Chapter 4
Poppy
“YOU REALLY DON’T NEED TO help him,” Maeve says that night as we’re getting ready for bed.
I’m already in my soft cotton nightgown, tucked into bed, with the romance book Alina gave me propped open in my lap.
Alina is with Raelan tonight—even though she’s not supposed to stay in his room, per Headmistress Moonhart’s rules—and Lyra is down in the sitting area, writing a letter to Cairn while Juniper sleeps in her lap.
“I know,” I say softly.
Maeve turns from the vanity, where she’s brushing her long purple hair by candlelight. “Are you actually considering it?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
Maeve lets out a long sigh. She puts her brush down, then holds out a hand so Isis can slither onto her wrist and up her arm. Standing, she makes her way to her bed, which is next to mine. “Just don’t feel pressured. You’ve already got a busy semester.”
She’s right. Between a full course load, being a student assistant to Professor Silvermoon, and now planning the Blue Moon Ball, my plate feels full.
But something makes me consider it. Maybe it’s the desperation I heard in Aric’s voice, or the way he smiled at me, or the genuineness with which he promised to work hard if I’d help him.
I give my head a little shake, my two short lavender braids bouncing. “I won’t be pressured. I’ll just think on it.”
“Promise?” Maeve arches a brow at me while fluffing her pillows.
Smiling, I nod once. “I promise.”
Maeve settles into bed with Isis coiled on her pillow, and I return to my book.
But I read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.
My mind keeps drifting back to Aric—to his earnest expression, to the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes when he talked about failing his classes and potentially getting kicked off the runeball team.
I’ve always been good at academics. School makes sense to me in a way that most social situations don’t. But I’ve seen the opposite in other students—people who are confident and charismatic but struggle with their coursework. It doesn’t make them less intelligent; they just learn differently.
Maybe I could actually help him.
The thought both frightens and intrigues me.
I close my book and set it on my nightstand, then blow out my candle. In the darkness, I can hear Maeve’s breathing evening out into sleep and the soft scratch of Lyra’s quill on parchment downstairs.
I pull my blankets up to my chin and close my eyes, willing sleep to come.
I’M STANDING UNDER THE STARS, and the moon is full and bright. It twinkles against a backdrop of inky black sprinkled with glittering light. For a moment, all I can do is stare, like the moon’s pull might be able to lift my feet from the earth and carry me up and away into the night sky.
But something makes me turn and pull my eyes away.
And as I look around, I find myself in a dark, empty space. It’s the kind of darkness that should feel claustrophobic, but it doesn’t.
I’m wearing a dress that kisses my calves, and my feet are bare. Water tickles my ankles, neither warm nor cold. I start to walk, but the dark landscape is unchanging.
For a long time, the moon and stars are my only company. It’s not lonely, exactly, but deep in my chest, I feel something is missing. But what is it?
I pause, water sloshing around my ankles, and lift a hand to touch my chest. Beneath my fingers, my heart beats slow and steady, and I close my eyes, focusing on each thump, on each reminder of the life running through my veins.
And somehow, I’m not startled when a hand touches my shoulder. It’s as if I expected it subconsciously, as if I knew to wait here for the one who would meet me.
I open my eyes and turn to face my visitor. But they’re obscured by shadow. Still, I’m not afraid. I feel I’ve known them forever, even without seeing a glimpse of their face.
They take my hand in theirs, and for the first time, I feel warmth. It spreads through my fingertips, up my arm, and into my chest. And the moment it touches my heart, the darkness erupts like the explosion of a star. But we don’t react, my companion and I.
Instead, we dance. The water beneath my feet turns into air, and then we’re twirling through clouds, the night sky having given way to pastel oranges and pinks, like we’re waltzing through the rising of the sun.
I smile. And when I reach again for that missing spot in my chest, I can no longer find it. It’s full now, and it makes me feel like no matter what happens, I’m going to be okay.
And it reminds me not to be afraid.
WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, the room is still dark, though the depth of the darkness suggests dawn isn’t far off.
I can hear Maeve’s steady breathing, accompanied by Lyra’s gentle snoring.
And even now, I feel the warmth from my dream.
My hand is pressed to my chest beneath my blanket, and I can feel my heart beating—steady and calm, but different than it was before I fell asleep.
As a dream witch, I know not to discount what I see in dreams. They’re rarely literal—more like my magic’s way of communicating things my conscious mind hasn’t yet grasped. Sometimes I understand them immediately, but other times, it takes days or weeks before the meaning becomes clear.
This dream feels important, but I can’t quite grasp why.
I lie there in the darkness, my hand still pressed to my chest, trying to hold on to that feeling of warmth and completeness. But it’s already fading.
What is my magic trying to tell me?
I close my eyes, searching for answers in the lingering traces of the dream: The figure in shadow. The warmth I felt when they took my hand. That sense of finding something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
And then, unexpectedly, Aric’s face drifts into my mind, and I hear our conversation from yesterday, the plea in his voice. It startles me enough that my eyes fly open in the darkness.
Why am I thinking of him now?
I try to push the thought away, but it just becomes more insistent. My magic has never steered me wrong before. It speaks in mysteries and subtleties, in dreams that unfold slowly over time. And if it’s pointing me toward Aric Vandermere—even if I don’t understand why—maybe I need to pay attention.
Outside the window, the sky is beginning to lighten, shifting from black to the deep blue that signals the sun is on its way.
I watch it change through the thin gap in the drapes hanging around my bed, trying to decide what I should do.
Should I take on even more responsibility and agree to tutor Aric?
Or should I tell him no—or have Maeve do it for me?
The decision settles over me quietly, like an early-winter snow: I’m going to tutor him.
Not because he’s handsome or charming or because planning the ball might be easier with his help, but because something in me—something deeper than logic or fear—is telling me this matters.
That I need to at least try, regardless of where it leads.
I just have to trust it.