The Luna Choosing Game

I’ll leave you two to chat, Julian said, tapping Nicholas on the shoulder.

Side by side Julian and Nicholas were of comparable height, with Nicholas an inch or two taller. They

looked similar too, though Julian’s features were somewhat softer than the hard angles of Nicholas’s

face.

Nicholas wasn’t saying anything. His expressionless gaze shifted from me to Julian and back again.

Julian laughed on his way out the door and well down the hallway. I could hear echoes of it long after he

was gone

I thought Nicholas might leave too. Had he only come to look for Julian? Despite Julian’s teasing, it seemed impossible that he would have been searching for me.

Yet when Julian left, Nicholas stayed in my doorway, fixed and unmoving like a statue.

Under his unwavering stare, I began to get nervous. Did he overhear something that Julian and I had

talked about? No, we’d been speaking softly. Even from the door, he wouldn’t have been able to hear.

So what did he want?

I waited out his silence for as long as I could manage before I finally broke.

want to talk?” I

move, nor did not look

Did we?

very close just now,”

admitted that, Nicholas would want to know what we had been talking about. As far as I was concerned, Nicholas could never, ever know my

gave a non–committal

were close during

as glancing at me during the archery

did you two become

me from

but it was uneasy. I felt like I was walking along a dagger’s edge, and one wrong

send me further into disfavor with

did he care who I spent time with? Unless he was worried I had turned my machinations on Julian since he

just now?”

swallowed down my growing nerves. “No, I, um… Julianer, Prince Julian

matters to discuss.”

darkest secrets to the grave, but if he kept pushing,

denying Nicholas. At one point, I would have

gaze slid away from me and to the sewing machines I’d had the maids

the machines, the threads, and the swatches of

my