Chapter 16
Snowlight Square was bustling when Periwinkle came back, bursting with news and fidgeting with nerves.
Doorbells chimed as fairies went in and out of depots and studios and storehouses, arms full of frost-flowers or lightcatchers or jewels for the First Frost Ball.
A rink was roped off at the center of the ice flagstones, crowded with fairies on skates—some of them well-practiced, others not so much.
Everything inside the square was bright and cheerful, but the day itself was gray and forbidding.
Just wait, she pleaded with the clouds. Just wait a little longer.
When Periwinkle landed, she made a quick stop at Lattice’s to place a delivery order.
But on her way to Floss’s, she was so busy staring up at the sky that she ran right into Dougal, the healer.
Standing close in front of him, she could see he looked worn out and distracted, his brown hair hurriedly combed, his feather sash hanging crookedly over his oak-leaf shirt.
“Oh.” Periwinkle blinked at him. “You again.”
Dougal frowned. “Pardon?”
Mistake. Dougal didn’t know she’d been eavesdropping. “Oh. I meant—you again! I saw you at the Hall of Winter. Downstairs, not upstairs. I wasn’t doing—um.” Periwinkle gave a nervous laugh. “Are you following me?”
This did not feel like an improvement.
Periwinkle wanted to clap her hand to her forehead and fly straight into Floss’s. But Dougal just watched her calmly, his intelligent healer’s eyes running over the book under her arm. Periwinkle clutched it closer to her side.
“Belated Book Flood gift?” he asked wryly.
“Um.” Periwinkle searched for a charming response that would also stop him from asking more questions. “No.”
“I see,” Dougal said, though he clearly didn’t. Periwinkle smiled awkwardly and nodded at Floss’s door.
“Well, I should go inside,” she said. “Time to work. Past time, actually. So, uh—enjoy the Frost Festival.”
Dougal stiffened.
Periwinkle wanted to take her words back the second she’d said them.
It had been a thoughtless, throwaway comment. And Dougal didn’t know Periwinkle had been eavesdropping that morning. But everyone knew he thought the festival was getting more attention than the Winter Woods’s issues, and Periwinkle had no desire to make him feel more frustrated.
But Dougal only cocked an eyebrow. “If Lord Milori has his way, it’ll be a week to remember,” he said.
He glanced down at her book one last time before heading back toward his apothecary.
Periwinkle couldn’t be sure why. But as she stepped inside Floss’s, she somehow felt she’d had a narrow escape.
It took Periwinkle several moments to spot Weaver at the back of Floss’s workshop.
She was only a few minutes late, but activity had already risen to feverish levels, with fairies flying (or running) constantly between its two levels and floating (or just dropping) supplies from one floor to another.
Also, someone (Periwinkle suspected Spangle) had knocked over everything in the upstairs supply closet.
Tools and materials covered nearly every surface, including the floor, and she nearly let out a cheer of vindication as she picked her way around a scatter of beads someone else had spilled.
Clearly, she wasn’t the only fairy there capable of the odd clumsy moment.
She just hoped Floss didn’t have to send anyone over to Dougal’s with a twisted ankle.
When she reached Weaver’s side, Periwinkle was a little breathless from all the havoc. “Hi,” she said. “I found it.”
Weaver’s face lit up. He gave a quick, cautious look around. “You did?” Legs poked his head out of Weaver’s waistcoat pocket, and Periwinkle gave the spider a gentle brush across the head.
“I did,” she said. “An encyclopedia I found said there was a sapphire spindle in the ‘s./g. mine’ at the end of the Chilly River.”
“Think that S stands for sapphire?” he asked.
“I hope so.” Periwinkle glanced up again at the state of the room. “So, what happened in here?”
Weaver grinned down at her and her stomach flip-flopped. “It’s because the ball’s tomorrow. Don’t let Spangle see you, she’s been here five minutes and she’s already asking where her favorite mannequin is.”
“It’s like a fast-flier got their hands on a bunch of crystals and feathers and dyes and went crazy. What’s that?” She reached for a scrap of something green and pink beneath a cover on a dress form, but Weaver swatted her hand away.
“What’d I tell you before? No poking around,” he said with mock sternness. Then he was back at the loom, his fingers navigating each strand of spun flax with elegant precision.
“Your weaving is so delicate,” she said, stepping near his side.
