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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’ve been kept away for years for what—to be sold to a pleasure house?” Amaris demanded, incredulous. She barely kept her voice low enough to prevent detection. Her question had been rhetorical, but Nox answered anyway.

“Their pockets must be far deeper than the matrons had ever considered.”

Amaris was furious. Her hands flew upward, reflecting white in the moonlight. “What am I supposed to do?”

Nox shrugged. Her tone did not match the intensity of the situation, but that was for the simple reason that she did not feel afraid. She felt only calm defiance. Her sentences were resolute. “The world is big. We will leave.”

Amaris took seven steps to the left, spun, then made another seven steps to the right. She couldn’t stop walking. Her arms were wrapped in front of her chest, but she raised her thumb and forefinger to pinch her chin anxiously.

Nox stood, cutting Amaris off in her pacing, extending her hands, hoping her grip would offer some source of comfort and stability. Her heart soared at the way Amaris visibly melted against her pent-up stress as their fingers interlaced.

Nox asked solemnly, “What do you want to do?”

The pause stretched between them, but Nox knew the answer long before it came from Amaris’s lips.

“I want to run,” she said at last.

“We will,” Nox promised. “And we’ll do it soon.”

Amaris tightened her grip, squeezing Nox’s hands as she asked, “Both of us, right?”

Nox almost choked on a laugh at the absurdity of the question. She echoed the squeeze, saying, “As if you could get rid of me.”

Nox was sure she didn’t imagine it as she slipped her arms around Amaris. The glow between them was nearly palpable enough to possess both shape and color. She felt the blue glimmer of life and soul and love between them as she clutched her snowflake. She would have to be pried apart from Amaris. She’d never willingly allow them to be separated.

If they were going to make it more than twenty steps into the forest before being picked clean by demons, they needed to be smart.

She slipped her arm around Amaris and began to steer them away from the forest. Tonight had just been an effort to escape the oppression of the manor. They’d needed to state their proclamation to leave. They needed to accomplish what the freckled sisters hadn’t in their plans to run.

They would plan, they would wait, and they would prepare until there would be no question as to their success. Amaris would not go with Millicent to the place the matron had called the Selkie. The girls would not follow whatever fate Nox was sure had befallen Achard and his cronies, cleanly picked bones lining the forest floor, dead leaves burying them unceremoniously as their forgotten bodies joined the earth.

Eight