"Is that supposed to be funny?" Janice asked, her annoyance evident.
Ace immediately shut his mouth.
She looked exhausted—dark circles under her eyes, tension in her shoulders. Turns out, she'd burned through a third of her curse tools dealing with her uncle and had spent the entire night planning how to restock as quickly as possible. But before she could even get started, the chaos in the villa had ruined everything—costing her not just a curse item, but a rare curse core.
Yeah. She was not in the mood to entertain Ace's humor.
Ace cleared his throat. "I'll wash it…" he offered weakly, dragging out his words in hopes she'd just let it go.
Janice sighed, rubbing her temples. "Leave it."
Ace exhaled in relief seeing the crisis avert itself. Janice shifted her gaze to him, suddenly frowning. "What are you doing here? Is Mandy with you? I told her she didn't have to check up on me, I'm doing fine."
