“Want to get some mead and walk around?” Aric offers his arm. “I heard there’s an apple-bobbing booth, and I’m determined to prove I can do it without drowning.”
I laugh and take his arm. “Sounds like an adventure.”
He buys us each a mug of mead—which I’m actually grateful for this year, as it’ll help calm some of my nerves—and then we start making our waythrough the festival.
The campus has been transformed. Booths line the pathways—some selling spiced cider and roasted chestnuts, others offering games and fortune telling. We stop at a booth where you can carve your own small pumpkin, and Aric carves something that looks like a very round... Well, I’m not sure what, exactly. Then he adds a few strokes with the carving tool, and the lines look like whiskers.
“Is that supposed to be a cat?” I ask, putting a hand over my lips and trying not to laugh.
“It’s abstract,” he says seriously, holding up his lumpy creation, which definitely doesnotresemble a cat, even a little bit. “Your eye just isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate my art.”
“Sophisticated, right,” I say before taking another sip of my mead. The alcohol makes my tongue tingle. “If you say so.”
At the apple-bobbing booth, Aric does indeed nearly drown, coming up sputtering and laughing with his hair dripping wet and no apple to show for it. On his third try, he finally snags one, then makes me yelp in surprise when he shakes his head, sending water droplets flying everywhere. I have to wipe the moisture from my glasses, and when I put the frames back on and the world comes back into focus, I find Aric smiling at me.
I think his smile must be enchanted, because it does funny things to my insides.
We’ve just finished our mugs of mead and are making our way toward the bonfire when Aric stops, tilting his head toward the music. The earrings adorning his ears wink in thelight. Then his gaze slides toward me, and his lips pull up on one side. “Dance with me?”
My breath catches. “H-here? Now?”
“Why not?” He takes my hand and starts pulling me gently toward the crowd gathered around the fire, where people are dancing—not formal ballroom dancing, like we’ll do at the Blue Moon Ball, but something looser and wilder, the kind of dancing that matches the drums and fiddles and the Samhain energy pulsing in the air.
As we move through the crowd, I feel a tickle on my neck and turn my head to catch sight of someone watching us.
Morgan. Aric’s ex and a fellow runeball captain. The firelight turns her hair into a halo of shimmering red curls, and her eyes are fixed on Aric, watching him through lowered lashes. She flicks her gaze to me, a frown tugging on her mouth, and a jolt goes up my spine at having been caught staring. But before I can pull my eyes away, she turns and disappears into the deepening darkness of the evening, like she was never there at all.
My stomach clenches, but Aric doesn’t notice. He’s too focused on guiding me closer to the bonfire, where the heat and light are overwhelming.
“I don’t know how to dance like this,” I admit, raising my voice to be heard over the music.
Aric tosses a grin at me over his shoulder. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Making a fool of myself doesn’tsoundlike fun, but I’m still resistant to pull away from him. I want to stay by his side, even if it means trying to do... whatever these dancers are doing. I’m just glad I already had a mug ofmead—I’m not sure I’d be able to do this if something wasn’t softening my inhibitions.
Aric tugs me toward him, laughing as he spins me once beneath his arm. The movement sends my skirt flaring and my hair brushing against my neck, the air alive with drumbeats and laughter. When I come back around, his free hand slides around my waist, firm and unhesitating. Heat floods through me at the touch.
Around us, other couples dance. I catch glimpses of Alina and Raelan, perfectly in sync, as always. Maeve is dancing with a tall warlock I don’t recognize, looking somewhat bored. And Lyra is on her own, spinning with abandon, the feathers in her hair catching the light as she tips her face up to the swath of dark sky above us.
The press of Aric’s palm on my waist guides me, the steady pulse of music thrumming through the ground beneath our feet. The crowd becomes a blur of color and motion around us. There’s only the firelight painting gold across Aric’s green skin and the steady focus of his gaze on me.
“Relax,” he murmurs, voice low enough that I feel it more than hear it. His breath brushes my ear, and a shiver runs down my spine. “Let the music guide you.”
“I’m trying,” I whisper, though my limbs still feel awkward and uncoordinated.
He chuckles, that warm, rough sound that makes me think of what we did together that night in Faunwood. Of what I’d like to do again.
“Stop trying so hard, Brains. Just feel.”
I bite my lip and close my eyes, trying tofeelinstead ofthink. It doesn’t come naturally to me.
The beat of the drums sinks into my bones, and I let the sway of Aric’s body guide me. His thumb strokes the small of my back in time with the beat, a featherlight touch that sets my skin ablaze. Every time we turn, the fire catches his eyes—bright hazel flecked with molten gold, impossible to look away from. And the more I look at him, the more I feel like he’s the embodiment of magic. No one else has ever made me feel this way.
The music builds, growing wilder still, and we move with it, closer now, until there’s almost no space left between us. The mead burns through me, tingling in my bloodstream, and finally, I feel myself let go.
It feels like flying.
When Aric spins me again, I laugh, the sound loose and unhindered. His arm wraps around my waist and pulls me against him, my back to his sturdy chest. The world narrows to the feel of him behind me—the solid strength of his body, the steady brush of his breath against my neck, the heat he puts off. Goose bumps dance along my skin. His hand finds mine, fingers interlacing, guiding me in a slow sway despite the frenzied movements of the other dancers swirling around us.
