Page 102 of Wings of Reverie

“Look, I could tell that last day something had changed. I just didn’t know what.” Spike lifted her hands in surrender. “But I’ll definitely never accuse you of being predictable.”

Periwinkle’s winter had begun with so much fear. But her friends were finally home. And though they’d missed her on the Mainland, they’d been as safe there as they always were.

Everything was all right. It always had been.

Since Spike and Gliss had gotten back a few days earlier, the girls had spent almost every waking (and sleeping) moment together. Periwinkle had told them the whole story—her dreams, Weaver, his misdirection with the Pixie Dust Root, their quest, the workshops, the ball, all of it—sprawled on Gliss’s bed.

And, defying her every fear, Periwinkle’s friends had listened and understood. Gliss had cried with her and held her when Periwinkle had told them she’d dreamed they would never comehome. Spike had listened with her hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes horrified when she’d talked about their ride up Snow Globe Mountain.

Both of them, of course, had been appropriately breathless through the story about Weaver—his caginess, their contentious start. Their quest, and their kisses. And when they’d all gone to brunch a few days earlier, and Periwinkle had introduced Weaver himself to them…Well.

He’d disliked the concept of brunch as much as ever. But he’d liked her friends a lot, and the girls had felt the same.

“Look out below!” someone called, and all three girls jumped slightly as awhooshcame from overhead. When Periwinkle looked upward, she caught sight of a soaring cotton puff with a basket hanging below, driven by a maniacally laughing Selene as she stirred up the winds with a wave of her hands.

“I can’t believe Selene was hiding out all that time,” Gliss said, wonderingly.

Periwinkle shrugged, thoughtful. “She wasn’t ready before. She wasn’t ready to cope with all the changes and what they meant. But she is now.”

“What even is that thing?” Spike cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s a flying machine one of the warm season tinkers invented,” Periwinkle said. “Weaver told me yesterday.”

There was no changing Selene’s wings. Everyone knew that, Selene most of all.

But not a day went by that Periwinkle didn’t see her tearingaround on Harlow’s sled or soaring through the clouds in her flying machine, conjuring up bracing winds or gentle breezes. She’d once seen Selene challenge Lord Milori to a race on owlback, and she could’ve sworn he’d cracked a smile.

It made Periwinkle think of the story from the storybook, about the fairy who’d run out of pixie dust and found her way home with a pair of seven-league boots. In a way, she thought, Selene had found her own seven-league boots.

There was no way to go back. But she’d learned how to go forward.

Even without wings that could fly, Selene was a fast-flying fairy. Even changed, she was still herself.

Weaver waited near the Pixie Dust Well, Legs sitting openly on his shoulder and weaving a decorative little patch on his raven-feather waistcoat. They were so close to the place he’d taken Periwinkle the very first night he’d met her. He hoped she was already there, waiting with her friends.

Everything had changed since that night. He knew who Periwinkle really was, down to her heart.

And the whole Winter Woods was about to learn a little bit more about Weaver.

Nerves pricked his stomach like pins in a pincushion as he flew to join everyone. But Weaver felt a contented light spark inside him as he took in the scene around the well—what was there, andwhat wasn’t. There was no damage to the well, no sign of the nightmare blight he’d planted to frighten Periwinkle into going along with him.

Though the entire Winter Woods seemed to be waiting when he got there, he spotted her immediately. He glanced past the animal-talents, the light-talents, the helping-talents, all grouped around the Pixie Dust Root and the well. Dougal sat with the healing-talents; Selene, once again, sat with the fast-flying-talents. Periwinkle sat on a sculpted snowflake alongside the other frost-talent fairies, close to the rest of the nature-talents, eyes lit with happiness as she talked to Gliss and Spike.

When Lord Milori dismounted from his owl’s back and called for everyone’s attention, the winter fairies fell into silence, anticipation settling over them all like the sun sinking over the horizon.

And as the first stars winked awake in the sky overhead, Weaver flew down to join the Winter Woods fairies, arriving for the second time.

Before him, the Pixie Dust Well glittered gold beneath the silver starlight. Around it, icons of all the fairies’ various talents rested on little plinths for him to consider.

All the talents—and now, one more. No longer alone, no longer a strange exception. A lost talent, found.

He began his ceremony.

Hands behind his back, Legs waiting patiently on his shoulder, Weaver walked from one symbol to another. He passed over the icicle, the bit of glacier, the little tornado of the fast-flying fairies,the symbols of other talents. With a lump in his throat, he picked up the needle that had represented his craft-talent for so long.

The needle had been enchanted by Lord Milori, just as all the other symbols had. But it sat in Weaver’s hands, unchanged, unresponsive.

Finally, he came to the spider.