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.

to talk?”

look away. “You are Julian seem…

Did we?

standing very close just now,” Nicholas

would want to know what we

I gave a non–committal

were close during archery practice,

had totally avoided so much as glancing at me during the archery event. Even when

did you two become so

me from the

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

send me further

already hated me. Why did he care who I spent time with? Unless he was worried I had turned my

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

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

matters to discuss.”

secrets to the grave, but

Nicholas. At one point, I would have found a way

to the sewing machines I’d had the maids

the machines, the threads, and the

my