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The Moonstone Prince

The doll-princess was not having an easy labor Not even the palace garden offered a refuge from her screaroans and whimpers made her feel She hoped A ever since Kaown Yet there wasthose screams from Amalie’s vapid, pretty mouth

Through all these ic had kept the unborn child alive The child that could not be “You will save it Promise me!” The same whispered plea, every time after he’d made love to her Only that had ht The desire to meld his flesh with human flesh—it made him so helpless

Oh, how the Doll screa carved with a knife from her body, the body that only a Fairy lily could make desirable

Kill her already, Skinless Prince What gives her the right to call herself your mother?

He would have rotted inside her, like a forbidden fruit, if it hadn’t been for the ic the Dark One had spun around Amalie Yes, the infant was a boy A son The Dark Fairy had seen him in her dreams

Kaht He sent his bloodhound to find her instead His milky-eyed jasper shadow Hentzau stopped in front of her, and as usual he avoided looking in her eyes

“Thethe child”

Why did she go with him?

For the child

It filled the Fairy with quiet satisfaction that Kaht to come into the world Aaslights burning in her bedchaht hurt her husband’s eyes

Ka next to Amalie’s bed He turned as the servants opened the door for his ht she could see in his eyes a shadow of the love she used to find there Love Hope Fear Dangerous eh Kami’en’s stone skin helped hi to resemble one of the statues his hus

The startled midwife toppled a basin with bloody water as the Fairy approached Amalie’s bed Even the doctors backed away from her Goyl doctors, human doctors, Dwarf doctors Their black frocks made them look like a murder of crows drawn in by the scent of death rather than anticipation of a new life

Amalie’s doll face ollen with fear and pain The lashes around her violet-blue eyes were congealed with tears Fairy-lily eyesThe Dark Fairy thought she could see in those eyes the water of the lake that had once delivered her

“Go away!” A “What do you want? Who called you?”

The Dark One pictured those violet eyes being snuffed out and that soft skin Ka cold and flaccid The temptation to e it, for a dead Doll would take Kami’en’s son with her

“I knohy you’re not letting the child out!” the Dark One whispered in Amalie’s ear “You’re afraid to look at hi flesh Deliver him, or I will have him cut out of you”

How the Doll stared at her The Fairy wasn’t sure whether the hatred in Amalie’s eyes revealed more fear or jealousy Maybe love bore fruit even more poisonous than fear

Amalie squeezed the infant out The ust On the streets, they already called hiic had given him one, as hard and as smooth as moonstone, and just as transparent His skin revealed everything it covered: every sinew, every vein, the small skull, the eyeballs Kaest spawn