Chapter 6
Periwinkle sat inside Lattice’s Bakery and waited for her wings to dry. She didn’t have anything to work on or read, but the bakery was busy, and so she was, too.
Through the morning and into the afternoon, the door chime rang cheerfully as winter fairies came in to pick up treats for themselves or boxes of them to take home, all smelling like almond and allspice, cinnamon and cardamom, winter fruits and winterberry syrup.
Every time the door opened, Periwinkle caught a glimpse of something happening out in the square, and the cool, sharp air from outside swirled in to mingle with the spicy smells inside the bakery.
And every time a new fairy came in, she found herself in a new conversation—because the story about her staying back from the Mainland had gotten around faster than a winter storm.
So whether the fairies who came to Lattice’s were busy or chatting unhurriedly with the baking-talents, everyone wanted to hear what had happened to keep her home and to invite her to whatever party they were going to that night.
When Gliss’s friend Mitsy came by in the early afternoon, Periwinkle couldn’t help wondering how far Gliss and Spike had made it on the Mainland, and if they missed her as much as she missed them.
“I’m here to pick up that box of cherry jam stars?” Mitsy said to the baking-talent behind the counter. Mitsy was a decorating-talent, pale and black-haired and brown-eyed, with the second-most expressive ponytail Periwinkle had ever seen (the most-most expressive being Gliss’s).
“Let me wrap them up for you!” the baking-talent said. “They’ve just cooled.”
“And they are spectacular,” Periwinkle said, holding up jam-sticky hands. She’d had a cherry jam star, a cinnamon roll, and a cardamom knot as she’d waited for her wings to dry, and it had been long enough that she’d had to re-frost her iced chamomile tea twice.
“Periwinkle!” Mitsy exclaimed. “I heard you’d stayed home. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just an accident with bad timing,” Periwinkle said with a shrug. (She’d perfected this answer over the course of the morning.)
“Aaaaaand now you get to be around for the Frost Festival!” Mitsy squealed, clapping her hands.
She lowered her voice. “Listen. You want to make sure you’re going to the right parties—nothing cool happens in Chilly Falls anymore; all the best ones are here in Snowlight Square and a few other places.
Oh, and you have to be strategic about who you give gifts for the Book Flood. ”
“Really?” Periwinkle frowned. “Spike lives in Chilly Falls. I like it over there. There’s ice sliding, and a great brunch spot, and the sweetest owl family lives in her tree. I should go check on them while she’s away,” she added, half to herself. “What’s a Book F—”
Mitsy raised a hand. “Periwinkle. Focus. This is important. Whose parties are you going to tonight?”
“Oh.” Periwinkle cleared her throat, faking indifference as she brushed imaginary dust off her dress. “It’s in a place you probably haven’t heard of,” she said. “It’s, like, kind of exclusive. They honestly didn’t tell me much.”
The party would be incredibly exclusive, in fact, being that it didn’t exist, unless she was counting Weaver coming over. Though it was true that he hadn’t actually told her much about how the night would go.
“Oh.” Mitsy’s eyes widened. “That’s exciting. Well, color me curious. I can’t wait to hear about it.”
Periwinkle nodded, trying to look mysterious and cool. Probably would’ve been easier if she hadn’t been trying to wipe jam off her fingers at the same time. “As a matter of fact, I really ought to go get ready.”
Mitsy nodded, ponytail bobbing. “Of course,” she said seriously. So Periwinkle said goodbye, thanked the baking-talents, opened the door to Snowlight Square—and stepped into a sparkling wonderland.
While she’d been inside, the night market had sprouted up like magic over the square’s ice flagstones.
Dozens of stalls were set up with pine boughs and holly branches swagged across their awnings, and twelve-pointed star lightcatchers hovered overhead.
Periwinkle could smell chamomile and cardamom-ginger-clove tea, and trinkets and tiny wonders of every kind were on display.
The Frost Festival had officially begun. Six days of celebrations, all leading up to the First Frost Ball.
Just under a week of glittering celebrations.
Just under a week to find out how to save the Pixie Dust Root.
Periwinkle had no idea what the next several days would hold. But the night market all around her was unlike any market she’d ever seen. Uniquely luminous. Extra special, extra magical.
Maybe it was because this was her first Frost Festival. Maybe it was because, if the worst happened to the Pixie Dust Root, it could be everyone’s last.
