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.

you want to

did not look

Did we?

very close just

we were talking, but if I admitted that, Nicholas would want to know what we had been talking about. As far as I

gave

during archery practice, as

the

two become so close?”

he remembered me from

I felt like I was

send me further

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

what you were doing just now?” Nicholas’s eyes narrowed,

I, um…

matters to discuss.”

secrets to the grave, but if he kept pushing, I was

At one point, I would

from me and to the sewing machines I’d had the

the threads, and the swatches of

my