All Chapters of His Contract Luna Says Goodbye : Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

ARREN.I sat in my office with the door shut and the afternoon light cutting across the desk, and I still couldn’t get the kid’s face out of my head.Dalor.I’d spent almost two hours with him yesterday. Not interrogating. Not testing. Just sitting in that small clinic room while he showed me drawing after drawing and talked about some kingdom he’d made up, complete with the fastest horse that had ever lived and a set of rules that only made sense if you were five. He had my eyes. Not close. Not similar enough to shrug off. The same grey-blue. The same shape. Looking back at me from a child’s face like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.After my father died, things had been hard in a way I never bothered putting language to. I’d watched him suffer for reasons no one could name. The decline had been slow, then sudden, and then it was over. Case closed. Records filed. Everyone else moved on because that was what you were supposed to do. I never could. Not the man. Not the way

ARRENI should have left after the last of the pasta.That was the plan. Eat. Keep the conversation light. Get back in the car and deal with the three things still waiting on my desk. Instead I sat there longer than I meant to, watching Ellaria finish her wine and push a roller that had come loose back into place with the side of her hand. The kitchen was warm. The house was quiet in the way it only got when neither of us was performing for anyone. I didn’t want to stand up.That was the problem.“I should go,” I said finally.She looked up from her glass. “Already?”“Work.”“You always have work.”“That’s because there’s always work.”She studied me for a second. Then she set the glass down and stood, gathering the plates before I could offer. I watched her move around the kitchen in that pink robe and those ridiculous slippers, and the reluctance in my chest only got heavier.I stood anyway. Pushed the chair in. Walked toward the foyer because that was the responsible thing to do. M

PRESENT.ELLARIA.My throat felt like I'd swallowed a handful of sand.I lay there for a while telling myself I could ignore it. That lasted about five minutes. Then I was shoving the covers off and swinging my legs over the side of the bed, because apparently my body had decided I wasn't getting any sleep without a fight.It was late. It was that stretch of night where even the pipes stop making noise.I didn't bother with the lights. Moonlight was spilling through the big window in the sitting area, enough to make out the shapes of things, and I didn't want to wake Catherine. She'd told me at dinner that she slept like the dead but woke up like a tax collector, and I believed her.I padded across the carpet in my socks toward the mini bar in the corner.The fridge door made a small sucking sound when I pulled it open. The light inside was blinding after the dark, and I squinted at the rows of overpriced bottles until I found water. I grabbed one, shut the door, and twisted off the c

ELLARIA.That didn't make any sense.Arren's grandfather would be ancient by now, if he was even still alive. Fenn had said late forties. I did the math twice in my head, and both times it came out wrong.Before I could say anything, Catherine grabbed Arren by the arm.She didn't ask. She wrapped her fingers around his forearm and pulled, and Arren, who I had personally watched stare down council members twice his age, let an old woman tow him out of that gallery like a schoolboy.I grabbed my bag and hurried after them.Fenn called something behind us about the book. Arren still had it tucked under his other arm. Nobody went back.Catherine marched us down the stairs and into the lobby, her heels clicking the whole way. The woman at the front desk looked up, saw Catherine's face, and went right back to her paperwork."Catherine," I said, a little out of breath. "It's a name. There could be another Gregory Pierce out there who just happens to have the same one.""I highly doubt that,"

ELLARIA.Catherine had been cursing at the guards for so long I was starting to learn new words."You overgrown lumps of gristle," she said, jabbing a finger through the bars of the gate. "You pickled goat bladders. I have been alive longer than your family tree has had branches, and you're going to stand there and tell me I can't walk down a road?"The guard on the left didn't even blink. "Settlement's closed, ma'am.""You said that an hour ago.""It was closed an hour ago too."The gate was huge. It was solid iron bars as thick as my wrist, bolted into stone pillars on either side, with wooden barricades stacked behind it so you couldn't even see down the road. Four guards stood on the other side. None of them had smiled once since we pulled up.This was the first mark on the maps, the one north of the Eastern Sector. We'd driven all day to get here.We were standing outside it like we'd been locked out of our own house.I glanced over my shoulder. Arren was off by the car with his