FAKE SAPPHIRE, REAL JADE

At Evercrest Gem Academy, the top gemstone school in the United States, a student’s gemstone grade determines everything. Sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds are those born to be in the spotlight. Ordinary stones can only serve as backdrops, do menial tasks, or be the butt of jokes. Ava Stone-King was originally just an ordinary stone. To get her into Evercrest, her family polished her outer layer, glazed her, dyed her, and plated her with a glossy finish—disguising her as a “sapphire.” The entire school believed she was the sapphire queen. Top of the class. The student council goddess. Born into a gemstone tycoon family. The perfect girl in every boy’s eyes. Even the school heartthrob, Jasper Diamond-Hale, pursued her. She thought she was finally loved, so she got together with Jasper. But Jasper didn’t truly love her—he loved the status of being “the Sapphire Queen.” When Jasper cheated on her with the ruby socialite Scarlet Ruby-Vale, Scarlet publicly exposed Ava as not a sapphire at all, but just an ordinary stone that had been painted over. Overnight, Ava went from being the school’s goddess to a fraud.