Chapter 138: Take Back

Elara sat cross-legged against the headboard, half listening to the faint hum of the Kinext projection while she watched one of Jahbri’s curls slip forward over her shoulder.

The camera only caught her from the chest up, leaving the rest of the room beyond her in a soft blur, but somehow that narrow little frame still felt crowded by her presence. Elara caught her own reflection in the dark edge of the display once and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Jahbri had always been unfair to look at. Amber curls framed a face that seemed to change with every small movement, warm one second and sharp the next, while her eyes carried the same color without ever looking washed out beside them.

Elara had known her long enough that she should have gotten used to it by now, but every so often Jahbri would turn her head, or glance up through her lashes, and Elara would remember all over again why strangers had such trouble acting normal around her.

The beauty rankings had put Jahbri first, which sounded impressive until you actually knew her. The list reduced her to something flat, as though she could be measured beside everyone else and neatly placed above them, when the real problem was that pictures never quite caught it.

Jahbri was prettier when she frowned, prettier when she was annoyed, prettier when she forgot anyone was looking at her at all, though right now she wore the quiet, distracted expression that usually meant Elara had been talking for longer than she realized.

"We’re actually making pretty good progress." Elara shifted against the pillows and pulled up one of the reports her father had sent her. "Gavin thinks all four of us should reach Elite this week, and the information department already finished our routes for the next three."

Jahbri gave a small nod from the other side of the call. She hadn’t interrupted once while Elara explained the training schedule, Jaxir joining the faction, or the preparations for the Nightmare Dungeon. That wasn’t unusual by itself, but Elara had known her long enough to notice when she was just being Jahbri, and when she was upset.

"And Jaxir is..." Elara stopped and narrowed her eyes at the screen. "Okay, what is it?"

Jahbri’s gaze settled directly onto hers. The warmth Elara was used to seeing there had disappeared sometime during the conversation, leaving those amber eyes much harder than they had any right to look. "What did you say to Jaxir?"

Elara froze with the report still open beside her. "What?" She coughed once and looked away from the screen. "I didn’t say anything."

Jahbri didn’t blink. She didn’t repeat the question either, which somehow made the silence much worse. Elara lasted another five seconds before her shoulders started to sink.

"I just poked fun at him a little." Elara picked at the edge of her blanket and tried to sound like it hadn’t been anything worth mentioning. "I didn’t say anything crazy."

Jahbri kept staring. Elara’s voice lost some of its confidence before she even reached the part she had been hoping to skip. "I told him he wasn’t very handsome..."

The change in Jahbri’s expression was tiny, but Elara felt it immediately. Her eyes went cold, and for several seconds neither of them spoke while Elara suddenly became very interested in a wrinkle running across her blanket. When Jahbri finally spoke, her voice remained calm.

"If you ever use something I’ve told you in confidence to attack someone I care about again, I will never call you my friend again." Jahbri didn’t raise her voice or soften the words once they were out. "I mean that, Elara."

Elara’s eyes burned before she could stop them. "I was trying to defend you." The words came out smaller than she wanted, and she hated that even more than the tears gathering along her lashes.

She was supposed to be Jahbri’s best friend, and best friends were supposed to say the things everyone else was too afraid to say. Elara had watched Jahbri lose hours every day checking on Jaxir, asking about doctors, following his condition and worrying over someone who hadn’t seemed capable of giving anything back.

How much further could Jahbri have gone if half her mind wasn’t always stuck on whether Jaxir Chance had managed to eat that day?

"He made your life miserable." Elara wiped at the first tear before it could get far and looked back at the screen. "You spent years worrying about him while he shut everyone out, and I hated watching you do that."

Jahbri’s expression didn’t change. "That doesn’t give you the right to take something I trusted you with and throw it at him." Her eyes remained fixed on Elara. "Especially when you know why he looks the way he does."

That hit harder than Elara wanted it to. She wiped at her face again and remembered Jaxir standing in front of her with that thin frame, pale eyes and a face that clearly hadn’t always looked that hollow.

Worse, the Jaxir she had met over the last few days didn’t look much like dead weight anymore.

He had made her father reorganize half an operation around him within days of starting the game, reached Archmage while still sitting in Tier 1, and apparently possessed enough money to spend six hundred thousand silver on a house without blinking.

Elara didn’t suddenly like him, but pretending he was some useless burden had started to feel childish even inside her own head. Maybe she had been wrong.

"I’m sorry." Elara lowered her head and rubbed the heel of her palm across one eye. "I shouldn’t have said it."

Jahbri watched her for another moment, though she didn’t say that she accepted the apology.

"You also need to be careful around him." The coldness eased from her eyes, but the seriousness didn’t.

Elara frowned and looked back up.

"Careful how?" She had expected another warning about saying something cruel, not whatever this was.

"The more Jaxir returns to his old self, the sharper he’s going to get." Jahbri shifted slightly, sending one curl sliding across her cheek. "There was a time when hiding something from him was almost impossible unless he felt not caring about it, or trusted you enough not to."

Elara thought about Jaxir and Nick potentially noticing something was wrong with Niri and shuddered. She had been trying to get close to the girl carefully, and neither man had confronted her about it, but that suddenly felt less reassuring than it had yesterday.

"You think he’s already noticed things?"

"I think your people haven’t told him everything." Jahbri’s gaze drifted away from the camera for a moment before returning. "They don’t tell me everything either, so I would be shocked if they handed him every secret the moment he agreed to help."

"That isn’t exactly unreasonable." Elara sat straighter and folded her legs beneath herself. "We can’t tell every useful player everything we know."

"I didn’t say you should." Jahbri shook her head once. "The government needs secrets, and it needs time before it trusts people with them."

Elara waited, already hearing the warning coming. Jahbri’s expression softened slightly, though her next words didn’t.

"Just remind your father to use some reservation when he’s deciding what to hide and how far he’s willing to push."

"What exactly am I supposed to tell him?" Elara reached toward the side of the bed and closed the forgotten report. Jahbri looked straight into her eyes again.

"Don’t do anything you can’t take back." Jahbri let the words sit there for a moment before giving Elara a small nod. "I’ll talk to you later."

The Kinext display disappeared before Elara found anything useful to say in return. She remained sitting on the bed with her hands folded in her lap, staring at the empty space where Jahbri’s face had been. For once, Elara didn’t feel much like arguing.