Page 11 of Only in Moonlight (The Moonlit Court #1)

Emmeline

I ’d been stuck in Valen’s chateau for three days. Three days of practicing how low to curtsy to different noble ranks. Three days of rehearsing stories about our fake love affair. Three days of Valen refusing to tell me a damned thing.

Who was the person he’d chased through the trees outside? Did they know about our scheme to steal the Selenian Jewel? What was our plan for the theft? The layout of the ballroom? The timeline for our getaway? Don’t ask me, because I didn’t have a clue.

I wanted to strangle him in his sleep. Too bad he still shackled me to the bed every night—the luxurious, sublime, impossibly soft bed.

And the dresses I wore? So smooth and light that it felt like clothing myself in air.

Every chair in the chateau was as soft as a cloud.

Every room smelled fresh, the air somehow just the right temperature.

I’d never thought anything could be this perfectly comfortable.

And I couldn’t even properly enjoy it. How could I relax when my mother was agonizing over whether I was still alive?

And no luxury could make me forget Valen would betray me the moment he got the jewel.

(Except maybe that amazing Camembert cheese from dinner last night.

That could almost make me forget my own name.)

I’d spent days preparing for a heist before. Hell, I’d prowled around the Moonlit Court for a week gathering information before I made my move on Tullus. But three days of etiquette practice with Valen felt like three days of banging my head against a boulder. And the dance lessons…

“I need to see someone doing it properly,” I said after the second hour.

I’d tripped over him, bumped into him, and stepped on his feet at least twenty times. (And ten of them were actually accidents.) I’d felt like a lumbering cow trying to keep pace with a stallion.

Valen pinched the bridge of his nose but didn’t argue, which showed how completely hopeless I’d been. Then he strode from the room without a word. Had he given up?

But he returned a moment later, Nin trailing behind him.

“—show her a dance,” he was saying. “Do you know the Blue Rose?”

Nin giggled like a young girl. “Sir Valen, I haven’t danced since Ermo passed away.”

Valen held out a hand. “Please try.”

Nin glanced at me uncertainly, like I was going to claw out her eyes for laying a finger on my man.

You can have him, I thought. Really. Take him away.

“Please,” I said aloud. “I learn best by watching.”

She took his hand, and he waited for another fit of giggles to pass. He stepped forward, and she took a step a split-second later. Three more steps, and they turned, him spinning her…

And her next step landed on his foot.

She leaped back, hands rushing to her mouth. “Sir Valen, I’m so sorry.”

“I can do that,” I said brightly.

Valen ignored me, assuring Nin that she hadn’t hurt him. (I’d stomped on his foot much harder, and he’d barely twitched.) After he ushered her from the room, he let out a defeated sigh.

“We’ll go out tonight,” he said. “There’s bound to be a dance we can watch.”

“Or we can skip the dance lessons,” I replied. “We just won’t dance at the ball.”

“Everyone dances at the ball. If we didn’t, it would—”

“—draw attention. Yeah, yeah.”

I understood that he wanted to blend into the background.

He was attending the ball under his own name and wanted to keep his cushy position in the Court after swiping the jewel.

He couldn’t afford to draw suspicion, or he’d end up in the same dungeons he was threatening me with. But something just didn’t seem right…

“What about after the ball?” I asked suddenly.

We were eating lunch, fish in a sauce of fresh herbs that Nin said was Valen’s favorite. I figured she was trying to make up for stepping on his foot.

He put down his glass of water and looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“Won’t everyone think it’s suspicious when I go back to Earth right after the ball?”

“Of course. That’s why we need to maintain the charade for at least a month afterwards before faking an argument and going our separate ways.”

“Another month?!” My mouth opened and closed. It took a moment for my shock and fury to translate into words. “You— You shit-shoveling son of an ogre. You never said that was part of the deal. I can’t be away from home for that long!”

“That’s how long it will take to do this properly. You’ll have a roof over your head and three full meals a day—which seems far better than what you had on Earth. I don’t see the problem.”

“Of course you don’t, asshole.”

“Do you want to return to Earth empty-handed?”

“No,” I snarled.

“Then you’ll stay for another month.”

I wanted to argue, but what good would it do?

I had no leverage. He held all the power here.

And I wasn’t even sure he meant what he’d said.

Once I stole the Selenian Jewel for him, all bets were off.

He might keep me around for another month before imprisoning me.

He might kill me right away to keep me from telling anyone of his guilt.

I might be able to predict what he’d do if I knew why he wanted the jewel, but he hadn’t let the slightest hint slip over the past three days.

We ate in silence, and I couldn’t stop myself from glowering at him as I chewed. It wasn’t proper dining behavior, but I didn’t care.

I expected him to ignore me, but he looked back, the corners of his mouth tugging into a frown.

“Your mother—” he began.

Oh, hell no. I seized the butter knife like a sword. “Don’t you dare threaten her.”

“I’m not. But you’re worried about her, aren’t you?”

I didn’t answer. He shouldn’t have been so perceptive, shouldn’t have paid enough attention to guess the reason I was upset. But I guess paying attention to things like that helped him manipulate people better.

“If you want to help her,” he said, “you’re better off staying here long enough to earn your gold.”

That was true—if he would really pay me.

“I know that, but Maman probably thinks you’ve stabbed me in the back by now. She’s suffering. Leaving her like that for one night is too long, never mind two months.

