The Luna Choosing Game

Chapter 0593

The next morning was the final of our time on the island, so I made sure to set a personal alarm to wake me up just before dawn. When it finally went off, I grumbled a minute, before remembering my plan and forcing myself out of bed.

I turned toward Elva and shook her gently, rousing her.

"Mommy?" she asked, peeking open one eye.

"Would you like to watch the sunrise, honey?"

That woke her up right away. "Yeah!"

I shushed her gently. "Let's not wake Nicholas," I said.

"I'm already awake," he said from his air mattress on the ground.

I had tried to tell him late last night, after we had very diligently cleaned up after ourselves and finally came upstairs to sleep, that he didn't have to guard us now, with Ronan in jail and Bridget under supervision.

But Nicholas would not be talked out of it.

And now, thusly, he had been woken up before dawn.

I rolled over on the bed to peer down at him with an apologetic glance. "Sorry," I said.

He rubbed his eye with his forefinger. He huffed a small exhale as he shook his head. "I wouldn't want to have missed this," he said. "I'm glad I was here."

We all rolled out of bed. Since it was so early, we didn't bother changing out of our pajamas as we descended the staircase and made our way out onto the deck. We had to come around the house to face east.

Already the sky was lighting up in warm oranges, the sun near the horizon.

To my surprise, Veronica was already there, reading the book she had borrowed from the merfolk. She had a tiny book light clipped onto the top of the book. I marveled for a minute at how it could do so without bending the pages.

I asked her. I had no idea if she was

blinding white stretch out across the entire horizon. Then the top of the sun brought all of the sunshine back into

watch, the brightness of the sun cresting above the waves, as the light painted the sky with a rainbow

to Elva and Nicholas, coming to stand between them. I

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

my ear. "Not as

Smooth talker.

soft smile. He returned it

to damage our eyes. By now, some of the others had awakened. Soon, Julian had found us and joined

the sandcastle Bridget had made for her. We'd thought of dismantling it, but... we didn't want

Julian said to her. "Let's make our own

I told Elva, to encourage her. She hadn't shown as much

sighed as she said, "Okay." She took Julian's hand and they went closer to the water to recover the wet sand needed

Elva or me, but he decided me rather

moved closer to her. Veronica didn't seem troubled that Nicholas had joined

out for herself. As I was closer now, I could see that she had made extreme progress on the book since the last time we'd talked about

have been good news, but her dire expression kept me from expressing my joy. "But she won't be able to

mean?" I asked. "Do we need

she said. "And perhaps

I liked the unique way Veronica's mind

mean to undermine the importance of this, or keep it from you." He inhaled deeply. "The curse itself is tied and bound with life force, so it will take a

force?" I asked. "What are talking about? Like years

life. And the more life force that is needed the more painful it would be

Already I could sense he was about to volunteer. Well, he could get in line. Elva was my daughter. If anyone had to sacrifice anything to save her and

could only be me,

but not the means," Veronica confirmed. "She will

at once, before Nicholas had

the least I can do