“I wasn’t really given a choice; I was told what the truth was when I was very young, and I accepted it, like we all do. My father has always believed in the curse, very strongly. The Emersons have always believed in it, in fact, going back many generations. Of course, when they first heard it had been cursed, they didn’t want to return it to Mysuru. They were way too spiteful and small-minded for that, so they broke it up and sold it instead, hoping that would get rid of the curse.” Grey took his ski hat off and pulled a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Do you know how many times I’ve wished I wasn’t an Emerson? How many times I’ve wished I was born an orphan, with no name and no title?” After a moment, gathering himself, he said, “Anyway, then I met you.” He glanced at Jaya and back down at the city. “You had a pendant that fit the bill, but you didn’t seem to know it. That first morning in the dining hall when you told me a ruby had fallen…”

“You left the table,” Jaya mused, remembering the way he’d looked, like he’d had a bad scare. “I wondered why.”

“I was completely and thoroughly shocked. I thought I had to be overreacting. I didn’t know if you were playing a joke on me.”

Jaya looked down at her hands and didn’t say anything. Guilt squirmed in her chest. She had been playing a trick on him, just not the trick he thought.

Grey continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “And then at the mixer when two more rubies fell… I began to panic.

“As the glass rose dims,

So the hope of redemption

Eighteen years, one by one,

Until what’s left is none.

“It’s counting down to my eighteenth birthday in December. I can feel it. Every time I’m around your pendant, I can practically hear a clock’s hands, ticking down the time until…” He turned to her, his eyes roving her face. “That’s the reason I don’t date, Jaya. Once that last ruby falls, I’m… That’s the end of me. The Emerson line is finished, and so am I.” He looked at her. “At sunrise, I presume. That’s when I was born.”

Grey

He hadn’t meant to say all that, least of all to a Rao who was a direct descendant of the one who’d cursed him. And yet there it was. There was a certain openness to Jaya, something that invited confessions under the stars.

She shook her head slowly. “You… you believe you’ll die? On your eighteenth birthday?”

“I have no reason not to believe it.”

Jaya’s face was full of pity. “Grey…”