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 letmy 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 prickwith 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.
