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 talk?”

nor did not look away. “You are Julian

Did we?

very close just

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

I gave a non–committal

close during archery

me during the archery event. Even when I had

did you two become

he remembered me from the

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

me further into disfavor

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

doing just now?” Nicholas’s eyes narrowed, his focus

nerves. “No, I, um… Julianer, Prince Julian

matters to discuss.”

he wouldn’t ask more. I would take my darkest secrets to the grave, but

been very good at denying Nicholas. At one point, I would have found a way to

to the sewing machines I’d had

over the machines, the threads, and

my