Page 18 of Rebel Moon

“All the time.”

“And?”

“And we’re in the same place long enough for me to fall in love with her all over again, only to have my heart broken when we go back to real life. Separately.”

“Does it have to be that way?”

“She has a life back in Stonehaven—you know, saving the world. We’re completely incompatible. There’s no way I would ever go back there and there’s no way she’ll ever leave. So that’s that.”

I could tell by the way his tone had flattened to leave it well enough alone. I’d touched a nerve. Not that he didn’t deserve it after ribbing me about Madeleine.

Grant appeared, setting a bowl of granola and yogurt on the table before sitting next to me. “Morning.”

“Sleep well?” Rhett asked him.

“Okay.” Grant pushed some granola around his bowl but didn’t lift the spoon to his mouth. Something was wrong.

“Hey, you all right?” I asked.

Grant’s gaze lifted and he shrugged one shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“You guys going on the sleigh ride tonight?” Rhett asked.

“Ivy said we have to,” Grant said. “That it’s not to be missed.”

“Yeah, I’m in,” I said. “This whole place is pretty cool. I was skeptical, but it’s more fun than I thought it would be.”

“Kind of like camp for grown-ups,” Grant said.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I said. “Not that any of us ever went to camp.”

“Right,” Rhett said. “But we are now.”

I almost heard him finish the sentence with: all because of Madeleine.

But if he was thinking it, he didn’t say anything out loud. He knew better.

The sleighs appeared at dusk. There were three of them, big old sledges with runners that hissed over the packed snow, each hitched to a pair of draft horses with bells on their harnesses. Soren drove the first sleigh, which I noticed held Ivy, Jack, his mother, and her parents. Grant, Luci, Beck, and Blake were in the second. I was one of the last to arrive and was directed into the third. Rhett and Holly were already seated across from me. Seconds later, Madeleine appeared.

“Here we are again,” she said to me as one of the stage hands helped her into the sleigh. “Knox and I seem to be paired off for every event.” She wore a cream-colored coat with her dark hair loose under a knit hat. The two of us ended up hip to hip under the same heavy wool blanket; her shoulder was warm against mine.

“We have been too,” Holly said.

“Probably just a coincidence,” Rhett said.

Somehow I doubted that. Was Ivy up to something? Pairing us off this way?

“Where are they even taking us?” Madeleine asked as the sleigh lurched into motion.

“Finley said it was a surprise,” Holly said.

“I hate surprises,” Madeleine said.

“I love them,” Holly said. “I especially love not having to make any decisions about what we’re doing. In my job, I feel like it’s an endless list of things that only I can do or make happen. It’s nice to have a break.”

“I understand completely,” Madeleine said. “My job’s that way too. And the never-ending attempts to get people to agree on something or do what they said they were going to.”

“Preaching to the choir,” Holly said. “The amount of red tape I have to get through in a week boggles the mind.”