Page 6 of The Diamond in the Rough

“Can you try again?” he asked, his voice intense.

I swallowed. I didn’t want to.

“Raj—” Mason began.

I held out one hand, willing it not to shake.

It didn’t obey me, and I felt Mason studying me.

Are you sure?Sylvia asked.

No. But Ward would, so I should.

Not if it’s going to hurt you,she replied.

That never stopped him, I pointed out, then gestured a little when Mason didn’t put the necklace back in my hand.

“Rayn—”

“Mason,” Parikh interrupted. “We don’t have anywhere else to go, and he’s already given us more than the victim was able to.”

I looked up at him then, his intense golden-brown eyes focused on me, studying me. Judging me. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“She was confused,” Mason said shortly.

“Confused?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach.

Mason looked uncomfortable.

The knot tightened.

I’m sure it’s not the same thing, Sylvia said, clearly trying to be soothing.

It didn’t work.

The only thing I knew of that would cause a ghost to become confused if they hadn’t been in life—and this woman hadn’t seemed particularly confused—was if someone had tried to strip her magic from her.

Like they’d done to me at Tranquil Brook.

The people who’d died there, their magic stolen from them, had been ‘confused,’ their minds twisted and warped by the process of stealing their magic.

I looked back at Parikh. The frustration on his face. Then I looked back at Mason. “Give it back to me.”

The orc’s facial expression told me he didn’t want to. But he dropped the necklace back into my hand.

She was gasping for air—

I had to go earlier.Before what I’d already read.

There werewords in a strange language that twisted his tongue, words spoken with anger and disgust. Words that were cold and icy. Thick with power.

Words that tasted bitter and acrid.

But there was glee underneath the anger and hate. Pleasure as the words twisted his tongue. He enjoyed imagining what this would do to her.

His fingers moved over the links of chain and gems, red and green glinting amid gold and chips of shimmering rainbow in pearlescent white.

How it would drink up her strength and leave her weak and spent.