“What’s on your order log today?—hang on, let me guess.
You’re making a curtain so you can wall yourself off entirely back here.
No, wait. A sheet you can drape over yourself so you don’t have to make eye contact with anyone while you fly around the Winter Woods. ”
Weaver smirked. “I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Not at all. I’ve always been funny; you just haven’t always deserved a demonstration.”
His eyes sparkled, smirk expanding into a proper grin. “You’re sort of in my personal space again, you know.”
“Hush.” Periwinkle leaned close to the loom to study the pure white flax. When she straightened again, Weaver’s arm was pressed against hers. He didn’t move away.
Periwinkle thought of their kiss the night before and felt her skin prickle with goose bumps.
“It’s an underskirt. Or it will be,” he finally said, nodding at a half-clothed dress form. Its bodice was stylishly oversized, made of a pomegranate shell; a festive fluff of snowy owl feathers made the start of a skirt beneath. “My last order for the First Frost Ball.”
“It’s completely magical.” She grinned up at him, and his dark eyes danced. “Your days as a cynic are numbered, dear Weaver.”
One of the sewing-talents, the brown-haired sparrow man with the freckles, cleared his throat. “Peri, what are you wearing tomorrow?”
“Oh, hey, Onyx,” she said. “I’m not sure. Why?”
“Ah, it’s Alder, actually.” The sparrow man scratched the back of his neck. Periwinkle bit her lip. “Anyway, I have to finish smoothing the sharp edges off these pine cone scales, but if you want, I can—”
“She’s already got a gown for the ball,” Weaver said flatly. Periwinkle reached for his hand as Alder went hurriedly back to his work.
“Is something wrong?” she asked quietly.
“Sorry.” Weaver grimaced. “I didn’t mean to snap at him like that. I’ve got a headache again. Like I told you, they make me irritable.”
“Can you talk to a healer?”
“I have,” Weaver said, narrowing his eyes at her. “But recently, I met this very opinionated frost-talent, and now my head aches all the time.” Periwinkle rolled her eyes, and Weaver squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Sorry I got Alder’s name wrong.”
“I’m actually thrilled you got Alder’s name wrong. I’m going to start calling him Onyx until he stops staring at you.”
Periwinkle fought a blush. “If he’s been watching me, I haven’t noticed at all,” she managed to say.
Weaver didn’t answer this. But when he turned back to his loom, Periwinkle thought he was grinning.
“So,” she said. “I have a gown? What does it look like?”
“Mm.” Weaver shrugged. “You’ll have to see.”
“Am I going to look pretty in it?”
“Periwinkle, you would be the most beautiful fairy in Pixie Hollow if you wore the ugliest outfit in the whole of the Winter Woods.”
Weaver didn’t look up. He was staring at his hands, planted on the loom’s frame. But Periwinkle bit her lip again, feeling her face get redder, wishing they were having this conversation somewhere less crowded.
“If you keep saying things like that, I’m going to think you like me,” she finally said. “Or I’m going to think you’re preparing me to wear the ugliest dress in the whole of the Winter Woods.”
When Weaver threw back his head and laughed, every fairy in Floss’s workshop turned to stare. Periwinkle felt almost giddy with happiness when he bent toward her ear.
“The gown won’t be as beautiful as you,” he said quietly. “But it’s going to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made.”
Periwinkle pressed her lips together. She wanted to say so many things, to ask so many questions she didn’t know how to phrase.
And she was desperate to tell Weaver what she’d found in the Pixie Dust Tree book and go search for the Sapphire Mine.
But the day had only just begun in Floss’s workshop, and everyone seemed to need an extra pair of hands.
So Periwinkle got to work. She melted ice for the fullers, wiped up spills for the dyeing fairies, wound bobbins of thread as the spinners completed them, re-frosted iced tea glasses.
When Spangle had an unfortunate tussle with a dress form (a real one) and broke several of the vines that shaped its bust and waist, Periwinkle salvaged it by frosting the broken bits back together.
She even dashed over to the produce depot, run by a sparrow man named Alpine, to get Summer blackberries when someone ran out while dyeing a deep purple gown.
As she flittered around answering requests for help, she was as amazed as ever by every talent’s work, all the beauty they created, everything they meant to Pixie Hollow. But again and again, she came back to Weaver.
