Page 13 of Wings of Starlight

“No. I snuck out.” Clarion deflated. It embarrassed her only a little to admit it. Perhaps he would think less of her, now that he knew how stymied she was in her role. “Dangerous or not, evenings are the only time that’s truly mine.”

“Very well,” he said, clearly undeterred. “I will see you at sunset tomorrow.”

With that, he turned on his heel.

“Wait!” Indignation—and panic—flared bright within her. What if she could not make it tomorrow? What if she needed time to think about what she was committing to? “I…I did not agree to that!”

Milori paused, as if considering. “If you are interested in solving this problem rather than avoiding it, you know where to find me. I will be waiting here, at sunset, every night for a week.” He studied her face, and the searching intensity of his stare made heat crawl up her neck. Whatever he found made a faint smile curl on his lips. That, she thought weakly, suited him far more than gravity. “Good night, Clarion.”

He took wing. Clarion could only stare up at him as he soared deeper into the Winter Woods—and she caught the exact moment moonlight gilded his wings and cast their delicate shadow across the snow.

She threw up her hands, then dragged them down her face in frustration. She had come here for answers, but she would leave with far more questions than she’d had before.

Your predecessor has not been forthcoming.Milori’s words haunted her as she made her way back toward the palace. What, exactly, did he think she was supposed to know? More concerningly, what did he think Elvina had withheld from her?

It was surely treasonous to even entertain a thought like that. But then, Elvina had been preternaturally calm when that scout crashed into the council meeting, donning her role as easily as sliding on a new gown. If she’d already known about the monster, then…

No,no.Clarion could not allow herself to go down this road.

Taking information back to Elvina was tempting, yes, but to involve herself in some sort of—what, conspiracy? That was beyond her, and with her coronation looming, she could not afford to be distracted by the Warden of the Winter Woods and his cryptic words. For all she knew, he was lying to her. And yet, Clarion found it difficult to doubt the genuine concern—and guilt—she’d seen on his face.

She shoved the memory of his haunted expression aside. Sincere or not, she could not meet with him again.

In the distance, the Pixie Dust Tree shone out of the night like the glow of a lantern. But Clarion couldn’t bring herself to return home just yet. Milori had warned her that this creature, whatever it was, hunted in the darkness, but below her, Spring Valley slumbered peacefully: no chaos, no terror, and certainly no monsters. Surely it couldn’t hurt to check on Petra; it was on the way home, after all. She banked left, the wind guiding her along its steady course.

Tinker’s Nook lay nestled at the base of a massive sycamore, surrounded on all sides by sloping earth grown wild with tall grass and drowsing bluebells. Most tinkers built their houses atop the tree’s roots, each home crowned with a roof of maple leaves. Delicate stairways of northern tooth mushrooms sprouted from the bark and paved the way to their front doors. Tinkers’ creativity always amazed Clarion. Without them, little would get done in Pixie Hollow. Apart from repairing and building infrastructure, they invented all manner of things to make daily life easier.

Their handiwork—and the beginnings of autumn preparations—lay scattered in the center of the clearing: acorn cups filled with the leaf-talents’ dye, carefully arranged in a gradient from scarlet to gold; mushroom-cap workbenches scattered with tools; half-assembled carts made of hollowed avocado skins. A short distance away, Clarion spied their chestnut-shell wheels, waiting to be installed. The disarray gave the impression of a place abandoned in a great hurry. But candles and sunlight-powered lamps burned softly on the windowsills, and she could see the vague shapes of silhouettes moving within.

Clarion made her way toward Petra’s home, tucked away in a far-flung corner of the village. Unlike most of the other homes, hers was an intricate work of stacked river stones, mortared with mud and pixie dust and thatched with a thick layer of moss. By her own admission, Petra preferred a less “organic” look, but a single mushroom sprouted from the roof as if to spite her.

Clarion alighted on her porch. The door loomed above her, a delicate sliver of a felled tree that Petra had sanded and polished to a shine. She knocked. Immediately, a shriek came from within.

Clarion sighed. “It’s me.”

“Clarion?” The curtains parted, and Petra’s pale face appeared in the window. The door cracked open slowly to reveal her there, clutching a hammer in one hand and the cap of an acorn—a makeshift shield, Clarion presumed—in the other. “You scared me!”

Clarion couldn’t help smiling. “Are you so unused to visitors, or did you think a monster would knock so politely?”

As soon as the wordmonsterpassed her lips, Petra gasped. “What are you doing out there? It’s too dangerous to be outside.”

Before Clarion could reply, Petra seized her by the arm and all but dragged her inside in a flurry of wild red hair and scattered pixie dust. The house was completely, disconcertingly dark. She blinked hard, willing her eyes to adjust. “Perhaps some light would…?”

“Absolutely not. Your wings are so bright as it is,” Petra groused. “You’re going to lure it here if you haven’t already.”

Clarion scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

Petra gave her a meaningful look. “Have you forgotten the Bat Incident? I haven’t.”

Now, that was low. Once, many years ago, the two of them had snuck off to Autumn under the cover of nightfall, to sit beneath the stars with mugs of hot apple cider. It had taken her days to convince Petra it would be worth her while. What she had not accounted for was her glow disrupting the bats’ flight patterns on the way there. Even now, she could see the flash of dark wings—and hear her own laughter over Petra’s horrified scream.

“The scout said it looked like a fox,” Clarion said. “This time, you’re safe.”

Petra did not dignify that with a response. Instead, she pointedly drew the curtains. Clarion’s wings did indeed brighten the blackness of the room. Their glow traced the outline of all Petra’s things, and the pixie dust that drifted off them scattered across the floor, glittering like pieces of starlight. From what little she could make out in the gloom, it looked like Petra’s workbench had upended itself on the floor. Clearly, she was in the middle of a project. All other aspects of her life—from socializing to tidying—fell away when she fully immersed herself. It both surprised and disappointed Clarion to realize that she didn’t know what it was that had captured Petra’s attention this time.

Both of them reallyhadbeen busy lately.

Apparently satisfied with her security measures, Petra slid down onto the floor and fixed Clarion with a bleary-eyed stare. “What are you doing here so late?”