Page 9 of Moonlight Hearts

I nodded, excitement stirring in my belly.“Like how Elias says he’ll handle my socials.”

Soyer rolled his eyes.“Your social engagements.But yes, essentially.Amory?”

“Hmm?”

He put the roasted hazelnut ice cream tub into the empty cherry tub I was still holding.It freed up his hand.He cupped my neck, his fingers cold from the ice cream, and I shivered.

“No wandering off.”

“Okay.”

“And finish that ice cream.If you’re up for it, there’s some great Bohemian food down here.”

“Bohemian food?You mean fancy?”

He huffed.“From the area that used to be called Bohemia.”

“Ah.”I grinned at him.“I thought you liked Chinese food.”

“I do like Chinese food.Now, come on.Chop-chop with the ice cream.If you finish it fast, you can ask me three questions about the underground.”

“Three?”

He tossed his spoon into a trash can, then buffed his nails on his coat.“Need to keep some of the mysteries going to entertain my younger lover.”

I aimed for his ribs with my elbow, but he easily evaded it.“Fiancé.”

He looked at me like a cat who’d caught the mouse.“Right.My sexy fiancé.”

I tried to elbow him again, with much the same result.“Soyer.”

But he’d already made me blush.There wasn’t much I could do about it other than finishing the roasted hazelnut ice cream just slow enough to avoid brain freeze and then asking him my questions.

Chapter Four

Theundergroundwaslikesomething straight out of a fairy tale—an urban fairy tale.It really was as if the escalators had taken us into a fantasy world that existed in the artificial light that flooded these tunnels from what had to be hundreds and hundreds of lamps.Under our feet, the wooden street showed signs of regular use.It wasn’t a yellow brick road, but to me, it was just as magical.

I was licking my spoon clean, trying not to stare at all the people.Some had wings, some had tails.I saw some tentacles too.Real tentacles.

Possibly the most surprising sights were all the mundane things, like the trash cans and benches.We walked past one on which two gorgons were sitting side by side, their snake hair intertwined, the black eyes of their snakes sneakily looking at us.I’d have missed that if I hadn’t seen Kasey do it all the time.

“It’s really clean down here,” I said, scooping out the last bit of roasted hazelnut before tossing the tub.

“I think Valentin fines people for littering.He’s such a stickler.”

My eyes went wide.“Valentin takes care of all of this?”

“Hawthorne does.”Soyer shrugged.“Valentin just manages stuff.And makes his stickler rules.”

A delivery person on a bike passed us by, staring at us with wide eyes and an open mouth.So did a four-armed woman pulling a trolley behind her; the kind you’d take on an airplane as a carry-on.

I leaned closer to Soyer.“Am I imagining it or are people looking at us?”

“You’re not imagining anything.They are.One more question.”

“Huh?”

“Those’re the rules, Amory.”He looked at me, fixing me with his black eyes that had their own gravitational pull.“Unless you can think of things to bargain for more answers.”