Chapter 30
Poppy
I’M IN A BALLROOM.
There’s a marble floor beneath my feet and a soaring ceiling above, with moonlight streaming through tall arched windows. Everything is bathed in silver-blue light, cold and beautiful.
I know this place. This is the ballroom at Ravenscroft Castle—I saw it once, when Alina invited us all to the castle for Yule. But it looked different then; this is how it will look for the Blue Moon Ball.
Floating candles drift through the air like glowbugs, and something luminous swirls through the room—the memory mist from Fairyland. It catches the moonlight and throws it back in shimmering waves of color.
Music plays, though I can’t see the musicians. It’s a waltz, slow and sweeping and somehow melancholic.
And then Aric is there, where before there was just cold moonlight.
He’s dressed formally, his dark hair pulled back, hazel eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes my breath catch. He extends his hand, and I take it without hesitation. His palm is warm against mine as he leads me onto the dance floor, where misty couples now twirl around us.
We begin to dance.
I don’t know the steps, but my body moves anyway, following his lead. He spins me, and my dress—light purple and shimmering—flares out around my calves. When he pulls me back in, we’re closer than before, and I can see the gold flecks in his eyes.
The memory mist swirls around us, starting at our ankles, then climbing higher until we’re enveloped in it. And suddenly, the mist is showing me things.
Images appear in the vapor, translucent but clear: Aric grinning at me across the library table during our first tutoring session.
The moment our lips first touched behind the cookie shop.
His face when he asked me to the ball, kneeling with a golden leaf.
Our clasped hands as we walked through Faunwood just hours ago—or was that days ago, or weeks? Time feels strange in this dream.
Aric twirls me again, sending the mist and its many images blurring together like a watercolor painting. I gasp as he pulls me back in, close enough now that I can feel his breath on my lips when he whispers, “You look lovely, Poppy.”
My chest feels too full, like my heart might burst from trying to keep all this joy held inside. “Aric—”
But then the music shifts with one discordant note, the sound of it jarring and wrong. The smoky dancers around us vanish into deep shadow.
The mist darkens, the images changing. Now I see myself pulling away from him. I see him reaching for me, but I step back, putting distance between us even as he calls my name.
Around us, the enchanted candles wink out one by one. The other dancers fade like smoke until it’s just us, except . . . we’re not together anymore.
I’m alone in the center of the floor, and Aric is walking away, his back turned to me. I try to call out to him, to tell him to wait, but no sound comes out. My voice is gone.
The memory mist swirls again, showing me in the library alone. Me in an empty garden with nothing but cookie crumbs on the tray in front of me. I ache with the knowledge that I just lost something precious.
“No,” I whisper, tears starting to make cold tracks down my cheeks. “Please, no—”
I wake with a gasp.
The room is dark, lit only by the dying embers in the fireplace. My heart races, and my nightgown is damp with sweat. For a moment, I don’t know where I am, still half caught in the dream.
Then I hear something: Aric’s slow, even breathing from across the room, punctuated by the rustle of fabric as he shifts beneath his blankets.
He’s here. He didn’t leave.
It was just a dream.
But my dreams always mean something.
I sit up slowly, pushing my hair back from my face with a trembling hand. The warning from my dream is clear: If I let my fear control me, if I pull away whenever things feel too real or too vulnerable . . . I’ll lose him.
I’ll push him away myself.
I wrap my arms around my knees, trying to calm my racing heart, but I can’t seem to catch my breath. The room feels too small, like the walls are starting to close in. My anxiety is rising, my throat getting tight.
“Poppy?”
I jump at the sound of Aric’s voice, rough and gravelly with sleep.
“S-sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
There’s a rustle of blankets, and then I see his silhouette sit up on the couch, his outline dark against the moonlight creeping around the curtains hanging over the window behind him.
He yawns, then asks, “Are you okay?”
I think about telling him I’m fine, turning over and acting like nothing happened. But would doing that just make the dream come true? Or make it come true faster?
I steel myself. No. Don’t be afraid. Remember what Aurora said.
“I had a dream,” I say.
“A bad one?”
