Page 29 of Wings of Reverie

The old sparrow man squinted at the title. “Oh!” he said brightly. “Boot-warming’s a lost talent. I’ve been building up the field of study.”

“A lost talent?” Periwinkle asked, hoping she sounded interested, but only, like, a normal amount of interested. The Keeper nodded.

“Oh yes. Just a few talents we’ve stopped manifesting. But that one was shelved in the wrong place. It goes”—he fluttered a little way down the shelves and crouched on creaking knees to point—“here. With the rest of the books on lost talents.”

“Right,” Periwinkle said. “Right. Got it.”

The rest of the books on lost talents.She gripped the book to herchest, wanting to crouch down beside the Keeper and start pawing through the shelf immediately. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart thundering.

But when Dewey straightened, he turned a cheerful smile on her, like a world of knowledge hadn’t just—maybe—opened up to her. “Anyway, find a book for your friend. Try to enjoy your winter season at home.” The Keeper beamed. “I’m going to learn to crochet! Going to make Fiona one of them little sweater-vest things.”

Fiona was Dewey’s gigantic pet lynx. She had teeth as long as Periwinkle’s arms. Periwinkle tried to picture her in a crocheted sweater-vest and failed. “Amazing,” she said faintly.

“I think so,” he said. “Anyhoo. The door will lock itself behind you. Good luck!” The Keeper gave her a jolly wave goodbye, and Periwinkle did the same as he headed out and back toward his study. She forced herself to stay upright as he left, pretending she was interested inDustology: A Rainbow of Possibilities.

The door had almost fallen shut behind him when a hand caught it.

“So,” Weaver said, letting himself inside. “I hadn’t realized you and the Keeper were best friends.”

Periwinkle had already hit the floor. “I told you we knew one another really well,” she pointed out, not looking up as she rummaged through the bottom shelf. “Why does that surprise you?”

“He’s not exactly your usual crowd.”

Periwinkle thought about asking who he assumed herusual crowdwas. “You’d better be grateful he’s my friend. I didn’t even know this place existed,” she said instead, still squinting at the shelf. “You hear what he said about lost talents?”

Weaver nodded. “I sure did,” he said grimly. “Show me.”

Periwinkle stared at the books, reading the spines with her heart in her throat.

It took so many fairies with so many skills to make Pixie Hollow what it was. There were frost-talents like Periwinkle and Gliss and Spike, animal-talents like Sled, glacier-talents like Slush. Fletcher was an icicle-talent, who sometimes worked with light-talents to make lightcatchers. Mining-talents worked in Pixie Hollow’s mines; healing-talents healed fairies of illnesses like fairy distemper and fairy flu; fast-flying-talents created the icy wind that blew through the Winter Woods and the Mainland, and occasionally delivered important messages.

What had kept those talents in Pixie Hollow?

And how had others been lost?

There were only a few books on lost talents—some to do with the human winter holidays, others to do with finding lost children in bad weather, or helping the humans during the cold months. Periwinkle slid the volume on boot-warming-talents in next to the ones on soup-heating-talents and mitten-finding-talents and scarf-winding-talents.

And then—there it was.Dream Magic: A Lost Talent.

Periwinkle felt like she’d grown wings in her stomach.

She reached for it immediately. But she stopped when she saw Weaver’s hand reaching for it, too, a strange look on his face.

“You do it,” Periwinkle said, tipping her head toward the shelf. Weaver nodded without speaking and gingerly lifted the book from its spot.

Dream Magicwas thin, apparently only a few dozen pages long, and bound like many of the other books in a blue-green eucalyptus-leaf cover sparkling with frost. Despite his shuttered expression, Weaver’s long, graceful hands were more careful than Periwinkle would’ve expected as he opened the book and began to turn its pages, one leaf after another. Legs, who’d been hiding in Weaver’s waistcoat pocket since they’d come back downstairs, crawled into view again now, lingering just above Weaver’s heart as he read.

“It doesn’t seem to say much about what dream-talents can actually do,” he finally said. “Most of the book is empty. But it lists some dream-talents—fairies named Stella, Morpheus, Orion, some others. Apparently, they were famous for their work. And there are records of books and journals that apparently existed at some point. And—oh.”

“What is it?” Periwinkle asked.

“This,” he said. “Look here.”

She was wary of getting too close, given how he’d whined about sharing the chair earlier. But Periwinkle scooted a little nearer to read over Weaver’s shoulder.

There, in Dewey’s handwriting—Periwinkle recognized it,elegant and old-fashioned as it always was from his feathered quill pen—was a list of dream-talent fairy tools, and the workshops that had held them. Periwinkle caught her breath.

“I know,” Weaver said. There was a lightness—an excitement?—in his voice she hadn’t expected. “There are so many tools.”