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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

Mable continued discarding skins into one bin and placing the peeled potatoes into a pot as the girls left the kitchen. She’d bid them a rather absent good night, presumably still lost to her memories. She’d unwittingly shared where the Madame was to be taking Amaris. The menagerie of exotic women, of special treasures from around the world, was just outside of the royal city. Her virtue, her body, her life were to be sold in the seaside town of Priory.

Nine

Something was wrong.

Pain lanced through her side. A light sweat clung to her brow. Amaris jolted awake, curling into herself as she brought her knees to her chest with a gasp. She couldn’t fully stretch herself into a seated position as she moved her legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet chilling against the cold floor.

The summer’s heat had cooled into nipping autumn. Leaves tumbled to the ground in shades of brown, yellow, and orange somewhere beyond the darkened windows. It was a moonless night, leaving her concealed in the dark with a swirling, gripping pain.

Cold continued to work its way from her feet into her calves as she stumbled out of the dormitory, down the hall, and toward the bathing room. Amaris didn’t light a candle but felt her way through the dormitory on memory alone. She bumped into a bed as she gripped at her abdomen, waking someone. One of the other girls stirred in her beds and called softly after her, but she ignored the child as she continued to stumble through the dark.

Amaris was almost to the bathing room when she doubled over, a fresh pain twisting its fist deep inside her. She muffled the sound that threatened to tear from her mouth, not wanting to alert the matrons. She had been sick before from food, or when a bout of flu had swept through the house and stricken nearly all of its residents, but this felt like a hot, angry poker in her lowermost belly. This nauseating brand of pain was something she’d never felt before.

Amaris made it to the bathing room, instantly regretting not bringing a candle. She gripped at her nightdress as she searched for the source of her pain. It felt as though she’d wet herself, which stirred a renewed sense of panic. How sick must she be if she’d wet the bed? She dabbed at the mess with the towels on the wall, barely seeing through the gray-black gloom of the window. From the next room, a sharp yelp cut through the night. Amaris clutched her abdomen and padded back down the hall to see who was in trouble, only to find a candle had been lit in her dorm. Two of the younger girls looked up at her.

“Amaris is hurt!” one cried.