Periwinkle walked slowly through the stands, trying to take everything in at once. She stopped first to look at an elaborate arrangement of cards sparkling with delicate frost patterns—complicated work, as she knew better than most.
But there was more, so much more. When she finally set down the cards, Periwinkle moved on, only to get distracted again.
There were self-winding scarves in a rainbow of colors, delicate evening bags made of snowflakes, books with gilded and illuminated covers, lightcatchers encrusted with glacier chunks and gems, potpourris and perfumes, sparkling jewelry made of silver, gold, icicles, and frost, and whimsical winged slippers embroidered with winter birds.
“Would you like something?” asked a sparrow man.
“What?” Periwinkle glanced up, dazzled by the lightcatchers’ reflection on a display of carved-ice bottles.
“A dress?” The sparrow man gestured around his stall, draped heavily with clothes in every shape and color. “Something for the First Frost Ball, perhaps?” he added, nodding first at a gown made of snowdrop petals, then at a sweeping, wide-skirted dress of juniper needles, both with matching masks.
Periwinkle furrowed her brow. “Maybe the snowdrop gown?” she said. When the sparrow man handed it to her, she held it against her body and stepped in front of the ice mirror.
The dress was simple, but beautiful as well. The stem of a single flower—an exotic, almost springy green—curved gracefully around her neck, with petals as white as fresh snow, fuzzy and soft against her skin. It was a very pretty dress, and she looked very pretty in it.
“Made for you!” the sparrow man cried, clapping his hands. “Absolutely perfect.”
It was a very kind thing to say. But then Periwinkle remembered what Weaver had called her. Perfect little Periwinkle, he’d said.
She was tempted to snatch the beautiful gown, take it home, and tell him what the sparrow man had said. See? she imagined telling Weaver smugly. Not everyone thinks perfect is such a bad thing.
But something held her back.
“It is perfect,” she agreed. “Thank you for letting me look at it. But I actually have to be going.” At that, the sparrow man took the dress back with a kind smile, and Periwinkle lifted herself into the air on wobbly wings, pointing herself toward home.
The night market would be busy that night, and the Winter Woods would be full of parties. But Periwinkle already had an extremely exclusive—and urgent—invitation.
His knock came as the first stars began to twinkle in the night sky.
Periwinkle opened the door, and there was Weaver, silhouetted against the ice walls of her front porch, dusky blue in the early evening.
Behind him, suncatchers hanging from the branches over the porch stirred and tinkled in the breeze.
“Fletcher make those?” he asked, nodding pleasantly at the icicle decorations.
It was going to be a long night.
“No,” Periwinkle said. “Come inside.” Weaver brushed the hair out of his eyes and stepped over the threshold. Then he just…stopped there.
“Um, I visited the night market for a little bit earlier,” she said conversationally. “Did you see it on your way over? I thought about picking up a dress for the First Frost Ball but decided to look around a little more.”
“Don’t get clothes from the night market.
Not made to measure. Never fit like they should,” Weaver said absently.
He stared around her front room, toeing off his shoes and setting a bag down by the pine needle mat.
“I like your little snowball slipper decorations, though,” he added wryly, nodding at her shoes.
“These are cotton puffs, and I like to wear them around the house,” Periwinkle said primly. Weaver made a sound that might’ve been a snort. “Where’s Legs? He, at least, has some manners.”
“Left him at home.”
“Hm.” Periwinkle refused to admit that she didn’t mind this. Legs didn’t put her off as much as he had the first time she’d seen him, but she didn’t particularly want a spider wandering around her room. “Where do you live?”
“Snowlight Square,” Weaver said. “Close-ish to your friend Gliss, I think. Anyone ever tell you you ask a lot of questions?”
“No.” She rolled her eyes and headed toward her room. “Most people don’t seem to find talking to me a chore, but I guess you’re a special exception.”
Periwinkle’s home was as bright and unruly as she was, a snow globe of cool blue lit by a skylight overhead, full of sculpted ice furniture and snowy owl–feather rugs and mementos from her large circle of friends.
Party invitations carved on snowflakes were stuck in the edges of her ice mirror beside her bed, and her pine wardrobe and shelves were stuffed chaotically with books and shoes and snacks and trinkets.
Icicle mooncatchers and starcatchers—also not from Fletcher—hung from the branch above where she slept, and a glittering snowflake hung on the wall as a headboard, and clothes and jewelry hung… well. Everywhere.
She should definitely have cleaned up before Weaver came over.
Whatever. It was too late now.