“Want to see you?” He lets out a pained laugh and runs a hand over his face. “Poppy, I’ve been going out of my mind. I’ve been—” He stops, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. “I need to talk to you. I need to tell you—” Another pause, this one accompanied by a flexing of his jaw. “Can we go somewhere? Somewhere private?”
My heart hammers so hard I’m surprised he can’t hear it.
This is it. This is the moment where I stop running, stop protecting myself, and just... leap. And hope he’ll be there to catch me.
“Yes,” I say. Then, before I can lose my nerve, I take a step away and nod toward the ballroom doors. “I know where we can go.”
Chapter 54
Aric
POPPY LOOKS... INCREDIBLE. STUNNING. HER hair hangs in loose waves around her warm brown cheeks, and her eyes shine in the candlelight as she leads me down a corridor just outside the ballroom. I’ve never been in Ravenscroft Castle before, and I expected to be more curious about it—about the waitstaff, the soaring walls and windows, the suits of armor and artwork displayed in gilded frames—but Poppy is all I see.
The dress she wears hugs her delicate frame, and the long skirt whispers across the polished marble floor as I follow her down the corridor. Like on Samhain, enchanted candles float through the air, and I have to brush one out of my path, sending it drifting off in another direction.
Poppy leads us to a set of doors, where guards are posted on either side. At first, I wonder if we’re not supposed to be in this part of the castle, but then they open the doors, and Poppy thanks them in her small voice before steppingthrough. I follow her lead, passing the armored knights and moving into the room on the other side.
It’s a solarium, and the glass walls and ceiling let in silver moonlight. The blue moon rises above us against a black sky glittering with stars.
The doors to the solarium close with a gentle click, and then it’s just us—me and Poppy, alone under the moonlight, with only the burbling of fountains to break the silence between us.
She doesn’t face me at first. Instead, she stands there in the silver moonbeams, surrounded by plants and water features and couches tucked into quaint little nooks. Her shoulders, which are bare but for the two tiny straps of her dress, rise and fall with a heavy sigh. Then she turns to face me.
And when her eyes meet mine, I finally realize why she looks so different.
She doesn’t have her glasses on tonight. I can see her lavender eyes without any glass to break my view.
And I can see the moment her eyes start to grow moist with tears.
“Poppy—” I start forward, but she holds up a hand to stop me.
“I’m sorry, Aric.” Her voice is gentle, so quiet that it almost gets lost in the sound of the water burbling nearby.
My shoes fall still on the floor. “For what?”
She draws another breath, seeming to steel herself. “For not fighting for you. For being dishonest. And for walking away... when it was the last thing I wanted to do.”
A pang of hope and pain shoots through my chest.
“I kept having these bad dreams,” she continues, her voice trembling but her gaze holding steady on me. “When you said you didn’t need tutoring anymore and started missing our plans, I convinced myself that you were pulling away. That you’d realized I wasn’t... enough. That maybe we didn’t make sense together.” She wraps her arms around herself, and I have to clench my fists to keep from reaching for her and pulling her into an embrace. “And then in the library, when you said we should take a break, I just... fell apart. I said things I didn’t mean.”
A tear slips down her cheek, catching the light from the blue moon. Again, I have to keep myself from reaching out to brush it away.
“But I didn’t mean any of it. I was just trying to protect myself from getting hurt, but instead, I hurt you. And I’m so, so sorry.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and watching her cry, seeing the pain written across her face, makes my throat go tight. I want to tell her it’s okay, that I forgive her, that none of this was her fault. But she speaks before I can.
“I’ve spent the last week being miserable,” she whispers, “regretting every word I said to you. I wanted to take it all back, but I thought I’d already ruined everything.” She looks up at me, lavender eyes swimming with tears. “But I can’t keep running from this. Fromyou.”
“Poppy—” I try again, my voice rough.
“I love you,” she says.
The words hit me like a physical blow, taking the breath from my lungs.
“I love you so much, and I should have said it weeksago. I should have been brave enough to tell you instead of running away.”
My chest feels too tight, like my heart might burst right through my ribs.
