Page 99 of Wings of Reverie

When Dougal finally spoke, his voice was airless, more like the croak of a raven or Harlow’s barks than a fairy’s voice. “Selene,” he rasped out. Then, louder—“Selene!”

Over and over again, the name swept through the crowd.Selene, Selene, Selene.

Periwinkle couldn’t understand.

The fairy on the sled had called herself Icaria. Periwinkle recognized her angular dark eyes, her sharply cut black hair.

But the night Periwinkle had met Icaria in the Frost Forest, they’d both been standing in the shadows, and Icaria had been cloaked, and at the ball that evening, both of them had been wearing masks.

If the other fairy hadn’t introduced herself, was it possible Periwinkle might’ve noticed her resemblance to someone else?

Beside her, Weaver’s eyes were wild with guilt, with disbelief, with hope unwilling to admit to its own existence. “It—she can’t be.”

“It’s okay,” Periwinkle said, not even sure what she meant. But if she herself was surprised, she knew Weaver and Dougal’s world had turned itself inside out.

Because Selene, who’d died, had come back to them.

It was like sun coming up after an endless winter on the Mainland: beautiful, but more light than the humans could bear at first, after so long in the darkness.

When Periwinkle had met her as Icaria, the fairy had seemed tentative and tired. But she’d shaken that off now like a layer of snow. Selene leapt from the sled the same way she’d screamed up on it, ease and agility in every line of her body, her sharply cut hair whipping in the breeze.

“I met her,” Periwinkle whispered to Weaver. “The other day.” Weaver gaped at her. “She said she’d just arrived.”

Or had she? Periwinkle hadn’t heard anything about Icaria’s Arrival or her talent-choosing ceremony. Abruptly, she remembered exactly what Selene had said.I just got here.

As she walked through the crowd toward Dougal and Lord Milori, Periwinkle realized it was the first time she’d seen the fast-flying fairy cloakless.

And for the first time, she could see that both her wings were shattered like ice.

Periwinkle thought of the wing-shaped snow lantern Selene had sculpted in the Frost Forest, and about the name she’d given herself.Icaria. Reaching for the sky.Unbidden, tears came into her eyes.

“A dramatic entrance, as always.” Lord Milori swept a bow, and the fast-flier cocked an eyebrow. “It’s good to see you home, Selene.”

31

“But how? How are you here?” Dougal stared at his wife like he was seeing the moon for the first time, his voice shaking. “Selene, I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I,” she said gently.

“But you weredead.”

“I wasn’t. But I didn’t understand how to come home for a long time,” she said. “And now I do, and I’m so sorry for everything you’ve suffered, my love. But all of this—you have to let go of what happened to me.”

Dougal’s eyes filled. “But Lord Milori—”

“Has probably understoodyoubetter than you realize,” she said, crouching to cup her husband’s face. Dougal leaned in to her palm,face seeming to soften almost against his will. “Fear kept me from seeing that I’m more than what I can do. And it’s kept me from my home and the ones that I love, when so much of what really makes me who I am is here. But if I’ve been ruled by fear, then the rest of you have been ruled by guilt.” She glanced from her husband to Lord Milori—and then to Weaver.

Weaver moved quietly toward her. “Selene, you should never have gone out for me.”

“And I shouldn’t have let you go,” Lord Milori said. Standing beside the hall doors, Dewey frowned sadly, and Dougal gave a small nod of agreement.

“And I am going to say this once, to all of you.” Selene shut her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and fierce and clear all at once. “No one could have controlled when the supplies were ready. No one could’ve helped the fact that supplies were needed to heal others, or to be healed themselves. And once Queen Clarion’s people had what we needed, not a single one of you could have stopped me from getting it.” Weaver, Dougal, Lord Milori; she turned a sharp look on each of them. “I was worried that day, and I was on the wrong side of the Winter Woods, and I cut too close to Snow Globe Mountain. I was reckless. But I made my own choice.”

Selene and Lord Milori stared at each other for a moment then, steely-eyed, frost-cold. Finally, he bowed his head, conceding.

But Dougal only groaned, dragging a hand beneath his wet eyes, clinging with the other to his wife’s shoulder. “You never came back, and I couldn’t live with the what-ifs,” he said brokenly. “I imagined you in so much pain. I imagined you all alone.”

“I was,” Selene said slowly. “I lived through horrible pain. My wings were broken, and it hurt more than I could’ve imagined. And worse than that—I couldn’t see a way to live without flying,” she admitted. “So, yes. I hid, for a year. I didn’t care if my friends knew I was alive, because I felt like part of mehaddied.”