Chapter 1
The Last Day of Autumn on the Mainland
The Frost Forest sparkled like a diamond beneath the winter sun the day before the winter fairies were due to cross the Never Sea. From roots to treetops, it was covered with icicles and frost and snow, and full of fairies practicing.
Tomorrow, Periwinkle and the rest of the nature-talent winter fairies would leave to take winter to the Mainland.
Today was the last day of autumn there, the close of a season of long golden light, rich harvests, carpets of red and orange leaves, and all sorts of other things Periwinkle had only glimpsed at their withered, faded ends.
It would be up to her and her friends to bring the turning of the season—to shepherd animals into hibernation, to brush the last of the leaves off the trees and change the color of the earth and the sky, to send snowflakes spiraling from the clouds and to tuck the world beneath a blanket of frost.
With winter, the humans mostly retreated inside, and nature curled up to sleep after a long year of doing and growing and making.
The fairies who stayed behind in the Winter Woods would get a rest, too; as soon as the nature fairies made their way to the Mainland, the Frost Festival would begin for everyone left.
But there was no time for a rest for Periwinkle and her friends yet. They had a busy, exciting winter season ahead of them, and talents that had needed stretching and shaping after a long, lazy spring and summer.
And for that, they needed to keep practicing.
“On your marks—”
Gliss was counting them down. Spike’s wings brushed Periwinkle’s with an impatient flutter. She hovered wing to wing in a clearing with them, her two best friends, watching the shift of the sunlight through her closed eyelids.
“Get set—”
It was the only thing she saw when she shut her eyes during the day. Light, or darkness.
It wouldn’t be until she shut her eyes at night, to go where sleep would take her, that she’d find something else completely.
“Go!”
Periwinkle opened her eyes. The Frost Forest glittered around her, evergreens and silver birches above, icy undergrowth and frozen ponds below.
A breeze at her back told her Gliss and Spike had raced off toward opposite edges of the forest, Spike toward the Juniper Glade side and Gliss toward Snowlight Square.
And as Periwinkle bolted in the direction of Snow Globe Mountain, she remembered she’d been in the Frost Forest with her friends last night, too—in her dreams.
In the beginning, everything about dreaming had confused her, and the few books about human dreaming that she’d secretly studied at the Hall of Winter hadn’t made things much clearer.
But the dreams made more sense to her, now.
Most of them were like if her daytime life had been shaken up, dumped out, and pieced together into a story that only partly made sense.
She, Gliss, and Spike had been practicing in the Frost Forest every day for weeks, so of course she’d dreamed about being there last night.
Except, in her dream, every time she’d tried to frost a tree or a patch of brush, she’d glazed it in sugar, instead.
She’d been totally bewildered, trying over and over to make frost and finding instead she’d candied a pine tree.
Remembering it now, Periwinkle understood why she’d craved a cinnamon roll from Lattice’s Bakery the second she’d opened her eyes.
Dreams were weird. But wonderful, too.
At the edge of the clearing, the first tree she reached was a fir, spicy-smelling with soft, fuzzy needles. As Periwinkle laid her palms on it, she felt her magic rise and expand, like she was blowing out a breath, and a sparkling layer of frost swept over the fir’s needles and branches and trunk.
An instant later, she’d moved on. A skinny silver birch was next, and then a clump of bushes.
Up in the trees, other fairies were practicing, too: snowflake fairies unrolled layers of snow over tree bark, or carved snowflakes and sent them cartwheeling to the ground; icicle-talent fairies practiced hanging icicles to glitter and shine from every branch.
On and on Periwinkle flew, cutting a straight line through the forest, frosting whatever lay in her path.
Nearly everything in the Winter Woods was already dusted with ice and snow, but Periwinkle and her friends were taking one last chance to build the speed and energy it took to frost whole fields, whole forests, whole houses and towns.
“Done!” Spike called, her voice far away but getting closer as she returned to the clearing where they’d started.
“Me too!” Gliss’s voice rang out, before a brief pause. “Periwinkle?”
“Done!” Periwinkle called a second later; she’d been distracted. Following the sound of her friends’ voices, she made her way back, and felt her heart give a sparkly little thump in her chest when she saw them waiting for her.
Her friends were just the same as they’d always been. Only Periwinkle, hiding the new, secret, dreaming part of herself, had changed.
The girls worked in the Frost Forest the rest of the day, switching up their technique with every run. Sometimes they worked alone, sometimes together, this time focusing on speed in case a human appeared, that time prioritizing attention to the tiniest detail.
By the time the woods had gone soft purple with twilight, they finally felt ready. Spike and Periwinkle were discussing a trick they’d used together in a clump of ferns when Gliss broke in with a giddy whisper, silver ponytail whipping like it was just as excited as she was.
“Peri. Peri. Over there.” Gliss pointed back over her shoulder, toward a stand of spruces. Her grin was huge. “Look. It’s Fletcher, with the guys.”
