The Luna Choosing Game

I forced myself to my feet. The tailor, after making sure I was upright and unharmed, immediately rushed from the room to retrieve a towel and a servant to clean the mess.

My soggy notes were beginning to fall apart in my hands, to wet to even maintain their paper shape.

“Linda,” I said, going to her.

She scrunched her nose as I came close, as if the very sight of me disgusted her. I was disheveled now, true, with my gown damp in some places and my hair a mess. But even so…

“Can I have those names again?” I asked. I knew she had written them down same as me.

She quickly hid her notepad from my sight. “If you lost those names, then this is on you, Piper. You need

to learn to take responsibility.” She narrowed her eyes. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think you had unfair

advantage.”

“It’s not like that,” I said.

She continued on, like I hadn’t said anything. “At least half of our table will look good, and the royal

be able to tell who did which half.”

of the event,” I said.

Luna

are a hindrance, not an adversary. Surely the royal family

The other girls all

sympathetic wave.

at the place where we had been, but we’d tried on

what we had decided upon. I tried

preferences, after having heard them drilled into my head

Using that knowledge, maybe I could at least make a compatible half of

color names I could guesstimate were maybe correct, I rushed down to the

pouring over the pages, when one of the King’s servants found me.

stand in audience with the king.” the servant said.

swallowed thickly. It wasn’t the servant’s fault that I was maybe about to

to chase me. I doubted I

in defiance, and decided to face my inevitable end. I only hoped Nicholas could hear of it and intervene before I was hanged for treason, or some other charge.

servant led me out of the kitchen and around the winding hallways