I nod, then realize he probably can’t see me in the darkness. “Sort of.”
Silence stretches between us. Then Aric says softly, “Do you want to talk about it?”
The memory of the dream—of watching him walk away, of being alone in that empty ballroom—makes my eyes prick with tears.
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
He stands, and then his footsteps pad softly across the floor. The bed dips as he sits on the edge of it, and even though I can barely see him in the darkness, I can feel him there. It helps calm the racing of my heart.
“Scared of what?” he asks gently.
I pull the blanket tighter around myself. “Of how much I . . .” I can’t finish the sentence.
Of how much I like you. Of messing it all up.
Aric is quiet for a moment. Then his hand finds mine in the darkness, solid and real. “I’m scared too.”
I look up, trying to see his face in the darkness. “You are?”
“Yeah.” His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand, which I now realize is trembling. “I’ve never felt like this before. About anyone. And it’s terrifying because I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t want to mess it up.”
“What if I’m the one who messes it up?” The words tumble out before I can stop them. “What if I’m too anxious, or too scared, or too—”
“Poppy.” He squeezes my hand. “You’re not going to mess anything up. And even if you did—even if we both did—we’d figure it out. Together.”
“But what if—”
“Hey.” His other hand comes up to cup my face, his palm warm against my cheek. “I’m here. Right now. And I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to.”
My breath hitches, and I tighten my hand around his, willing away the image of him leaving me in that ballroom alone. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“Then I won’t.” He shifts closer, and I can just barely make out his features now—the strong line of his jaw, the glint of his tusks in the thin moonlight. “Can I . . . ?” he asks, and I nod. And then he leans in and kisses me.
It’s soft at first, gentle, like he’s giving me time to pull away if I want to. He always does this when he touches me, is always tentative and delicate, like I’m going to run away at any moment. But I don’t want to pull away. I want to be brave instead. And I want him to know that I want him.
So I lean into him, my trembling hands finding his shoulders, his neck, threading into his hair where it hangs loose around his face.
He deepens the kiss, and something shifts between us. I feel it in the way my body reacts to him, like it knows what to do even if my brain doesn’t. His hand slides from my face to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair, and I make a sound between a gasp and a moan.
Aric pulls back slightly, his breathing uneven, his breath rustling my hair where it’s stuck to my cheeks. “Is this okay?”
“Yes,” I whisper, already tugging his lips back toward mine. “Don’t stop.”
His mouth meets mine again, his hand on the back of my neck pressing my lips firmly into his. Then his lips find my jaw, then my neck. The heat of his mouth on my skin makes my stomach tight, and heat builds between my legs, the way it does when I read those romance books Alina gives me.
Reading those books, I’ve always felt a bit of sadness, like I might not ever get to experience what the main characters do, like maybe love and passion are reserved for people who are bold, not afraid to chase after the things they want.
But right now, I feel like I could be one of those characters, like maybe I can find that same passion I’ve spent so many nights reading about.
One of my hands reaches down, and I find Aric’s free hand resting on the bed beside us.
Pulling back from the kiss, I slowly guide his hand to my thigh, where it’s still tucked under the blanket.
In the low light, I can barely make out his hazel eyes, but I can feel his gaze on me, studying me, as his fingers curl tighter, squeezing my thigh, then drift up, to my hip, then along the dip in my waist, where my thin nightgown does little to separate my skin from his.
“Can I—” Aric starts to ask, but I nod before he can get the question out.
I want him to touch me, to show me what to do.
“Yes,” I whisper.
The hand around my waist tightens, and then Aric gently guides me to lie back on the bed. My pillow cradles my head as he shifts the blanket, then slides beneath it with me, his body heat immediately warming me as he lies down beside me.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asks, and even though I know—or assume—that he has, I don’t feel nervous about telling him no. I trust him to go slow, to guide me at a pace that’ll make me feel safe.
“Never.” My voice is small in the darkness, but not timid. I want this. I’m ready to explore with him.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he says as his hand finds my arm and begins tracing along my bare skin.
“I know.” I reach up and find his face with my hand, then guide his mouth back to mine, softer this time.