Fletcher. Periwinkle sighed. “Don’t look over—don’t look!” she whispered to Spike, who, of course, looked.
Spike rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, Periwinkle, it’s the cutest sparrow man in the Winter Woods. Oh, no, everyone freak out and drop everything,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice.
Periwinkle cringed. “Are you hoping they can hear you all the way in the warm seasons?” she hissed. But there’d be no convincing Spike to be subtle. So when Gliss darted away toward the guys, Periwinkle let herself turn and watch her greet Slush and Sled. And, of course, Sled’s friend Fletcher.
Slush hopped off his snowboard first, wearing his usual laid-back smile.
He was a glacier-talent fairy, but from the wild state of his hair and clothes, he didn’t look much like he’d been practicing.
“Where were you boarding?” Spike yelled, hands cupped around her mouth. “The Drift? Snow Globe Mountain?”
Slush made a face, jamming his beanie on over his hair. “Yeah, right. If I wanted to wipe out that hard, I might as well head over to Skull Rock.”
Their other friend, Sled, was an animal-talent fairy, pale with dark hair and a natural charm that never let him down. From the animal fur all over his shirt, he looked like he and Fletcher had been saying goodbye to Sled’s favorite family of rabbits near Snowcap Glade.
And Fletcher…Well.
He’d essentially clapped eyes on Periwinkle at his Arrival and decided he’d seen enough to fall for her. Periwinkle was still deciding what she thought of this.
“Serious question,” Spike said, turning to Periwinkle. “Does Fletcher ever stop smiling?”
“Come on, Spike. Fletcher’s…nice.” Periwinkle winced at the strain in her own voice.
“He’s like a puppy,” Spike said. “But I guess if you want someone to stare at you adoringly, follow you around wherever you go, and slobber all over you—”
“This metaphor is getting really weird,” Periwinkle interrupted.
“You’re inevitable,” Spike said. “It’s boring. He’s boring. But you’re pretty, and he’s pretty, and we all know it’s going to happen, so. Whatever makes you happy.”
As Gliss and the guys crossed the glade back toward her and Spike, Periwinkle tried to study Fletcher objectively.
Objectively, he was handsome. Gold hair, green eyes, fair skin, sturdy build. Fletcher was an icicle-talent, popular for being straightforward and cheerful—pleasant, always, with everyone.
Pleasant. Handsome. She might as well have been talking about the weather, or a really friendly animal.
There was another thing, too. Periwinkle dreamed about her friends all the time—Spike and Gliss, and Dewey, the Keeper who oversaw the Hall of Winter. Sled and Slush showed up sometimes, too.
She hadn’t dreamed about Fletcher even once. And yet she felt somehow like she was just drifting toward him, like a glacier in a long slow slide.
“Hear me out,” Gliss said, spreading her hands as her smile spread across her face.
“No,” Spike said. “No. The guys aren’t invited.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to invite them over,” Gliss began.
“Good.” Periwinkle gave a sigh of relief.
She turned to explain to Slush and Sled, doing her best to avoid looking at Fletcher, who’d come to stand beside her.
“Tonight’s our last girls’ night before we head to the Mainland.
We’re going to talk, cuddle up with our snacks, do frosty eye masks, go to sleep early—”
“Gliss said you guys might come to that snowflake prep party in Juniper Glade,” Fletcher said, giving an open, friendly smile. “It could be fun.”
Gliss winced, looking guilty. Periwinkle gave her a long-suffering stare.
She’d gotten an invitation, of course. Periwinkle was always getting invitations. And the prep parties were fun.
But Periwinkle had had a long fall season, and she’d planned for an evening in with her best friends.
She’d also been counting on a long night of dreaming.
“Peri, you know we don’t have to go tonight if you don’t want to,” Spike said. She was squinting curiously at Periwinkle, like something was just dawning on her.
Gliss held up a hand. “Um, yes she does?” And then she and Spike were at it, quicker than anyone but Periwinkle could follow, and she couldn’t help laughing.
“So.” Fletcher looked down at her. “What do you think? It could be fun to hang out.”
His eyes really were a nice shade of green.
When Periwinkle gave a polite smile and a nod, his answering smile was sunshine-brilliant. “I guess,” she said. “If everyone else wants to.”
It was all she could think to say. Because Fletcher was asking her about the party, but he was asking her about more than that, too.
All their friends were so confident she and Fletcher would be great together. And who was to say? Maybe Periwinkle didn’t have to feel certain about him. Maybe her friends knew her well enough to be certain for her.
But Periwinkle’s friends didn’t know she’d never dreamed about Fletcher. Didn’t know that being with him didn’t feel like falling softly into sleep, or waking up fresh from it.
Maybe her friends knew better than she did. But something about the way Fletcher was looking at her just then gave Periwinkle the feeling of staring at the ceiling over a long, frustrating night, wishing she could fall asleep at all.