Page 37 of Wings of Reverie

“Excuse me?” Her words came out in a hiss. “I am not a—did you call me a cupcake?”

“If the shoe fits. Or skirt, I guess.” Tingles zipped up her side as Weaver fluffed the feathers at her left hip. He measured her torso and the length of her arms, shoulder to wrist, as casually as if he’d done it hundreds of times. “Did you follow me here?” he asked, writing the measurements down for Spangle.

Periwinkle gritted her teeth. “No, I didn’t follow you here. Lord Milori has me here to keep me out of trouble because he suspects I’m up to something, and Floss said she could use the help.”

“Well, I never said he wasn’t clever. Hold this.” Weaver put one end of the measuring tape to Periwinkle’s shoulder, then crouched and held the other end to her ankle. Periwinkle bit her lip at the brush of his fingers against her skin. “Yeah, you’re taller thanAnise. Spangle’s never going to forgive you. That’s what you get for spying on me, I guess.”

“Again, I am not spying on you. I didn’t know you worked here,” Periwinkle said irritably. “I thought you were a dream-tal—”

“Hush.” Weaver tilted his face up to hers, black eyes urgent, voice suddenly serious. “We can’t talk about that here. As far as the rest of Pixie Hollow is concerned, I’m a weaving-talent.”

“What happened at your Arrival?” Periwinkle asked. The fairies’ Arrival in Pixie Hollow was always followed by their talent-choosing ceremony, which showed them what their skills were. With a lost talent, how would Weaver’s ceremony even have worked? How had he been named a weaving-talent?

When Weaver stood, it put them barely a breath apart. Periwinkle tensed. But he only shrugged innocently, toying with the measuring tape. “What about it?”

Periwinkle crossed her arms, trying to look unruffled.

Fine. If he wanted to pretend he didn’t know what she was trying to ask him, that was fine.

When Weaver wrapped an arm around her waist, she made an involuntary noise of surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Getting your waist measurement.” He brought the other end of the tape around to the front of her body.

Periwinkle could feel his breath against her ear. She pressed her lips together and stared pointedly into a corner.

She wanted to ask Weaver when they were going to go look forthe scissors, and what those strange threads and lights meant in her dreams, and how he’d ended up here when he was a dream-talent. But Floss’s workshop wasn’t the place, and—well. She couldn’t seem to make the words come out.

Periwinkle stood still a moment longer, nerves on edge, her mouth twisted in annoyance and several other, more confusing feelings.

“You left without saying goodbye,” she finally heard herself saying into Weaver’s ear. “That’s twice now you’ve been gone when I woke up. We need to make a plan. We have to talk about when we’re going to head up to the Drift.”

Weaver looked up at her sharply. Legs peered out of his pocket, shiny black eyes blinking in apology before he dove down to safety again. “Did you expect me to stay till morning?” he asked, pulling away from her as he stood up straight. “I got your dreams and left.”

“No, not till morning. But it kind of hurt my feelings that you didn’t even say goodbye,” she said. “I’d been looking forward to waking up from the nightmares to someone who understood.”

Periwinkle was surprised at how awkward it felt to admit this. She was surprised to admit that Weaver—Weaver, who openly disliked everyone—had the power to hurt her at all. But it had stung, his leaving, and she wanted it said.

“Done.” Weaver wrote down her last measurement and wound up the measuring tape, avoiding Periwinkle’s eyes. Finally, though, he looked back at her properly.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said slowly. His face was open, and a little surprised. “Once I had…them…I didn’t know you’d care.”

Facing each other, she came only to his collar. Beneath the cedar scent of the workshop, he smelled like resin and snow.

“Well, I did,” she said.

“Well,” said Weaver. “I won’t do it again.”

Periwinkle looked at him, dark eyes, thick lashes, hair like the raven feathers of his waistcoat. It was hard to tell, but she thought he might be blushing.

“And you’re right about needing a plan,” he added after a moment. “We’ll go to the Drift and start searching tomorrow. I want to find the scissors. I want to get started.”

“Good.” Periwinkle crossed her arms again and lifted her chin. When she wandered over to his loom, Weaver followed her.

Weaver’s station in Floss’s workshop was as spare and organized as Periwinkle’s home was fanciful and chaotic: scissors and a few other tools she didn’t recognize lay in a row, neat and sparkling clean beside two tidy stacks of orders, a few pencils, and the black spider-silk gloves he’d worn to collect her dreams. While she studied his space, Weaver picked up his shuttle again and began to work.

“I like that color.” She gestured at the loom. It held a dark green material made of shredded pine needles. “What’s it for?” Weaver scoffed.

“Do you know, I can’t remember.” He shook his head, rubbinghis eyes. Violet shadows hung underneath them; he must not have slept while Periwinkle had the night before. “I’ve got dozens of orders for the First Frost Ball.”