12
C larion reached for her magic—and braced herself for the helplessness that would come when it did not answer her. But when the beast emerged from the stacks, it did not bear the sinister aura of a Nightmare. It was not made of oily shadows—but of flesh and bone and fur. Hardly reassuring, Clarion thought, when it was staring them down with its lips pulled back from its teeth in a snarl. It stood almost three times their height, with a thick gray coat and yellow eyes that bored into the very heart of her.
Clarion instinctively scrabbled backward. “What is that?”
Milori said, “That’s only Fenris.”
Only? How could he be so calm in this situation? “You’ve named it!”
“ I didn’t.” Milori extended his hands, as though calling the creature to him. “He’s the Keeper’s wolf.”
The wolf—Fenris—slunk toward Milori on his belly with his ears pinned flat to his head. When he reached them, Fenris laid his massive chin at Milori’s feet and swished his tail against the ice. Clearly, the two of them were friends.
Clarion laughed breathlessly, if only to dispel the tension building within her. She had roped Petra into some dangerous schemes, but even she had her limits—or perhaps a scrap of self-preservation. “And do you have one of these beasts?”
“No.” Milori patted Fenris’s muzzle. “I’ve always been partial to owls myself.”
“ Owls ?” Clarion could not keep the horror out of her voice. They were dangerous predators—at least in the warm seasons.
“The Keeper has a soft spot for misunderstood creatures,” Milori said after a moment. Now that neither of them was paying attention to him, Fenris let out an aggrieved-sounding sigh. The force of his breath swept Clarion’s hair back from her face. “Fenris here is quite harmless. He’s still a pup. But even as adults, wolves are skittish—and easy to befriend if you have food.”
“I don’t have anything for you.” Clarion tentatively scratched his ear. It flicked, as though a fly had landed on it.
“Fenris,” a good-natured voice called from somewhere in the stacks. “What is all this fuss about? Oh!”
A winter fairy flitted into the atrium. He was short in stature, with a kindly face and hair like a tongue of white fire. He was wearing a rather serious-looking suit, but when his eyes landed on them, his expression lit up with an unbridled, unselfconscious enthusiasm. “Milori!”
“Keeper.” Milori’s entire demeanor changed. His answering smile made him seem instantly lighter. “I’ve brought you someone.”
This was the Keeper?
Clarion had expected the Keeper of Fairy Knowledge to be more…retiring. The Keeper, however, was exuberant. He turned his attention to Clarion, adjusting his spectacles as he came closer. “A warm fairy, eh? It’s been a long time since one of those has crossed into Winter.”
“You’ve seen warm fairies before?” Clarion asked.
“Oh, no. I wish! I’ve read stories, though.” Fenris trotted over to the Keeper, his tail wagging, and whined softly. The Keeper absently patted the top of his head. “Apparently, warm fairies used to come here all the time, way back when. Do a little ice-skating, make snowfairies…”
“That sounds delightful.” Clarion had no concept of skating or snowfairies, but the fond way he spoke filled her up with wonder. “I’d love to read those.”
The Keeper brightened. “Well, I—”
“Perhaps later,” Milori interjected, clearly sensing a tangent. “She isn’t just a warm fairy. Clarion is the Queen of Pixie Hollow.”
“Queen-in-training,” Clarion amended, with a pointed look in Milori’s direction. He looked far too pleased with himself.
The Keeper gawped at her. “Then…”
Milori smiled at him, almost indulgently. “Someone can read our book at last.”
Our book. Clearly, this was something they’d been working on together for a long time.
The look on the Keeper’s face could only be described as exultant. “You can?”
“I hope so,” said Clarion. The thought of crushing his hopes was almost unbearable. “But I’m not sure yet.”
“Excellent!” The Keeper grabbed her by the arm and all but dragged her deeper into the library.
“Keeper,” Milori groaned, with the long-suffering resignation of someone who knew it was pointless to protest.
He followed, with Fenris padding along just behind him. The labyrinthine shelves seemed to rearrange themselves the farther they went. Clarion absently studied them as they passed, the gilded titles illuminated by the ice sconces glowing with soft blue light. At last, they arrived at their destination: a square of empty space, hemmed in on all sides by the stacks. A table filled much of the area, cluttered with piles of books and quill pens.
“Wait just one moment,” said the Keeper.
The Keeper released her and retrieved a set of gloves from his pocket. After pulling them on, he soared upward, nearly to the ceiling, until he found what he was looking for. He freed a massive leather-bound tome from the shelf—and almost dropped from the weight of it. Clarion held her breath until he brought it safely back to ground level. With utmost care, he laid it on the table.
