Page 63 of Enchanted Village

Silas nodded. He felt both the weight of her gaze and the pair of hippogriffs staring at him, as if they, too, were deciding whether or not to cast judgment.

“I thought it was important,” Silas said. “I know how much you care about creatures.”

Margaret’s smile cracked across her face, and for a moment, Silas worried he spotted the shine of tears in her eyes. But then she shook her head and turned to the hippogriff, placing her forehead against the creature’s head as she ran her hands along the feathers of its neck.

“You really are something, Professor,” she said, the hippogriff flicking its tail at her words.

She pulled back from the hippogriff to look into its eyes.

“What do you say?” she asked the creature. “Up for a flight?”

The hippogriff snorted, as did its companion, and Margaret laughed.

“All right, then,” she said. “While the snow’s not too bad.”

And so, they climbed into the carriage, which had been charmed to be quite expansive on the inside so that it resembled more a train car than a mere carriage. It was all rich red velvet and holly-themed wallpaper with gold accents. They could see out the frosted windows, though no one could see inside from the exterior. There were flutes of champagne waiting for them, plus a cheese board and a mix of Sarah’s finest pastries. Once the door of the carriage closed, there was also the faint tinkling of a Christmas song.

“I’ll get that turned off,” Silas said. “Somehow.”

“Don’t,” Margaret whispered. “I don’t mind it. Not today.”

Her eyes were warm in the light, and she held out her hand. He took it, rubbing his thumb across the pad of her palm and relishing how she shivered at his touch.

“Are you ready to fly, Margaret?” Silas asked.

She nodded. The ground beneath them shifted, and Silas saw through the front window the hippogriffs tossing their heads. Then, as the creatures trotted forward, Silas felt his stomach swoop, and then, before he could have another thought, he saw Hex Hollow rushing past.

They were air bound, the snowy skies streaking past them, the enchanted village’s rooftops visible beneath them.

Silas’s grip on Margaret’s hand tightened.

“This might not be the best time to let you know,” Silas said. “But I’m not great with heights.”

Margaret laughed, the sound rich and warm and easy. He could’ve bottled that sound and gotten drunk on it for the rest of his days.

“Then why would you choose this for our date?”

When Silas looked at her, the sun was streaming in through her hair, dazzling as it surrounded her in its glow. He felt the pressure of her hand in his, the scent of evergreen from the village’s trees trapped in their clothes and surrounding them in the carriage.

“Because I knew you would love it,” he said. “And that was enough.”

Her lips were on his before the sentence was fully out of his mouth. She fit perfectly in his arms as he held her to him, as they soared higher and higher into the sky.

How had she ever believed she wasn’t magical, Silas thought as their lips moved together, as her tongue ran across his lips, as she arched against him and let out a soft, breathy moan that he answered with his own?

The only answer was that she wasn’t magic. She was stardust incarnate, bursting with brilliant light, and he was the man who was somehow lucky enough to hold her in his hands.

Chapter Thirty

It was the kind of perfect day that seemed like it could only exist in dreams and storybooks, and yet, no matter how often Margaret pinched herself, it was real. He was real. All thoughtfulness and care, holding open the carriage door for her once they landed on the hillside that the hippogriffs had carried them to. Spinning her in the snow as he hummed snatches of the jazz she liked to listen to in her pub. Grabbing a winterflower that burst to life from the trunk of a tree and tucking it behind her ear. Attempting to make a hippogriff out of snow and failing miserably but not caring so long as it made her laugh.

That’s what he said. “If it made you laugh, then it wasn’t such a loss.”

Mostly, he looked unbearably sexy in his glasses and his tousled dark hair, even when he stole her scarf during a snowball fight and wrapped it around his neck as a joke. He’d meant it to look funny, but it made him look even more dashing.

He was able to procure a set of hot chocolates from the carriage, which magically offered them after they’d polished off the glasses of champagne. As they sat under a tree, the hippogriffs temporarily unbound from the carriage so that they could paw at the ground and roll in the snow—a sight that brought Margaret possibly even more delight than the sight of flying through Hex Hollow had—they sipped their drinks and bundled close to each other.

“Not as good as yours, I’m afraid,” Silas said, holding up his hot chocolate. “Missing something.”