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Back The Night and Its Moon Save as PDF
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

If Mable’s fairy tales were to be believed, Amaris realized they were headed into the mountain itself.

Thirteen

Nox’s mind drifted to the pond behind Farleigh. The little lake had been a source of joy in the springs and summers, and an ominous threat come winter. The children weren’t allowed to go near it in the final, chilly days of autumn for the insidious temptation of its clear, thin ice. If you stepped on before it was thick enough to hold your weight, it would fracture into ten thousand sharp slices, plunging you into the arctic waters below. Though the lake might appear clear and flowing beneath, the truth of its brokenness was plain on the surface. Nox thought of that pond as her hand went to her heart, clutching her palm against her chest as if to keep it from crumbling.

She had shattered. She held herself together with the only fragments she could grab with weak, listless fingers. Nox stared through the window of the black carriage as it bounced dully down the road, pulled by its powerful, chestnut horses. She’d kept her hand against her invisible, bleeding wound for hours.

Millicent attempted to talk to her many times after getting Nox into the carriage, but had long since given up, muttering something about how Nox wouldn’t be very good at her job if she didn’t know how to make conversation.

They were a few hours into their journey, yet everything out the window looked the same. Every naked, autumnal tree was the same tree. Every gray, broken rock was the same. The wind shuffled the branches around slightly overhead, blowing the same dead, brown leaves around the same stretch of bumpy road. The sounds of the hooves were the same, the too-sweet vanilla smell of the woman’s perfume was choking her in cloud after cloud of sameness, her breathing was the same, but her heart… It had never been truly broken before.

Her eyes glazed as her mind fixed on the events of the morning.

Wait for me, Amaris had said.

Nox had. She’d gripped the pillowcase of dried foods and the spare cloak close to her body. She’d remained tensed and ready to run as the minutes grew achingly long. She’d waited until she heard a shriek coming from the front of the manor. She’d wanted to run, to see what was happening, but her feet were frozen to the ground. She didn’t want to face the world without Amaris.

Wait for me.

She’d waited.

She could have fled without Amaris beside her, but her heart would not allow it. She wouldn’t escape into the trees unless ivory fingers were interlaced with her own. She couldn’t go. Not willingly.