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Chapters (64)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  6. Pronunciation Guide
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. One
  10. Two
  11. Three
  12. Four
  13. Five
  14. Six
  15. Seven
  16. Eight
  17. Nine
  18. Ten
  19. Eleven
  20. Twelve
  21. Thirteen
  22. Part Two
  23. Fourteen
  24. Fifteen
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Part Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Part Four
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. Forty-One
  53. Forty-Two
  54. Forty-Three
  55. Forty-Four
  56. Forty-Five
  57. Forty-Six
  58. Forty-Seven
  59. Epilogue
  60. Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
  61. The Night and Its Moon Playlist
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. Back Cover

“I guess you’ll have to keep me around.” Amaris smiled.

“Oh,” Malik amended, “and what is your punishment if you ever use that on me again? Can I hang you from a tree by your thumbs?”

The boys took their time discussing various methods of suitable torture while she finished her breakfast. While most of their ideas revolved around particularly cruel and unusual ways for her to apologize, they landed on using a hot iron brand to burn “I’m sorry, Malik” across her forehead.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“Tell it to the iron brand.”

While their night at the inn hadn’t been an eight-hour slumber of down pillows and crackling fires that one might have hoped, it was certainly refreshing for them to have taken a break, however brief, from cold nights on the ground with insects and wild hares as their only company. The baths and hot meals had done them a world of wonder. Even the horses seemed to have enjoyed their night in the stables with fresh straw and the bag of oats mounted on the walls of their stalls. It didn’t take long for the threesome to saddle their steeds. Soon Cobb, Nine, and Fourteen were carrying them up the hill out of Yelagin, the road to Aubade stretching out before them.

Thirty-One

Emily had come to despise the smell of vanilla. She choked on it now as it coated the back of her throat. The perfume mingled with the burn of anxiety. She didn’t know why she’d been called to the office, but after Nox’s clandestine departure, she suspected it wasn’t over anything good.

“Do you know what the most dangerous force in this world is?” Millicent purred. She clasped her hands in front of her, resting her elbows on her desk. The ornate walls of her office populated the space behind her. Today she wore all black, including a small, black hat atop her pinned hair, and her ever-present inky gloves.

Over the years, Emily had been summoned to Millicent’s office for numerous reasons. In the past, she had sat in this chair to discuss clients, techniques, and procedurals. In more recent visits, she and the Madame had gone over Emily’s instructions for how to target and lure the Duke of Henares to the Selkie or her upcoming plan to ensnare the Captain of the Guard. The duke hadn’t been her first act as bait, but it had unquestioningly been her most successful. The power of suggestion was more effective, she learned, when the target believed the idea to be one of his own creation.

This was not a meeting of the minds. There were no conspiratorial whispers or maps of men and their whereabouts. Emily shifted uncomfortably as she tried to adapt to the sticky, unpleasant energy.