No wonder Milori said he couldn’t bring it to the border. It was indeed ancient, with thin, yellowing pages. The cover was peeling and worn, and while Clarion could see there had once been an illustration, the paint had faded with time. All that remained now were strange shapes carved into the leather, shimmering faintly with dormant power.
“What is this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” the Keeper said, far more cheerfully than she would’ve expected. “It’s been in the collection for a long, long time. It’s written in a lost language. But it’s filled with illustrations of Nightmares.”
A shudder passed through her. “What do you need me to do?”
“It’s sealed with runes that respond to governing-talent magic,” the Keeper replied. “I suspect it’s like a cipher. Once you unlock it, you should be able to understand the language it’s written in.”
Dread constricted her throat. “I’ve never learned to unlock anything with governing-talent magic.”
“Try,” he said encouragingly. “It should come naturally.”
If only. “All right.”
She reached out to take the book from him, but he gasped. “Swap out your gloves first, if you don’t mind. It’s very fragile.”
Milori muttered something that sounded like archivists .
Clarion peeled off her damp mittens and slipped on the pair of gloves the Keeper handed her. The book was delicate beneath her touch, the spine groaning as she cracked it open. It promptly coughed up a cloud of dust. She leafed through the delicate pages, skimming over the illuminated drop caps and the strange little doodles of monsters in the margins. The illustrations were indeed striking, framing handwriting in a language she had not seen before. Amorphous black shapes with cruel violet eyes stared back at her. Here and there, golden swirls of magic pierced the darkness.
She closed the book again, staring down at the gilded runes shining on the front cover. But nothing about them grabbed her. They did not rearrange themselves into meaning. She’d let them down. How could she have ever thought otherwise? She should have told Milori from the start that she couldn’t access the full range of her governing-talent magic. Her stomach twisted with shame. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can help you.”
Both their faces fell.
“I suppose it was a long shot.” Milori’s brow furrowed in thought. “But then…”
“You have an idea?” the Keeper asked.
“The runes on the Hall of Winter’s doors activate at my touch,” he replied. “Perhaps the book will respond to Clarion’s.”
The Keeper shrugged. “It’s certainly worth a try.”
One more try, then. Clarion slipped off her gloves and set them aside. She drew in a deep breath. This was it, she supposed. If this—whatever this was—didn’t work, then how could she ever hope to master her magic? No. Just one more try. With trembling fingers, Clarion laid her palm against the surface of the book.
Golden light shot out from it.
The Keeper shouted, half in surprise, half in delight. Even Milori’s face was bathed in its warm light, his eyes sparkling with triumph.
Clarion withdrew her hand, but something of their wonder had seized hold of her, too. She felt almost giddy, watching the air twinkle with lingering magic. “What’s happening?”
“Not a clue!” Once again, the not-knowing seemed to thrill the Keeper. “Try reading it now.”
When Clarion opened the book again, the writing on each page glowed gold with her magic. Pixie dust lifted from the ink, glimmering in the darkness like starlight. Through the scintillating haze, the words slowly took shape in her mind.
“Long ago, when the Pixie Dust Tree was still but a sapling, children’s dreams—both good and bad—traveled over Pixie Hollow,” she said—or did she? Clarion could hardly tell if the voice she heard was her own, because the words certainly were not. They slipped out as though by recitation; the story unfolded in her mind so clearly, she could almost see it like a reflection on still water.
It was a legend, she realized. It went like this:
Each night, as they crossed the skies above the Never Sea, those dreams knotted together and lit up the night like an aurora borealis. In those times, there were dream-talent fairies who gathered up the dreams like shorn fleece and brought them back to their homes. All through the night, they spun dreams into thread on their spinning wheels. Come morning, they gathered up their thread and wove it through the branches of the young Pixie Dust Tree so that the children’s hopes and wishes protected and nourished the tree as it grew.
Spinning dream-thread was long, arduous work; nightmares had to be separated out in the process, for they contained a sinister power. They lay on the workroom floor like scraps of black fabric. In the daylight, they burned away, but one night, a tenacious few escaped the notice of the dream-talents. With that glimmer of freedom, they tore through Pixie Hollow.
They could change shape like smoke but seemed to remember the shape of the fears that birthed them. Monsters, insects, vicious dogs—any beast a child could conjure—attacked that night. They lashed out with rending claws and teeth. But more terrible still was their magic. Any fairy who was struck by it fell into an unbreakable slumber, tormented by their worst fears. And just before daybreak—when the Nightmares would burn away like fog—they found refuge in the darkest places, biding their time until night fell once more.
