Chapter 137

Hannah

The sudden downpour of rain caught everyone, myself and Noah included, off guard. Gasping, I stumbled backwards beneath the onslaught of cold water, my mouth hanging open. Even Noah’s eyes went wide as he took in the scene around us, his hair already plastered to his head.

Within seconds, the festival grounds had gone from a peaceful celebration to a chaotic mess of people rushing to save decorations, food, and—mostly—themselves from the unexpected downpour.

Noah and I needed to move quickly if we were going to save the festival from certain disaster.

“We need to move everything inside!” Noah shouted over the deafening cacophony of rain and panicked voices. “Hannah, help me direct the vendors!”

I nodded, already soaked to the bone—having utterly forgotten what we were just talking about moments prior. “On it!”

Noah and I split up, each taking a side of the festival grounds. I ran from booth to booth, urging vendors to pack up their wares and head for the dance hall inside the mansion.

“Leave anything that can’t be saved!” I cried out, my voice nearly lost in the rain. “Just grab what you can and go!”

The rain was coming down in sheets now, making it hard to see more than a few feet ahead. I slipped and slid through the mud, my ceremonial robes clinging to my skin, but I didn’t pull my focus away from the task at hand.

However, as I rounded a corner, a group of people rushing past knocked into me. I lost my footing and fell hard, landing face-first in a puddle with a grunt.

“Luna Hannah!” someone gasped. “Are you alright?”

I pushed myself up, spitting out muddy water and wiping it from my eyes. Thankfully, I hadn’t hurt myself. “I’m fine,” I assured them, waving them on. “Go, get inside!”

As I started to stand, something in the mud caught my eye. I reached down and pulled it out, recognizing the soaked cloth bundle immediately. It was Noah’s offering from the ceremony.

For a moment, I hesitated. It wasn’t my place to take it, and it wasn’t my responsibility, but I couldn’t just leave it here in the mud. Making a split-second decision, I tucked the bundle into my pocket and hurried toward the throng of people sprinting toward the mansion.

Inside, the atmosphere was chaotic but a bit less frantic. People were shaking out umbrellas, wringing water from their clothes, and vendors were setting up impromptu stalls wherever they could find space in the large dance hall.

I spotted Noah across the room, directing servants and barking orders. “Put the food tables over there!” he was saying, his voice echoing loudly through the vaulted ceilings. “And make sure we have enough towels for everyone!”

As I made my way toward him, thumbing his offering in my pocket, a delicate hand suddenly whipped out from the crowd and grabbed my arm. I turned to find Zoe, her usually perfect blonde hair plastered to her forehead and her mascara smudged around her eyes.

“Some festival, huh?” she said, wiping water from her face with a small towel.

I forced a smile. “We couldn’t have predicted this. At least everyone’s safe inside now, and the festival can go on.”

Zoe paused, wiping her face one last time. When she moved the towel away, I saw that her eyes were a bit narrowed, glinting with something I couldn’t quite read. “Maybe we should have seen it coming. A freak storm on the day of the Lunar Festival? Seems like more than just bad luck to me, don’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure if I follow,” I replied slowly, despite the fact that there was a small knot beginning to form in the pit of my stomach for reasons I couldn’t quite place my finger on.

“I’m saying…” Zoe leaned in close and lowered her voice as though she didn’t want to be overheard. “...That maybe the Moon Goddess is trying to tell us something. Maybe she’s angry.”

The venom in her words gave me pause. “I didn’t take you as the religious type,” I said, furrowing my brow.

Zoe simply shrugged. “I’m not, really. But rain wasn’t in the forecast today, and now for it to start downpouring like this out of nowhere…”

Her voice trailed off meaningfully. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, unsure of how to answer… Whatever it was that she was implying.

But before I could respond, Noah suddenly appeared at my side.

“Hannah, there you are,” he said. His eyes widened as he took in my appearance. “Goddess, you’re completely covered in mud. What the hell happened to you?”

I pursed my lips and wiped a bit of water out of my eyes. “I fell.”

Noah eyed me up and down, his expression softening ever so slightly as he looked at me. Finally, he muttered, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Without waiting for a response, he took my arm and led me away from Zoe, whose eyes I could feel boring holes into my back. No doubt she was pissed that she, too, was soaked to the bone and Noah had hardly paid her any mind. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if he recognized her in her current state with everything else going on.

Noah guided me down the hall, up the stairs, and to my bedroom. Once we were inside, he turned and closed the door behind us. The room was blissfully silent, the door effectively shutting out the chaos in the dance hall below.

“We need to get you out of these wet clothes before you catch a cold,” he said brusquely and without preamble.

I nodded, suddenly feeling oddly small under his intense gaze. Before I could protest, Noah stepped forward and began tugging at my muddy robes, his movements quick and forceful. I winced as he pulled a bit too hard on a tangled section of my sash, which had gotten utterly caked with mud when I fell.

“Noah, I can do it myself,” I protested weakly.

He ignored me and continued to undress me with an efficiency that felt more clinical than intimate. “Do you have something else to wear?” he asked.

“Plenty,” I said stiffly.

Noah nodded and continued to work. His fingers brushed my collar bone as he tugged my robe aside, parting the fabric to reveal my lace bra underneath. My face reddened, my fingers moving to quickly shut the robe, but this only seemed to frustrate him.

“We don’t have time for this, Hannah.”

“Then let me do it myself.”

“I’m trying to help—”

Suddenly, as he yanked at my outer robe with frustration, I felt something shift in my pocket.

Too late, I remembered Noah’s offering. The bundle slipped out, hitting the floor with a wet splat. The impact caused the soaked piece of cloth to fall open, revealing something inside.

Noah froze, his eyes fixed on the object. “What’s—” he began, but his voice cut off sharply when he realized what it was: his offering.

Before he could reach for it, I dove down and snatched it up. It was a folded piece of paper, miraculously dry thanks to the protective cloth. With trembling fingers, I opened it.

My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the photograph in my hands. It was an old photo, a bit worn around the edges but still clear. In it, two teenagers smiled at the camera, their arms wrapped around each other and their cheeks pressed together.

One was unmistakably a younger Noah. And the girl beside him, her face radiant and filled with joy, was Zoe.