His jaw tightened. What was going through that infuriating head of his? Did he… have a mother? Someone must have given birth to him, but did he care about her enough to understand how I was feeling?

It didn’t matter. Even if he understood, what would it matter to him that I felt upset? Fey men didn’t care about the human women they used.

“If you write her a letter, I’ll see that she receives it,” he said after several moments. “Assure her you’re safe. Obviously say nothing about the theft.”

Forget everything I said about him being perceptive. Pampered by wealth in his faraway court, the man was clueless.

“I can’t read or write,” I said frostily. “Neither can she.”

His eyes widened ever so slightly. “Ah.”

After an incredibly awkward silence, his gaze dropped to his plate, and we kept eating in silence like nothing had happened.

***

An afternoon of more etiquette practice dragged by, then dinner, and then I was leaving the chateau for the first time since I’d arrived.

A cool breeze tugged at my gauzy turquoise dress, and I gazed up at the sky, Earth hanging overhead amid the stars.

It had disturbed me the first time I’d seen it, but I was getting used to being on the moon now.

The city looked its best at night, all glittering and mysterious.

I could almost enjoy the stroll if Valen didn’t walk beside me.

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Just follow the music,” he replied. “This close to the feast day, we’re bound to find a dance soon enough.”

We walked down the winding stone street, lights from tower windows shining like stars. Carriages pulled by winged horses passed us, one of them flying overhead. We hadn’t been walking for five minutes when, sure enough, we heard music.

Valen led me off the street and up a narrow staircase that climbed a hillside between buildings. Halfway up, a small shadow darted down the steps toward us.

I paused, but the shadow soon revealed itself to be a cat—a gorgeous cat with black fur that seemed to sparkle, eyes so vibrant purple they nearly glowed. It bounded up to Valen and rubbed itself against his legs, purring.

Wow, the cat was a terrible judge of character. It would have better luck cozying up to literally anyone—

“Hello to you, too.”

Valen pulled something from a pouch on his belt and offered it to the cat. Fish, I realized a second later as the cat chomped down on it. He’d brought a piece of leftover fish from lunch.

Did he bring it specifically for the cat? Of course he had. He didn’t walk around with pieces of random fish for no reason. But… That was sweet. And Valen wasn’t sweet.

He continued up the steps as if he hadn’t just smashed my perception of him to little pieces.

“Are you coming?” he asked, stopping about five steps up.

“Is that your cat?”

“She’s no one’s. Lives in the neighborhood and mooches off whomever she can.”

“Reminds me of the alley cat who lived behind the brothel where I grew up. I never had extra food to give him, but I’d set out a bowl of water.” I bent down and scratched the cat under the chin. “Of course, he was the ugliest little goblin I’d ever seen, nothing like this gorgeous lady.”

Valen’s brow furrowed, but he smoothed out his expression a moment later. “Shall we?”

I left the cat to her feast, and we climbed the rest of the stairs.

I snuck glances at Valen when he wasn’t looking, wondering if another shapeshifter might be impersonating him.

Just because he’s nice to cats doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole , I told myself.

They said King Albin of Thallence spoiled his dog rotten, and he was a murderous tyrant.

The music grew louder, and we followed it to a small square. A towering statue of a woman in a crown stood in its center, carved from pearlescent stone that radiated a soft white glow. The musicians played at its base, their heads barely brushing the woman’s ankles.

Dancers glided around them, feet prancing across smooth stone the color of amethyst. Their movement was hypnotic, each person stepping in sync with not only their partner but every other couple around them.

Most of the women—and a few of the men—wore elegant, flowing dresses.

Other women wore trousers, and most men wore fancy tunics or loose shirts that revealed their chests.

Food vendors had set up tents on the edge of the square, but Valen found an open spot between them where we could sit on a low stone wall and watch the dancing.

I studied their movements, though it was hard because they kept changing dances.

Valen named each one: the Blue Rose, Danse De Lune, the Pavane.

Some were so simple they bored me, while others looked much trickier.

Occasionally, a dancer would miss a step or turn the wrong way. But they’d just laugh and keep going. I found it reassuring, not just because I wouldn’t stand out if I made a mistake, but because it showed the fey weren’t perfect.

The couples chatted and smiled at each other as they twirled around, and I felt a stab of jealousy.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to dance with on a night like this?

Better yet, someone to go home with after, to curl up in bed with, pleasantly exhausted.

I’d always tried to stop myself from longing for a partner.

I’d lived on the fringes of society, a pariah, hardly marriage material.

For a brief time, I’d thought maybe I’d found something with Philippe, but that little adventure had ended like a shipwreck.

Then came my mother’s illness. I’d stolen Tullus’s fortune, bought her a cure, and we’d left our old lives behind, moving across the kingdom and finding work on a farm. Nobody there knew about our past. Maman had started pointing out unwed farmhands, encouraging me to find romance.

But how could I trust someone with the secret of my shapeshifting magic? Maman had trusted a man once, and look at how that had turned out.

“Are you ready to try?” Valen asked.

I’d been staring at the dancers without really seeing them for the past minute, so the question almost made me jump. Was I ready? The musicians started playing one of the slower, easier songs.

I nodded, and Valen stood, offering me his hand. I stared at it, the skin on my arms prickling. We’d held hands all morning when I was stepping on his feet, but this time, his hand seemed to offer the promise of something more.

What a stupid thought.

I took his hand, and we joined the other dancers.