The Queen of Pixie Hollow was consumed with worry for her subjects—and for the fragile Pixie Dust Tree, only just a sapling still putting out its first leaves. The dream-talents could not destroy the Nightmares, and so, they advised the queen to build a prison, one they would seal with a barrier woven from dream magic. The only question that remained was where to put it.
She and her ministers debated for hours—until the queen’s dear friend, the Lord of Winter, offered to house it deep in Winter, as his realm was farthest from the vulnerable tree. He would watch over it himself to ensure that no Nightmare ever again escaped.
With that one act, he gained a new title: the Warden of the Winter Woods.
One night, the dream-talents set a trap for the loose Nightmares, ensnaring them in nets of dream-thread. They transported them to the Winter Woods, where the frost-talents had bored a hole into a frozen lake. They plunged the Nightmares into those dark waters, then laid the tapestry of the dream-talents’ barrier. The moment the frost-talents repaired the ice, sealing away the Nightmares’ terrible power, the slumbering fairies awoke. From that day forward, all Nightmares were transported to their watery prison in the Winter Woods.
There, the monsters squabbled among one another like starving animals—until, on one visit, the dream-talents realized they had fallen unsettlingly quiet. Over centuries, the oldest of the Nightmares, feeding on all that trapped bitterness and despair, had grown powerful enough to unite them. Like a queen bee at the center of her hive, it commanded the others, mindless but for their longing to escape—to destroy. It terrified the dream-talents, what they had allowed to fester.
When the Pixie Dust Tree grew to its full size, dreams no longer lit the skies. Over time, fewer and fewer dream-talents arrived in Pixie Hollow—until there was one, then none at all.
“Such is the way of nature,” Clarion murmured. “Things rise and fall according to its designs.”
With that, the book ended. The magic coursing through her went dormant, and the pixie dust cloud shattered, raining softly over the table. Its warm glow on the ice faded, and the eerie blue light filled the room yet again.
None of them spoke at first.
Clarion could hardly process it: an entire talent of fairy, lost to time, that could have roused her subjects and contained the Nightmares. What were they meant to do now?
Milori’s thoughts, evidently, had followed the same path. He frowned at the Keeper. “Have you ever heard of dream-talent fairies?”
“No!” He was practically vibrating with excitement. At least someone was heartened by what they’d learned, Clarion thought. “This is an entirely new discovery.”
“It makes sense now.” Gloom settled over Milori. “The barrier they created is deteriorating, and there are none of them left to fix it. There’s nothing we can do.”
Clarion pulled her hand back from the book and worried her lip with her teeth. Perhaps there were no more dream-talents, but if she had learned anything from Petra over the years, it was that there were no unsolvable problems. They just hadn’t landed on the right solution.
“There must be something ,” she said. “When the Nightmare attacked the Autumn Forest, I was able to drive it off. It was almost as if it was repelled by my magic. I’m not entirely sure why, but…”
“Queens of Pixie Hollow are born from stars, aren’t they?” the Keeper asked. When Clarion nodded, he continued. “Sunlight burns them, so it makes sense to me that the Nightmares are repelled by your magic. The sun is a star, after all.”
Hope sparked in Milori’s eyes. “Then you can destroy them.”
Clarion held up her hands. “No. I can’t.”
“But you just said—”
“I can’t control my magic.” The confession slipped out before she could stop it. “All my life, I’ve tried, but I can’t. It has never come easily to me, and I fear it never will. I’m very sorry to disappoint you.”
She blinked hard against the threat of tears. How humiliating, to be so overcome in front of them. Milori looked as though he was about to protest, but the Keeper rested a hand on his shoulder to still him.
“Maybe there’s something else you can do,” the Keeper said. After a brief pause, his glow intensified as another idea struck him. “If memory serves, queens aren’t born from just any star, but a star that a child has wished upon. Maybe dream-talent magic lives on in you—in all governing-talents. It’s possible you could repair the barrier. If there’s one thing stronger than fear, it’s hope.”
“Maybe,” she said quietly. How desperately she wanted to believe that. But now that the magic had bled out of her, she was becoming painfully aware of the chill in the air. Her teeth chattered, and her wings felt stiff beneath her coat. Every breath was a thin wisp of white in the dark.
Milori laid a hand against Clarion’s elbow. His touch was featherlight—almost tender. “You’re shivering.”
Clarion forced herself to smile. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“It isn’t nothing. We need to get you back to the warm seasons.”
For the first time, with that iron and ice in his voice, she understood why his forebears had once been known as Lords of Winter. Clarion tried to glare at him but found she had little fight left in her.
“Take Fenris,” said the Keeper, his demeanor turning serious. “Go.”
Relief softened Milori’s voice. “Thank you. Come, Fenris. Clarion.”
