Page 63 of Wings of Reverie
“How are the pastries?” Periwinkle interrupted when she couldn’t stand to listen to any more. “The baking-talents sure are hard at work.”
“They’re wonderful,” Scrub assured Periwinkle, brightening. “Peri, I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you about—”
“About what? About details from my friend’s life that I already know?” Periwinkle kept her voice low, but was too surprised by her own anger to hold it back. Sluice and Scrub stared at her in shock. “Weaver is brilliant. I have watched him pour everything into developing his talent, just like every fairy in this workshop has. Just like you two,” she added, gesturing frustratedly to thematerial in the sink. “Your work is beautiful. Concentrate on that if you can’t be kind.”
She waited for them to answer. But the two fairies only flushed and avoided her eyes.
Oh, how she missed her friends just then. Gliss, who never had a bad word to say about anyone. Spike, who could be sharp, but was the same all the time, whoever she spoke to.
Periwinkle turned her back on the fairies and shuffled over to Weaver, bringing the entire box of pastries with her. “Eat,” she said. “It’s been hours. I thought you might—”
But Weaver ignored the box, sliding off the pink flax twine that had held it shut and setting the pastries aside. Periwinkle’s breath caught as he measured the string with his fingers before wrapping it lightly around her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting one last measurement.” Weaver tied the twine in a bow at her pulse. Periwinkle reminded herself to breathe.
“You didn’t have to defend me,” he said quietly. “It won’t make you any friends, and I don’t need people to like me.”
“Ilike you. You’re my—friend.” Periwinkle stumbled over the word, cheeks heating. “And I don’t need the approval of people who tear my friends down behind their backs.”
The softness in his expression threatened to take her breath away. It was there and gone in a moment, but once she’d seen it, Periwinkle knew she’d never forget.
“Anyway. It’s midday,” she finally said. “Just a few more hours.”
Weaver nodded. “I’ll be done soon. And then…” He paused, lowering his voice, slipping the twine off her wrist again before fixing his eyes on her. “You and I can sneak away.”
Periwinkle took a deep breath and nodded, trying not to show how his words affected her. But as Spangle called to her, saying something about modeling an oak-leaf skirt, it wasn’t only Periwinkle’s wings that were fluttering away.
She knew she was dancing on the edge of something precipitous. She and Weaver, both.
It was just lucky for Periwinkle that she knew how to fly.
Found in the Hall of Winter: Excerpt FromThe Pixie Dust Tree: Its Botany and History
Read by Periwinkle.
CONTENTS
Introduction.Symbol: The Pixie Dust Tree as the iconic heart of Pixie Hollow: 1
Chapter 1.Seed: The origins of the Pixie Dust Tree and its planting: 7
Chapter 2.Source: Pixie dust production, the anatomy of the tree, and its care: 22
Chapter 3.Supply: The development of the Pixie Dust Depot: 47
Chapter 4.Stem: How the Pixie Dust Root provides for the Winter Woods: 71
Chapter 5.Strengthening: Dangers to the Pixie Dust Tree and the essential role of the Autumn Revelry: 88
17
The problem with the book Periwinkle had found on the Pixie Dust Tree wasn’t that it wasn’t thorough, or that it wasn’t new enough, or that it wasn’t old enough. She sat beside Weaver’s workbench, waiting as he finished his final task that afternoon before they could leave.
No. The problem with the book was that it only told her things she more or less already knew. It told the history of the tree’s planting, and showed diagrams and illustrations of how it had grown over the years. The book went into detail about how the tree made pixie dust, and how the Pixie Dust Depot had been created beneath it, and it spent a long, long time theorizing about the path of theroot extension that brought pixie dust all the way to the Winter Woods. Maybe most importantly, it explained what the Autumn Revelry did every few years to produce blue pixie dust, which multiplied its production of gold pixie dust, which all strengthened and restored the tree.
But it didn’t mention the story about dreams protecting the tree as a sapling, and there was nothing at all about preventing or stopping rot. In fact, there was nothing to show that the Pixie Dust Tree had ever suffered the degree of damage Periwinkle had seen in her dreams.
