I force myself to stand and walk back to the couch before I do something stupid, like ask if I can just stay in the bed with her.
I settle onto the couch, pulling the blankets over myself and trying to find a comfortable position. The room is quiet except for the occasional pop from the fire and the soft rustle of Poppy shifting in the bed.
“Good night, Aric,” she says into the darkness.
“Good night, Poppy.”
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but I’m hyperaware of every sound: The way her breathing gradually slows anddeepens as she drifts off. The small sigh she makes when she rolls over. The creak of the bed frame shifting beneath her.
I wonder if she’s dreaming. Is her dream magic showing her something important right now, some glimpse of the future?
Am I ever in those dreams?
The thought makes my pulse spike.
I really like this girl. And the idea of being apart from her for a whole year—of not seeing her smile, of not seeing the way the blood rushes into her cheeks when she gets even just a little bit embarrassed...
It feels impossible.
But so does turning down Alden’s offer.
I shift on the couch again, trying and failing to get comfortable, and resign myself to a long night of thinking in circles.
Across the room, Poppy’s breathing is soft and even, and the sound of it is comforting. And at least for tonight, we’re here together.
Even though I know I want so much more.
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 onediscordant note, the sound of it jarring and wrong. The smoky dancers around us vanish into deep shadow.
