The big question was, why had it been so easy for Father to forsake him? Was it because it made no sense to invest in something that wasn’t going to last very long anyway? Because he saw Grey’s mother in Grey’s blue eyes, too painful a reminder of what he’d lost? Grey wished he could turn his back on his father, wished he could tell him he was cruel and ruthless and Grey deserved better. But his father was the only one who truly understood who—what—Grey was. And that meant something.

One thing Grey couldn’t overlook: his eighteenth birthday was coming up. Time was ticking down, faster and faster.

In an attempt to avoid the curse, the Emerson clan had sold the ruby to a master jeweler in the Middle East. (Of course, they could’ve just apologized and returned the ruby to Mysuru in an attempt to overturn the curse, but by then there was too much bad blood between the Raos and the Emersons.) For generations, that’s where the trail had ended.

Maybe the rose pendant was a total coincidence, but Grey had to admit it was pretty damn strange that Jaya Rao, of all people, happened to have one. But why wear it here? To taunt him?

Ever since he’d seen the pendant on Jaya when she sat in the garden, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Letting a groan of frustration echo against the stone walls of the tower, Grey clamped his fists to his head. He needed answers. Was that ruby pendant the cursed one? He couldn’t just keep churning like this, an ocean tossed around by storms.

As the night wore on and the stars above twinkled like glass shards in black velvet, Grey Emerson knew he had to take action. He had to unearth the truth about Jaya Rao and why, exactly, she was here.

Jaya

Sunlight splashed from the sky into Jaya’s room and onto her face. She groaned and rolled over, forgetting if it was the beginning of a new day or the end of an old one. And then she did remember: oh yes. The last two days were gone in a haze of exploring the school and its grounds (and keeping a close eye on Isha). It was now Thursday: the first day of school. The day she’d begin working her charms on Grey Emerson. A horde of spiteful butterflies began to assault her nervous stomach.

Jaya checked her phone: 6:15 a.m. Her alarm was set to go off in fifteen minutes, so she turned it off and sat up in bed, looking out the window at the gardens dotted with dew below. The day she’d been awaiting was finally here.