touch her kind of smile.

That smile falls a second later with surprising seriousness. He’s remembering what happened to the last girl he tried to protect.

Despite the situation, Elara looks at each of us with a soft curve to her lips. A smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and I understand why.

If only we’d met under different, happier circumstances.

She turns serious again. “We need to find out more about Sarah Anderton, too. There has to be a reason her name keeps coming up, and not just because she owned the Heart. I plan on finding Clover on campus tomorrow, the girl who?—”

“We know exactly who the fuck she is.” Kaspian cuts in, a venomous fire in his gaze.

Elara’s cheek muscles twitch while she glares at him. “I’m not going to ruin your rivalry with the Vultures. I just want to talk to her and see what she knows about the Andertons. She wrote that paper about Sarah’s daughter.”

“Absolutely not,” Cav says.

Elara opens her mouth to argue, but then Sasha rubs at her temples with a pained expression. “Guys, I need a break from this ancient, historical, serial killing spree thing. Does anyone need coffee? I can go grab some from the 24-hour place nearby. Pretty sure I’m not on this Satanic hit list, so I can drive there and come back while you continue to … uncover additional horrifying evidence.”

Elara hesitates, her frustration evident in the line between her brows. She glances at Sasha, acknowledging her need for a breather, before nodding reluctantly.

“I’ll take a coffee, thanks,” she says.

“Great,” Sasha says with obvious relief.

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