Page 65 of Wings of Reverie

They’d made progress; they’d made it this far. But from this new bend in the road—Periwinkle had no idea where to begin. There were no markers at the mine entrances, no signposts to show which was which. Just a clock’s worth of tunnel entrances and no way toknow which tunnel would lead them to the spindle they needed to save Pixie Hollow.

What Periwinkle wouldn’t have given for that needle the Keeper had written about.

She flopped back into the snowbank then, and just for a second, she let herself lie there. Just a second, to throw Pixie Hollow’s shortest ever pity party.

It was not the kind of party Periwinkle usually accepted invitations to. In her defense, she was very, very frustrated.

Still, Periwinkle only gave herself a second. Then, when it was over, she pushed up to her feet.

“We’d better get going,” she said. “Finding the spindle could take a while.”

“Sparkles…” Weaver sounded exhausted. “This would’ve been hard enough with only one mine to search. Now we’ve got twelve—”

“It’ll take longer the longer we sit here.”

“—not to mention they all look sort of dangerous.” Weaver gestured at the nearest mine. Its round door was hanging off its hinges, and the entrance supports sagged beneath a thick layer of frost and snow. The other eleven looked more or less the same.

“Weaver, the spindle’s inside one of these mines. We’ll be careful, but we have to find it,” she said, hurrying toward the mine he’d pointed out. “Let’s go. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

They didn’t get lucky.

They walked carefully down the first mine shaft, taking turns raising the lightcatcher Periwinkle had brought and switching as their arms got tired. (Weaver’s arms got tired less quickly than Periwinkle’s, which she was quick to remind him wasonlybecause he used them so much at work.)

Periwinkle sighed. “You know, for a gemstone mine, I’d expected more—”

“Gemstones?” Weaver said. “Me, too. Although I guess that’s why it’s been abandoned. Mines are like forests; it takes a long time for gems and metals and things to grow back, once they’ve been collected. And we use a lot of them, for decoration and lightcatchers and things.”

Periwinkle rubbed at her eyes, then ran a hand over the mine wall. It felt damp, and cool, and a heavy fall of dirt came away beneath her fingers.“Follow the needle,”she said, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “You know, as a direction, it makes more sense thanchase the dreams. But if the clue was talking about a literal needle, wouldn’t they all be inside the workshop?” she asked. “How would that help us find out where it is?”

“Dewey’s your friend,” Weaver said. “If you can’t figure out what he means, there’s not much chance I will.”

“We still don’t know who wrote the clues,” Periwinkle said. “But if I ever find out, I am going to get them an atlas for next year’s Book Flood and show them how these things are usually done.”

She wished Legs could guide them like he had in the BobbinWood. But he’d hidden himself in the folds on Periwinkle’s dress, hardly more of him visible than his eyes.

They flew on for half an hour or so, eyes peeled, the dark even denser there in the tunnel than it had been beneath the Drift. Their problem, of course, was the same one that had started bothering Periwinkle aboveground while they’d flown along the river.

She had no idea how far they should go inside the mine. With no way of knowing if they’d picked the right one, she constantly found herself questioning if they’d maybe gonetoofar, or missed something, or if they should’ve tried exploring some of the branch tunnels off the mine’s main path.

Weaver must have thought the same thing, because a moment later, he paused. “There’s no sign of a workshop here,” he said. “I think we should try one of the others.”

“I know. We’ve barely explored this one, and we may have already spent too much time here.” Periwinkle grimaced. “Still, if this was the right mine, surely there would have been a marker. A sign. Aneedle,” she said through her teeth, frustrated. Weaver sagged.

Neither of them was at all sure they were making the right choice. But they flew back up the tunnel the way they’d come, and then they tried another mine.

And another one. And another.

Dusk had turned fully into night as they moved on to the fifth of the twelve mines.

“Maybe we should come back in the morning,” Weaver said heavily. “It’s getting late.”

“I know,” Periwinkle said. “But the First Frost Ball is tomorrow night. We have to be ready with the dream-thread before that, or we miss our window.”

She couldn’t deny she was exhausted, though. Even as Periwinkle was speaking, she draped herself against the mine’s round doorframe, eyes sinking shut. Crusted frost and snow scraped against her wings and back, sifting off the doorframe and onto the ground.

They had to keep going. But it was discouraging to push forward without a sense of direction, or of whether they’d already missed what they were looking for.

When Periwinkle straightened up again a moment later, bracing herself to keep looking, she thought she heard something in the earth shift, the noise a little like wind through the trees. But when she paused to listen, the only sound was a clump of snow falling behind her, disturbed by her wings or the wind.