Page 53 of A Witch and Her Dragon
Lyra’s brow arches in the corner. “Well, what flavors?”
“Mead,” he replies again.
Alina and Maeve chuckle at Lyra’s expense.
The minotaur serves us up five mugs of steaming mead and exchanges them for a few eldertokens. When we’ve walked away, Lyra scoffs, “How unfriendly. Who even is he?”
“The groundskeeper,” Poppy says. Her gaze is turned down, and she regards the mead in her mug like it’s a concoction from potions class.
“Well, he’s rude. It’s Samhain. Can’t he evensmile?”
I hang back, walking behind Alina and her roommates. The mead in my mug sends up steam in the cool air. It smells strongly of alcohol, a potent scent that stings my nose despite the light honey undertone.
Suddenly, I’m thinking this might not be such a good idea. I’m Alina’s protector, her knight. I’m not supposed to drink on duty.
But all it takes is one more glance at her as she lifts her mug to her lips, her throat bobbing as she swallows, and I’m convinced that I’m going to need something to help me survive tonight.
So, while the women continue to drift through the crowd, watching the fire dancers before stopping to warm themselves before the bonfire, I down everything in my mug.
The alcohol warms my throat and chest, and it only takes a short while for me to start feeling the effects. The sharpened edges of my consciousness feel smoothed out, and I even find myself smiling at some of Lyra’s bad jokes. She seems to appreciate it, if the way she eases closer to me and puts her hand on my forearm is any indication.
Alina, on the other hand, doesn’t seem pleased. She watches Lyra with thinly veiled anger. Her blue eyes, made more startling by the black makeup smudged around them, narrow as Lyra’s fingers drift across my arm. Lyra seems not to notice—or she’s pretending not to.
The fire witch is difficult to pin down—she still surprises me, and it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on behind her sharp crimson eyes.
“You know, Raelan,” Lyra says, turning her gaze up to meet mine while the light from the bonfire dances over her hair, “I think you might actually be fun.”
I can’t stop the sharp laugh that slips out of me—it’s the mead talking. “Youthink?”
“Well, you’re always so stuffy.” She wrinkles her nose at me. I can tell the alcohol is already getting to her too. “You just need to lighten up a bit.Stop being so uptight.”
Music drifts through the air, accompanying the crackling of the flames. Something like mischief glows in Lyra’s crimson eyes. Then she’s wrapping her fingers around my hand and relieving me of my empty mead mug, setting it on a nearby cart laden with pumpkins and gourds. “Come on. I have just the thing for you, sir knight.”
I take a step, then pause and glance back at Alina.
Her eyes are narrowed, her lips puckered into a stern frown.
“Alina, can I take your knight for a minute?” Lyra asks, her voice lilting, as if she’s completely blind to the look on Alina’s beautiful face. “Just one dance, then I promise to bring him back.”
Everyone’s eyes shift to her.
Alina’s cheeks turn a slight shade of red, though I can’t tell if it’s from the cold, the mead, or the complicated emotions flickering across her face.
The smile that pulls on her mouth looks painfully false. “Of course.”
“Yay! Thank you!”
Now Lyra is tugging at me again, pulling me toward the mass of people dancing on the other side of the flickering bonfire. And despite everything, I allow her to yank me into the fray.
I’ve done plenty of dancing at taverns and festivals and in those stuffy classes taught to squires at the castle, so this reel is familiar to me.
I just wish Alina were the one dancing across from me instead of her roommate.
The music carries us through the dance, guiding oursteps across the leaf-strewn grass while the scents of autumn twine through the air around us. I’m aware of Alina and her roommates drifting closer, watching us from a short distance away. Every time I glance in Alina’s direction, she’s staring daggers at me.
It makes my dragon squirm.
I reach for Lyra, spin her in a circle, smell the woodsmoke on her curly hair as it bounces around her shoulders. She’s smiling, laughing, leaning closer—
