Page 81 of Moonmarked

A chuckle from ahead—Lyall.

He’d stopped by a willow tree some ten feet away, holding the branches that fell like a curtain in front of it with one arm as he squatted down and looked at the fox curled there beneath a root.

It was no ordinary fox, though. I don’t know why I got the impression that she was a female. She had a silver coat, and her fur glowed like moonlight, especially in the shade the willow offered her as she looked at the prince, her eyes changing color just slightly each time she blinked. Shedidn’t look afraid. On the contrary—she seemed very curious.

“Look,” Lyall said, waving for us to get closer to him, and I was too curious to even hesitate.

Rune stopped beside me, our shoulders almost touching, and heat spilled all over me just like that.

Then the prince said, “You see that? The fox does not blink when watched.”

And he reached out a hand toward the grey animal.

My heart jumped and I almost screamed—no, don’t!Like he could die if he touched an illusion. Like the game would kill him or something.

It didn’t, of course. The moment Lyall touched the fox’s tail, its entire body shimmered, and it disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a coin underneath the root.

The prince took it and stood up, let the curtain of branches fall into place, and showed us the coin between his fingers. It was golden and with a sun engraved on both sides, but that was all I was able to see before Lyall threw it in the air and caught it in his fist again.

“I win.”

The second gamewas just beyond the willow tree where the silver fox had been, and once more, the moment we stepped away from it, everything in the forest changed.

No more animals. No more birds chirping or owls hooting. No more cats and hedgehogs and deer, but a clearing stretched before us, and something flew over the ground all right, but they weren’t birds.

They wereorbs,and they were floating, some hoveringand some spinning, and the closer we got, the more we heard the beats, like something inside them was hammering.

Lyall went first, right into the clearing, his head up as he watched the orbs, some gold, some white, though I couldn’t tell youwhatexactly they were made of. It wasn’t metal and it wasn’t plastic. It wasn’t wood, either.

Instinctively I raised my hand—they were close enough. I thought I could touch one if I rose on my tiptoes, but…

A hand wrapped round my wrist. Rune was right there next to me, slowly lowering down my arm without a word.

My heart all but beat out of my chest just at the small contact—Jeez, Nil, calm down!

“Now, this game is a bit different.”

By the time Lyall spoke and turned to us again, Rune had already stepped away from me, his eyes on the orbs.

“These orbs all contain heartbeats within them. I’m sure you can hear it.” Lyall brought a finger to his ear, anddamn, those are heartbeats?Who in the world made orbs with heartbeats?

“Whoever finds the one whose heartbeat matches their own wins.” He flashed me one of those blinding grins. “All you have to do is listen carefully.”

“That sounds impossible,” I admitted because it was bad enough that the orbs were right over us now as we stepped deeper into the clearing, but they all sounded the same. Or not—they wereloud,and it was impossible to pick which beat was coming from where.

“There’s no such thing as impossible, Nilah,” Lyall said. “The mere fact that you are here right now proves it, don’t you think?”

Well, when he put it that way… “I suppose you’re right.”

“Come. Let’s begin,” he said, and he waited for Rune and me to reach him, then walked with us.

This timeIwas the one in the middle, and I was already getting overwhelmed by all those sounds over my head. Each beat made me want to put my arms up over my head.

“I suspect Rune might win this one. He’s not much of a talker, but he does hear everything,” Lyall said from my left, throwing a sneaky grin at Rune.

It reminded me so much of how Betty used to grin at me back home when we used to get into trouble.

Fuck, I missed her so much it hurt.

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