Page 80 of Wings of Reverie

Weaver hadn’t been spinning Periwinkle’s dreams.

He’d been spinning her nightmares.

23

At first, nothing happened.

At first, Periwinkle thought whatever Dougal and Weaver had planned hadn’t worked. Lord Milori leapt down from the mezzanine and landed hard on the atrium floor, his expression warily confused. The fairies dancing and eating began to notice the thread circling the room, too, and moved toward it with curious eyes and hands.

And then shadows began to appear.

Shapes flowed out of the thread, like smoke or spilled oil or currents of dark wind. They leaked through the room, toward thewinter fairies, over and across the bookshelves and into the blue ice walls.

One scream and then another split the air. Chaos erupted as the fairies who’d been mingling around the doorway raced for the safety of Juniper Glade. A storm of wingbeats blew up inside the hall as fairies raced in every direction, desperate to escape the murky purple-black shapes slithering through the room.

And then the nightmares truly began.

Periwinkle could not have imagined anything worse than seeing the winter fairies screaming, flying, fleeing the hall. But that was before they began to collapse, their eyes falling shut but not in ordinary sleep.

Weaver caught at her elbow. “Periwinkle,” he yelled. “We have to go.”

She shook him off, shouting over the rising cries of the fairies. “What have you done?”

Where were Lord Milori and Dewey? Where were Floss and Spangle? Where were all the baking-talents from Lattice’s and the cooking-talents from Blizz’s?

“Periwinkle, you promised!” Weaver’s face was pale. “You promised you’d go when I said—”

“And you lied!” Periwinkle said. A sick pit opened up in her stomach as she searched the crowd.

She saw Alder from Weaver’s workshop first.

“Alder.” She raced over to him, shaking him urgently. “Alder, wake up.” But the sparrow man only lay on his side, eyes remaining shut.

Close by, she spotted Flare, her glittering gold gown twisted on the floor around her legs. “Flare!” she exclaimed, hurrying to her side. “Flare, open your eyes.” But Flare only whimpered and rolled onto her stomach as a purple-gray shadow brushed her arm.

Periwinkle shrank back from the slimy-looking shadow, one of the dozens crawling through the room from fairy to fairy. But when the shadow got close to Periwinkle herself, it recoiled from her like she had from it, and she felt something like a painless burn where her bracelet lay against her skin.

And then she spotted Dewey.

The Keeper of All Fairy Knowledge was curled up on his side next to one of the banquet tables, his cane next to him on the ground. His knees were drawn up to his chest, like he was in pain, and as Periwinkle got close, he moved his hands to cover his eyes.

“Dewey,” she gasped. “What’s happened to you?” She shook his shoulder, hoping somehow he might wake up.

But the Keeper only pulled away, shaking his head, face crumpled. “—so sorry,” he groaned.

“What?” Periwinkle crouched closer, brushing the hair off his forehead.

“We have to go.” Weaver appeared at her side, Dougal behind him.

But Dewey’s voice was almost a wail now. “Oh, Selene,” he said, “I’m so sorry.” Periwinkle’s heart dropped.

Then, with no warning, Weaver scooped her up and hefted her out of the Hall of Winter and into the dark outside. Dougal slammed the door shut behind them with an echoing thud.

“There,” Dougal said grimly. His face looked eerie in the glow of the snow lanterns, the only light in the cloud-covered glade. “It’s done.”

“What’s done? What did youdo?” Periwinkle wrenched away from Weaver, voice scraping against her throat. “Why did they all suddenly go to sleep?”

“Periwinkle.” Weaver’s voice was hollow.