Nothing about the chaos of the workshop seemed to distract him.
He wove on the loom as if he were listening to it tell a story, bent close so he wouldn’t miss even a moment.
His careful eye caught every error he made, his nimble fingers unpicking the material when he did.
Even the silver-thread embroidery he worked around the collar at the pomegranate’s crown was flawless, minimal but beautiful.
As he bent over his work, Periwinkle found she couldn’t stop staring at the curls at the nape of his neck. She wanted so badly to go back to Weaver’s bench and waste time with him.
She needed to get ahold of herself.
It was lucky that the baking-talent fairy from Lattice’s Bakery showed up just then.
“Periwinkle!” Floss exclaimed, taking the twine-wrapped box from the baking-talent.
“They said you had these sent over? How thoughtful!” Hungry fairies swarmed around Floss and the box, calling out their thanks as they seized on the frosted cardamom knots and crumble-topped cinnamon cakes inside.
Periwinkle was just about to take one to Weaver when she overheard two fulling fairies, Scrub and Sluice, near the sinks at the back.
“I just don’t understand why she wants to talk to him so much,” Scrub said, biting into a cardamom knot. “His Arrival ceremony was embarrassing.”
Jingles. Periwinkle wouldn’t have thought it was possible to sound so resentful while eating frosting. She kept her eyes down, staring hard into the pastry box, but she felt an unpleasant rush of heat when she heard her name.
“Periwinkle wasn’t there. She hadn’t arrived yet,” Sluice said. “But I remember it. Glacier-talent, no. Frost-talent, no. Icicle-talent, no. Winter-animal-talent—”
“Light, healing, music, helping, fast-flying—it was like the ceremony didn’t even know what to do for him!” Scrub exclaimed. “So it just sort of weakly offered up his craft-talent, like okay, here, have this. He’s a passable weaver, but—”
Passable? Jealousy made people say ridiculous things. Maybe Weaver had had a point. Maybe some people weren’t as nice as they thought they were.
“How are the pastries?” Periwinkle interrupted when she couldn’t stand to listen to any more. “The baking-talents sure are hard at work.”
“They’re wonderful,” Scrub assured Periwinkle, brightening. “Peri, I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you about—”
“About what? About details from my friend’s life that I already know?
” Periwinkle kept her voice low, but was too surprised by her own anger to hold it back.
Sluice and Scrub stared at her in shock.
“Weaver is brilliant. I have watched him pour everything into developing his talent, just like every fairy in this workshop has. Just like you two,” she added, gesturing frustratedly to the material in the sink.
“Your work is beautiful. Concentrate on that if you can’t be kind. ”
She waited for them to answer. But the two fairies only flushed and avoided her eyes.
Oh, how she missed her friends just then. Gliss, who never had a bad word to say about anyone. Spike, who could be sharp, but was the same all the time, whoever she spoke to.
Periwinkle turned her back on the fairies and shuffled over to Weaver, bringing the entire box of pastries with her. “Eat,” she said. “It’s been hours. I thought you might—”
But Weaver ignored the box, sliding off the pink flax twine that had held it shut and setting the pastries aside. Periwinkle’s breath caught as he measured the string with his fingers before wrapping it lightly around her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting one last measurement.” Weaver tied the twine in a bow at her pulse. Periwinkle reminded herself to breathe.
“You didn’t have to defend me,” he said quietly. “It won’t make you any friends, and I don’t need people to like me.”
“I like you. You’re my—friend.” Periwinkle stumbled over the word, cheeks heating. “And I don’t need the approval of people who tear my friends down behind their backs.”
The softness in his expression threatened to take her breath away. It was there and gone in a moment, but once she’d seen it, Periwinkle knew she’d never forget.
“Anyway. It’s midday,” she finally said. “Just a few more hours.”
Weaver nodded. “I’ll be done soon. And then…” He paused, lowering his voice, slipping the twine off her wrist again before fixing his eyes on her. “You and I can sneak away.”
Periwinkle took a deep breath and nodded, trying not to show how his words affected her. But as Spangle called to her, saying something about modeling an oak-leaf skirt, it wasn’t only Periwinkle’s wings that were fluttering away.
She knew she was dancing on the edge of something precipitous. She and Weaver, both.
It was just lucky for Periwinkle that she knew how to fly.