With that, he flitted toward the exit, and the wolf obeyed. His nails clicked on the ice floor as he trailed after Milori. Clarion passed the gloves the Keeper had given her back to him. Her fingers had gone quite pale, which she did her best not to notice. “Thank you, Keeper.”
He tucked them into his pocket. “Anytime, Your Highness.”
She lingered for only a moment before following Milori, tugging her mittens back on as she walked. As soon as she stepped out into the winter night, a gust of icy wind tore at her. Her entire body ached from how violently she shivered, and the tips of her ears burned with cold. She pulled her hood over her ears and nestled deeper into the fur lining. How sweet it would be to crawl underneath her covers with a cup of tea.
Milori stood a few paces away, illuminated by the spill of moonlight and the glow of the ice. Fenris lay at his side, his yellow eyes narrowed and fixed on Clarion. It froze her where she stood. The sight of Milori—practically luminous, the starlit space between them glittering—made her heart flutter. Her boots crunched in the snow as she approached him. He offered his hand to her. She accepted it, and with her free hand, she took a fistful of Fenris’s fur.
“Up you go.” With that, Milori took flight. He pulled her upward and steadied her as she clambered onto Fenris’s back. The wolf gave a half-hearted growl to show his displeasure.
Clarion patted his shoulder. “Sorry, boy.”
Fenris huffed. As soon as she was settled, he rose to his feet.
The shift of his weight threw her off balance, and she had to cling to his fur to keep herself from falling. “Whoa!”
Milori was beside her in an instant, hovering midair and braced as if to catch her. When it seemed she would not plummet—rather humiliatingly, she thought—into the snow, he relaxed.
“I suppose I should have warned you to hold on,” Milori said, only a little apologetically. “Let’s go.”
He took off, and the wolf chased after him gamely. For the second time that evening, she felt as though she were soaring, even with her wings bound. Out in front of them, Milori was little but a glimmer of light against the darkness of the woods, weaving and dodging through icicles and branches heavy with snow. Clarion nearly laughed as she processed what exactly she was doing. If anyone from the warm seasons saw her like this…Imagining their stunned reactions delighted her far more than it should have. At the very least, it chased away some of her gloom.
Milori led them to the border of Winter and Spring. As soon as Fenris lay down, Clarion slid off his back and hurried over the bridge. When she crossed into Spring, she undid her buttons with numb, trembling fingers and let her coat pool at her feet. The chill of Winter still lingered on her skin, but she unfurled her wings: stiff—but still golden and whole.
Milori’s anxiety dropped off him, and the relief brightening his face made her feel oddly flustered. He descended from where he hovered and sat on the bridge. “How do you feel?”
“Physically? I’m all right.” She rubbed her hands together, pleased to find that the sensation was slowly returning to her fingers. She withdrew a few paces backward, until she stood far enough away that the chill emanating from Winter could not reach her anymore, and sighed. “I’m only disappointed I couldn’t be of more use. I don’t know where we go from here. But knowing our realms used to be so close…”
They couldn’t let Elvina go through with her plan.
“I know.” After a moment, more hesitantly, he asked, “What do you make of what the Keeper said?”
If there’s one thing stronger than fear, it’s hope.
Clarion absently plucked snow from her hair. “That he has more faith in me than I do myself.”
Milori frowned at her. “I think you’re capable of far more than you know.”
Her chest constricted with the sudden force of her emotion. “How can you say that? You’ve only just met me.”
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he said, “Because you were made for this. I feel it, when I look at you. Perhaps it’s your magic. Perhaps it’s you. Whatever it is, you have an aura about you. You command respect, yes, but more than that, you inspire hope. It is the first time I have felt it in a very long time.”
Clarion’s face warmed. She felt overwhelmed—so much so, she forgot how to speak entirely. “Oh.”
Milori’s expression went endearingly blank, as though it occurred to him belatedly that he’d said all that aloud. “Forgive me,” he said hastily. “I don’t mean to—”
“No,” she cut in. “Please, don’t apologize. That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Was she made for this? Clarion had never believed it. But with his gray eyes steady and earnest on hers, she could almost convince herself it was true. Maybe, if she allowed herself to entertain it—if she pretended, just for one moment, that she was equal to the crown that would soon be hers…
Maybe she could do this.
A Pixie Hollow, fully united and safe, was worth fighting for. As much as it frightened her, she had to try. For the sake of the winter fairies. For the sake of Rowan and the others. If there was any chance that they could break the Nightmares’ spell over their subjects, it was worth the risk.
“Tomorrow,” Clarion said, with far more conviction than she felt, “take me to this prison. I want to put the Keeper’s theory to the test.”