Before I can respond, a thumping beat blasts through the speakers, and a makeshift dance floor emerges in the center of the room, with kids letting loose and pulling out their best moves. Ollie starts leading me by the hand, in the direction of the dance floor.

“When’s the last time you saw me dance on purpose?” I shout. Ollie laughs, and I feel my heartbeat increasing as I wonder what he’s thinking. Maybe the dance floor’s the safest place to be. The Similars join us, and Pru finds us too. Soon everyone’s getting lost in rhythm, feeling the infectious beat, surrounded by Darkwood kids on all sides, everyone masked and sweaty and embellished. Enchanted, almost, or otherworldly. But I’m still standing solidly on the ground, and all I can think about is Levi. Whether he’s safe. Whether he’s thinking about me, at all. How much I ache for him to be here. How unfair it is that he never gets to enjoy these simple moments, like a regular high school student. Ollie does a little spin, flashing me his biggest smile, and that’s when I hear it.

“That’s Oliver Ward,” a girl near me in a bedazzled costume notes to her girlfriends.

“Suuuper cute. Right?” says another girl.

A guy next to her raises an eyebrow. “We talked about this, Summer. He’s mine.”

“We so did not—”

I feel my cheeks flushing and distance myself from those kids. It’s weird hearing other students talk about Ollie like that.

So when he grabs my hand, pulling me toward him so that our bodies are, all of a sudden, extremely close, my chest pressed against his, the velvet of his cape brushing up against my thin T-shirt, I feel my heartbeat start to work double time.

No, no, no. Not now. Please don’t say it. I don’t want to hurt you.

His mask gone now, Ollie stares down at me with those gray, familiar eyes of his. “Em,” he breathes, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “There’s something I gotta tell you.”

“Is this thing on?” says a voice over the microphone. The music cuts out, and the room is plunged into silence. Every single person on the dance floor, including Ollie and me, turns to look at the person behind the mic.