Jac’s eyes met Belle’s once more as Richard ushered Belle’s friends, hurriedly clothed in the chitons they’d found in Jac’s room, into a carriage. At least they’d let Jac bring Puissance. Belle tried to pack that look full of love, or even just convey the idea I see you, but it was hard, with Lady Belle so in control right now. Love, fear, concern, guilt—all of these, Lady Belle had herded gently into a safe, sturdy box before carefully securing the lid with approximately fourteen different locks, and then setting that box deep in a hole dug in her gut and piling a few layers of dirt on top.

Later, when it was safe to do so, she would take the time to unearth that box, undo each lock, and coax those feelings out one by one to give them all the snuggles and kisses and open ears that they deserved.

For now, this was safest for all of them.

So she just smiled while Richard climbed into the carriage after her friends and shut the door, even waved as the driver snapped the reins and they trotted off. Richard had said he didn’t want her near the blood and death of the Arena, but that was sweet shit. He’d brought her there himself a dozen times. He just didn’t want her there to keep him in check.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

His magic was all stirred up tonight—near manic at the excitement of leaving for Toll tomorrow. Z was being punished, and he was being rewarded with some dangerous secret of his mother’s. And beneath the Full Dry Moon, all of Broken Earth was alive with the magic of indulgence. The prince couldn’t resist it.

Though Belle was worried for her friends, Richard’s absence on this night was a perfect chance to do some indulging of her own—to slip away from here and visit her monsters, to try to convince Kitten that he had to stay safe in the graveyard until she returned.

Under the full moon, navigating the nighttime Broken Earth would have been easy even without magic to guide her. She lifted her face toward the moon as she picked her way toward the inner circle’s wall, knowing that the same midnight light she shone down on Belle was shining on a train far south of here, and the handsome, no doubt well-dressed man who was there to rob it, Tobei—