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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

Angry, ripping scars had been expected. There had been speculative whispers about torn, raised skin, discolored welts, and the jagged intersections that would forever mark her with the evidence of the church’s intervention. Instead, Nox’s wounds had healed somewhat miraculously. Flora had commented with no attempt at concealing her amazement that, where maiming had been expected, only a few nearly imperceptible lines remained. But there were scars. Not all wounds could be seen on one’s surface. A hardness had been born in the darkness that day that never fully dissipated. The shadows had built a home within Nox, one that wrapped themselves around her heart, pushing away anyone and everyone who wasn’t Amaris.

For the rest of that cruel day and the painful ones that followed, Amaris had knelt wordlessly at Nox’s bedside. She’d been the only one permitted to stay near Nox in those solemn hours, curling up beside her in sleep and holding her hand during the daylight.

“Let me do your hair,” Amaris insisted now, pulling Nox back from her memories. Nox obliged and sat on the bed, leaning into the touch as Amaris began to quietly weave her fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at it.”

“That’s okay. It feels nice,” Nox said.

“Maybe they should have taught me how to style hair. It would have made me a better lady-in-waiting.”

All children were obligated into the basics of education. It molded them into a state of competence, should they serve as the hands of shopkeepers in need of basic math or purchased as young penmen for wordsmiths whose fingers had tired with arthritis. Farleigh was not the most pious orphanage in Farehold; it was, however, the most determined for financial success.

The matrons overwhelmed Amaris with the sort of lessons expected in high society, burying her in books, in calligraphy, in sketching and song. The Gray Matron had already invested so much in her purchase, it only strengthened Agnes’s resolve to ensure that Amaris could pass any social or proprietary test put forth and prove she was worth any asking price. Nox served as her tutorial counterpart, learning alongside her to supplement Amaris’s education. Her lessons intensified as her years stretched on, her studies more thorough than most anyone else’s at the orphanage. Agnes seemed to grow more and more determined to foster Amaris’s value with every day that passed. The monetary fate of the mill rested on her moonlit shoulders.